Safer plastics – baby bottles and sippy cups
Just when you think it’s safe to come out of your bubble-like, self-sustaining bunker, someone dishes on Sippy cups! Who knew my kids’ beloved sippies could be leeching harmful phthalates and carcinogens into their vulnerable little bodies! I’ve switched their teethers to phthalate free, and I try to stock up on phthalate free toys (and battery-free too, but that’s another post all together). Thanks to Umbra over at Grist for tackling the issue of sippy cups and baby bottles. Umbra linked me over to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, which had this helpful PDF about all sorts of plastics, and even naming names for good and bad sippy cups and bottles.� It just so happens that both my kids used polycarbonate bottles – those were their favorites! My poor, polycarbonate-loving kids…
Take a look at that PDF – it’ll help you evaluate the plastics you buy and the way you use them.
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Unfortunately, avoiding phthalates in baby products does not mean that you are protecting your child from other harmful chemicals that produce the same effects as phthalates.
While estrogens (the female sex hormones) occur naturally in the body, many scientific studies have shown that significant health problems can occur when chemicals are ingested that mimic or block the actions of these female sex hormones; the fetus, newborn, or young child is especially vulnerable. These health-related problems include early puberty in females, reduced sperm counts in males, altered functions of reproductive organs, obesity, altered behaviors, and increased rates of some breast, ovarian, testicular, and prostate cancers.
Phthalates and BPA are just two of thousands of chemicals that exhibit estrogenic activity (EA). These chemicals having EA leach from almost all plastics sold today, including polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, etc. That is, plastics advertised as BPA-free or phthalate-free are not EA-free; almost all these plastics still leach chemicals having EA – and often have more total EA than plastics that release BPA or phthalates.
Various plastics manufacturers are now attempting to solve this problem by removing chemicals having EA (BPA, phthalates) one at a time. This approach is not an appropriate solution because thousands of chemicals used in plastics exhibit EA, not just BPA and phthalates. This is a marketing-driven solution, not a health-driven solution. The appropriate health-driven solution is to manufacture safer plastics that are EA-free. This is not a pie-in-the-sky solution, as the technology already exists to produce EA-free plastics that also have the same advantageous physical properties of the EA containing plastics on the market today. In fact, some of these advanced-technology EA-free plastics are already in the marketplace. Ask your retailer to supply such plastics. If they don’t know where to find such items, suggest they go to PlastiPure.com. The cost of safer EA-free plastics is just pennies more than EA-releasing plastics. Avoiding estrogenic activity is only possible if consumers are demanding EA-free plastics.
George D. Bittner, PhD
Professor of Biology,
The University of Texas at Austin
Founder: CertiChem, PlastiPure
This is why I use glass bottles in place of plastics whenever possible.
yeah, agree with joseph.
I prefer glass to plastic whenever possible
Plastics can be scary. I would definitely recommend using a glass baby bottles. They are healthier and many rubber padded cover are made to protect them.
Please keep discussing this BPA issue, I first read about it on your blog and it inspired me. The politicans are starting to notice, but so are the interest groups and the fight against BPA is getting tougher.
@ Joseph: Glass is the best!
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