Tuesday, April 29, 2008

If, like me, you have water bottles with a recycling sign that contains a 7, you probably want to throw them away, according to this (yeah, didn't take the time to look for an English article, sorry).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Old news. From what I've read, the danger has been highly exaggerated by the press. There is some concern for babies and young children, and perhaps some slight increased risk of cancer in adults, but as long as your bottles aren't old and cracked, they leach barely detectable amounts of BPA and aren't likely to be a problem for any adults.

Most food and beverage cans are lined with similar plastics processed with BPA, so just throwing away your bottles won't eliminate your exposure to BPA. Take a look around your kitchen or any cafeterias you might frequent and see how many plastic items come in contact with you or your food, then consider how many of those plastic items were processed with BPA. It'll be years before we can get it out of the food stream, if ever.

What really makes me laugh is all the people throwing their plastic bottles away and switching to aluminum bottles. Aluminum has long been linked to Alzheimer's disease and many of the aluminum bottles are lined with BPA containing plastics. It doesn't pay to blindly rush out and change everything in a panic, so take your time, do some real research to assess the real risk, then formulate a plan to deal with that risk.

Someday I'll probably start replacing my plastic bottles with stainless steel, but not right away and not all at once.

Quartz said...

Well, Health Canada is about to ban products that contain BPA, and from the articles I've read, there is evidence that a smaller concentration of it has a more significant effect than a bigger one. I'm still keeping my water bottles for a while, though.

It's just frustrating how everyday, they find out something else that's hazardous to our health. Don't they know everyone dies anyway?

Anonymous said...

Exactly. We've all got to die of something.

Incidentally, Canada banning plastic bottles is a running joke around here. Every time someone sees a plastic bottle they have to comment about about it and point out that they're "banned in Canada."