Hot, hot summer is almost here, which means we will all be drinking more liquids.  Virtually everyone knows that plastic and heat don’t mix (heat causes chemicals in plastic to leach into the food or liquid contained inside).  Many of us even look for BPA-free plastics when shopping for canned goods, reusable water bottles and our children’s sippy cups.  Just a refresher: BPA (bisphenol-A) is a chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.  It has been proven to both mimic and disrupt hormones in the human body and if you peed in a cup today, BPA would be detected.

Well, plastic manufacturers had to replace the BPA in their products with something, so they did.  Were the alternatives tested for safety by the U.S. government?  Negative.  As you’ve probably already guessed by the title of this post, BPA-free is not enough.  It’s a bummer, because plastic sure is convenient.

I don’t make this stuff up.  Scientists led by George Bittner, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas, looked at 455 common plastic products and found that 70% tested positive for endocrine activity. Once those products were subject to real-world conditions—microwaving or dishwashing—that proportion rose to 95%.  As the study concluded: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled, independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source, leached chemicals having reliably-detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA-free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA [endocrine activity] than BPA-containing products.

If I’ve piqued your interest, here are some articles from credible sources on plastics and hormones.

• HealtheCoaching
• Scientific American
• Time
• Environmental Health Perspectives (super heavy, but if you are someone who needs to hear it from the original source, be my guest)

And if I’ve piqued your interest, but you don’t have any time and you just choose to trust me, stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.  I’ll recommend some great plastic alternatives for items we use daily.  We have more choices than we think when purchasing and consuming!  It is not all doom and gloom.  🙂

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