September 30th, 2009 - Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Bisphenol A, or BPA, has gained a nasty reputation for running rampant in food packaging, especially plastic bottles. BPA may interfere with hormones.
So now that BPA has been widely vilified in people’s minds, the EPA plans to overhaul the way chemicals are evaluated in the United States.
The EPA proposed sweeping changes to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, referring to it as an “inadequate tool” to help protect the public.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson acknowledges the problem, saying, “Many are turning to the government for assurance that these chemicals have been assessed using the best available science. Current law doesn’t allow us to give those assurances.”
You don’t want to hear that from people who are supposed to protect us from companies trying to sneak hazardous chemicals by us.
EPA officials want to shift the burden to companies, forcing them to prove chemicals, like BPA, are safe, and to urge producers to develop more “green” chemistry.
Biodegrable plastic has already been invented, called “Bioplastic,” made from corn starch, pea starch, and vegetable oil.
Via Food Production Daily.
Image credit: septuagesima
Tags: Bioplastic, BPA, chemicals, EPA
Posted in Organic | No Comments »
September 18th, 2009 - Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I’m sure a lot of you have one of those metal water bottles. They’re like canteens for hippie commandos. I have one too.
Most people buy them not because they’re trendy, but because they’re supposed to be toxin free, unlike typical plastic bottles.
Turns out, SIGG brand canteens have BPA in their inner liners. So the CEO of SIGG says he’s sorry.
It is a big screw up, but being contrite and admitting your mistake is an endearing move. CEO of SIGG Switzerland Steve Wasik said:
“I have learned much over the past two weeks. I learned that many of you purchased Sigg bottles – not just because they were free from leaching and safe – but because you believed that Siggs contained no BPA.
“I learned that, although Sigg never marketed the former liner as ‘BPA Free’ we should have done a better job of both clearly communicating about our liner as well as policing others who may have misunderstood the Sigg message.”
Truth be told, and not to let SIGG off the hook, he does make a point. If they never said their products are BPA-free and people just assumed they were. It is an example of consumer stupidity.
But these are challenges businesses face—i.e. people can be dumb-dumbs—so you have to do research and stops problem before something like this happens.
Via Food Production Daily and The Huffington Post.
Image credit: SIGG.
Tags: BPA
Posted in Health | 2 Comments »
July 20th, 2009 - Laura Klein
In When Studies Collide; Rethinking the evidence on BPA, Newsweek’s Science Editor Sharon Begley warns us that “almost anyone with an agenda can find research to support it,” and that “not all science is created equal.”
Her piece was powerful since the pure scope of studies that come out seemingly daily – from the latest on weight loss to the impact of red wine on health – can truly make our heads spin!
Begley takes the BPA argument to task, showcasing both sides of the battle: that BPA is perfectly safe versus extremely dangerous to our health; and she reminds us that ‘whether a study is good or not depends on how it was conducted.’
But what hit me the hardest in her piece was astonishing new BPA info that we’re ingesting more BPA than even the safety agencies, like the FDA, realize:
“In addition to hard plastic and epoxy can linings, it turns out, newspaper ink and carbonless copy paper – the stuff of credit car receipts and all sorts of business and medical documents – contain high amounts of BPA. Recycled, they wind up in food containers such as pizza boxes, along with the BPA.”
Recycling? Great. Recycling BPA?…now that’s a nightmare scenario. More reason why BPA should simply be banned so that it’s lifecycle doesn’t extend to unexpected and unmonitored arenas, like a good old fashioned delivery box of pizza.
Via: Newsweek, June 29, 2009
Tags: bottled water, bottles, BPA, chemicals, recycle, toxins
Posted in Green Living, Health, Organic, Political Action | 4 Comments »
December 2nd, 2008 - Leslie Billera
flicker.com
According to a recent study from the Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinal, so-called ‘microwave-safe’ plastic actually leaches toxic Bisphenol-A (BPA).
So if you’re a plastic-by-the-numbers person, the recommendation is to throw it all out the window and forget about plastics altogether when it comes to microwaving: the study showed that BPA was found to leach from containers with recycling #s 1, 2 and 5, the plastics numbers we’ve been told are safe bets for avoiding BPA.
So when it’s time to ‘zap,’ opt for an old-fashioned dinner plate!
Via: Plenty
Tags: BPA, microwave, plastic
Posted in Green Living, Health | No Comments »
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