plastic

Where To Find Baby Bottles Without BPA -- and Formula and Pacifiers, Too

Recycling Tips: Did You Know You Cannot Recycle Messy Pizza Boxes?

REUSE REUSE REUSE RECYCLE! The NEW 4 R's!

edahmen — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

We all understand the importance of recycling, but there's an extra little step we can take with our recyclable materials on the way to the recycling bin to help reduce our waste even more! To master this new technique we must ask ourselves this question, “How can I use this item again before I recycle it?” The answer will have you reducing waste and getting organized at the same time!

Here are a few fun examples to help you get started!

Tea-boxes as drawer organizers?
I enjoy a yummy Yogi Tea every now and again. The boxes are recyclable, but I’ve discovered that by cutting off the top of the lid they fit snugly in my kitchen drawer and I can use them for organizing twisty ties and rubber bands. If they start to look old you break them down and put them in the recycle bin and replace it with a newer box.

Glass jars for my cleaning pastes?
You may not be used to green cleaning, but a lot of green cleaning methods involve making a paste out of baking soda and water, or oxygenated bleach cleanser and water. I find that reusing glass peanut butter or jam jars are great for this purpose.

Salad boxes for organizing outdoor party supplies?
Many organic salad mixes come in PETE plastic #6 boxes made from corn, like these from Earthbound Farm. While these can be recycled (though many cities won’t take #6’s) they work amazing as containers for organizing outdoor party supplies. I like to separate plastic utensils (that we will re-use, not dispose of!) into these boxes. It makes it easy for guests to find the utensil they need and it allows me to store them clean and separated during the winter. These boxes are lightweight and surprisingly durable, you can also use them for organizing anything from colored pencils to batteries.

Wine bottles in my toilet tank?
Ok, this one does sound funny! But a lot of people are getting wise to the fact that their toilet tanks use way more water than necessary. However, we can offset the water in our tank by putting an object inside that is dense enough to displace the water. Filling a wine bottle with water, sand or pebbles and placing in your toilet tank is a great way to re-purpose a recyclable wine bottle. You can also use recyclable plastic bottles for this as well. For more info on how to do this, click here!

Plastic bags in my purse?
The greener you are, the more you probably HATE the ubiquitous plastic bag. You try to BYO-bag as often as possible, but they just keep multiplying under the sink, don’t they? A little known fact is that plastic bags (when left alone) will breed, especially if left in dark areas. Be that as it may, it is impossible to deny the gazillion uses you can put them to before you recycle them. Here are a few of my favorites.

First, fold them into little triangles so they don’t take up more space than necessary. Instructions on how to do that are here.

For wet umbrellas, keep a triangle in your purse so that when you come into work/ a store/ the car from being out in the rain you can bag it and not worry about making a puddle. This won’t work for long handled umbrellas, but why you’d want to carry around a long handled umbrella is beyond me.

For packing cushion, wad them up and use them instead of bubble wrap or peanuts.

For travel, use them to separate socks and underwear or to store groups of soft items. Once items are in a bag, squeeze all the air out and it will save you space in your luggage. They will also keep your clothes clean in case something from that darn bath bag you had to check leaks!

For when you forget to BYO-bag. Keep a triangle in the bottom of every purse or bag you have. That way when you forget a reusable bag (or) just need an extra one you don’t have to take a new one from the store.

And that’s just the tip of the ice…bag!

The Benefits of Recycling: Let's Talk Trash

RiverWired.com — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Sure, recycling benefits the environment in a variety of ways- it uses fewer resources, reduces landfill waste, etc etc. We’ve all heard about the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, in case you live under a rock) a thousand times before. With that in mind, we’ve compiled this list of seven facts about recycling that you may not have heard before, in the hopes that this newfound information will invigorate you to take your own personal recycling initiatives to the next level (which, if you’re looking at this website, are probably already pretty stellar in the first place). Here goes:

1. To produce each week’s Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down. If every American recycled just one tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.

2. A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf in as little as 60 days, creating a highly efficient closed recycling loop. If thrown away, aluminum cans will stay intact in can form for over 500 years.

3. Over the course of one year in the U.S., the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18 million homes.

4. Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.

5. Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles an hour (!), most of which are thrown away. Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.

6. Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that could have been composted.

7. On average, every American produces about 4.4 pounds of solid waste per day, amounting to almost a ton of trash per person, per year.

You already knew recycling was important. When you examine some of the statistics, however, the numbers are pretty staggering. So pack up your plastic bottles and head to a processing plant already. What are you waiting for?

Sources:

Recycling-Revolution.com

BuyRecycled.com

Want to find out more about recycling?

Recycling the Looking Glass: When Garbage and Art Collide

Top 10 Recycling Resources

Recycled Record Snack Tray

The Benefits of Recycling Cardboard

The Art of Garbage

Reduce, Reuse… FREECYCLE

Recycle Those Electronics!

Back to Basics—RRR

Picking Up Garbage TVs and Recycling as Art

Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It

Knight Rider Recycled—Reborn With Green Twist!

Recycling Your Garbage: Where Does it All Go?

Banning Plastic Bags Boosts Bioplastics: Is a Biodegradable Car Coming?

jkraft — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

With the outlawing of plastic bags in San Francisco, China and other eco-minded cities and nations, shoppers are forming new carrying habits with canvas and compostable grocery sacks. It’s too bad for the manufacturers of the old plastics which languish for eons in landfills and clog our oceans, but it’s boom time for bags born from corn.

Biopolymers, which are naturally occurring polymers, and bioplastics—plastics made from organic, not fossil fuel components, aren’t new. Henry Ford actually developed a method of manufacturing plastic car parts from soybeans in the mid-1900s! Bioplastics can be made from corn, cotton, wood, wheat, soybeans and surprisingly, from bacteria, which carry out chemical reactions that result in a type of polyester. Some bioplastics can even be made out of pollution—excess CO2 binds to certain biopolymers.

Yet it takes a lot of petro-energy to manufacture these new plastics, so even though they are no longer made from petroleum-based materials, they still keep us shackled to our oil imports.

Improving efficiency in their production is a major concern, so researchers are refining the production processes used in order to make them viable alternatives to petrochemical plastics. But consumers and manufacturers are already showing their preference for compostables instead of disposables, and McKinsey & Co. estimates the field will be worth more than $100 billion by 2010.

Even Electronics makers like Sony and Fujitsu intend to use bio-polymers for portable music players, laptops and other products. Toyota has plans for a biodegradable car, and specialized medical devices like heart stents and emerging technology such as solar cells are already available in compost-ready form.

Where To Find Baby Bottles Without BPA -- and Formula and Pacifers, Too

scleaver — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

We’ve gotten quite a response from the BPA-related articles, and everybody wants to know where to get BPA free formula, bottles, and baby products, and fast. So, here’s our guide to products that are practical, adorable, and, best of all, BPA-free.

Baby Formula

When it comes to baby formula, the Enviroblog recommends powdered—BPA is in the lining of aluminum baby formula cans and ready-to-feed baby formula that’s not diluted before feeding has the highest levels of BPA. The Environmental Working Group surveyed five baby formula companies in the U.S. and four (Nestle, Similac, Enfamil, and PBM) said that BPA is in the lining of the cans that hold their formula. BPA is also in metal in the powdered formula containers, but powdered is a better choice. According to the EWG, “babies fed reconstituted powder formula likely received 8 to 20 times less BPA than those fed liquid formula from a metal can.”

So, shopping for baby formula, the key is to reduce your risk. Enfamil and Similac powdered formula are sold in cardboard and metal cans that have less BPA. If you’re buying liquid formula, go for concentrate rather than ready-to-eat because adding the water to dilute it will reduce the BPA exposure.

Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups

When you’re buying bottles and cups, there are tons of BPA free options to choose from. And good thing too, because BPA can leach from plastic baby bottles into milk or other liquids that your baby drinks. General advice: stay away from bottles that are marked with the number seven, and use clear silicone nipples. Warm bottles in a pan filled with water, not the microwave, which cause chemicals to release into the milk and can heat unevenly.

Buy glass bottles if you can (Silikids and The Soft Landing both sell safe glass bottle covers). In the store, Playtex, Gerber, and Parent’s Choice (in Wal-Mart) all have BPA free bottle options (look for the BPA free labels and assume a plastic product has BPAs unless the packaging says otherwise). And, there are a host of newer companies with safe bottles and sippy cups:

The Adiri Natural Nurser is a uniquely designed bottle.

Born Free has bottles, nipples, trainer cups, and drinking cups for infants and toddlers.

Nurture Pure sells bottles and cups.

The Boon No Spill Sippy Cup is a two-piece sippy cup with a creative design.

Think Baby has a whole line of safe plastic baby bottles, covers, and nipples.

Get a full list of BPA free baby bottles recommended by Safe Mama at Amazon.com.

Pacifiers and More

Pacifiers are another product that end up in baby’s mouth and should be as safe as possible, and then there are all the other little plastic products (storage containers, spoons, etc) that you need to keep baby well fed. Here are some online shopping options to choose from:

The Razz Berry pacifier is all natural and designed to soothe teething babies.

The Natursutta pacifier is made of natural rubber without any nasty plastics or artificial colors.

Eco Piggy has all natural pacifiers, clothing, and other products.

One Step Ahead has a storage system of small plastic containers to store your homemade baby food, or just the leftovers.

For older kids (or you) Laptop Lunches is a lunch storage system that’s designed like a Bento Box.

Browse Munchkin for safe pacifiers, snack containers, and more.

For more baby recommendations, visit the Nature Moms blog.

Photo credit: the Razz Berry pacifier from Amazon.com

For more information on BPA, check out these stories:

BPA in Dental Plastic: Are the Fillings in your Teeth Dangerous?

BPA: The Dangers of Canned Food May Be Greater Than Plastics

BPA in Dental Plastic: Are the Fillings in your Teeth Dangerous?

BPA: The Dangers of Canned Foods May Be Greater Than Plastics

susan — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0400

The headlines have focused on the dangers of BPA (bisphenol-A, an endocrine-disrupting chemical) in plastics. But it turns out that the BPA in the plastic lining of canned foods may pose even greater dangers.

Many canned foods are lined with a plastic coating (it looks like a solid lining) made from BPA, which can leach into the food. The longer a can sits on your shelf, the more BPA is likely to leach out.

The highest levels of BPA were found in canned pasta and soups, according to a report last year by the Environmental Working Group, . a nonprofit research group based in Washington, D.C.

“Independent laboratory tests found a toxic food-can lining ingredient associated with birth defects of the male and female reproductive systems in over half of 97 cans of name-brand fruit, vegetables, soda, and other commonly eaten canned goods,” according to the EWG’s report.

Which specific canned foods were the most dangerous?

Chicken soup, infant formula, and ravioli came out highest in risk, according to the EWG. “Just one to three servings of foods with these concentrations could expose a woman or child to BPA at levels that caused serious adverse effects in animal tests,” according to the report.

About 17% of the average American diet consists of canned foods, according to Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) estimates. EWG reports that the last time the FDA examined BPA exposures from food was in 1996 -- but they failed to set a safety standard.

What Can You DO?

· Cut down on canned foods -- eat fresh foods instead. Save the canned stuff for emergencies.

· Choose canned foods from makers who don't use BPA, such as Eden Foods (www.edenfoods.com), which sells certified organic canned beans and other foods.

· Choose soups in cardboard cartons (such as those by Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc) which are made of safer layers of aluminum and polyethylene (#2) and are also recyclable. Or buy foods packaged in glass jars.

Background on BPA: Why Worry?

BPA, or bisphenol-A, has been linked to various cancers (breast and prostate cancer), early onset puberty, Type II diabetes and neurobehavioral changes in offspring exposed in the womb, according to the EWG. This chemical, used in many plastics, such as polycarbonate plastic (hard, colored water bottles and water coolers) and the lining of most food and beverage cans, leaches into foods. Even more of the chemical is released when it's heated. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control found BPA in the bodies of 93 percent of the people they tested.

For more information on BPA, check out these stories:

Where to Find Baby Bottles Without BPA -- and Formula and Pacifiers, Too

BPA in Dental Plastic: Are the Fillings in your Teeth Dangerous?

Where to Find BPA-Free Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups

scleaver — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:13:05 -0400

There's bad news and good news on BPA in plastic baby products, like bottles and sippy cups.

The bad news: BPA, bisphenol-A, a chemical found in plastics -- including baby bottles and sippy cups -- is linked to “changes in behavior and the brain” including hyperactivity and cancer, according to an Associated Press article in The Wall Street Journal, “Companies Move to Curb Risk From Chemical BPA. BPA doesn’t stay put; instead, it leaches into liquids and foods, creating obvious concern for parents.

The good news for babies everywhere: infant companies and retailers are responding to concerns of consumers, scientists and the National Toxicology Program concerns about BPA. On Friday, April 18, Playtex Infant Care announced that they’re converting to BPA-free material by the end of the year, and Wal-Mart is converting its baby bottle selection to BPA free products by 2009.

According to Gary Cohen, Vice President and General Manager at Playtex, “while US and worldwide regulatory bodies continue to deem the ingredient safe, as a leader in infant care products, we are listening to consumer concerns and believe the right thing to do is eliminate any confusion or concern that parents may have. For this reason, we will stop using BPA in our products this year and we offer consumers a chance to immediately switch to BPA-free infant products.”

While companies are busy pulling BPA bottles and replacing them with safer versions, you’ll already find tons of BPA-free products on the shelves. When shopping, however, remember that this BPA risk extends to many plastic products, not just bottles and sippy cups, but forks, spoons, pacifiers, and more.

Here’s where to find BPA-free products online:

1. Want to stick with plastic? BPA-free bottles and sippy cups are flying off the shelves at Diapers, Etc a site that also sells BPA-free pacifiers, spoons and forks.

2. Ready to go for glass? Especially in light of recent news, glass bottles are making a comeback. Learn about glass bottle feeding at the Natural Baby Store Web site. Then, grab a safe “Siliskin” plastic covering for your baby’s glass bottle at Calamari Baby, or a cute Wee Go bottle cover at Go Baby Life.

3. Here’s a list of what Playtex products are made of and how safe each is: Playtex Materials Chart.

For more information on BPA, check out these stories:

BPA: The Dangers of Canned Food May Be Greater Than Plastics

Where to Find Baby Bottles Without BPA -- and Formula and Pacifiers, Too

BPA in Dental Plastic: Are the Fillings in your Teeth Dangerous?

Photo credit: from Diapers, Etc.

BPA: 5 Tips to Avoid the Dangers in Plastics

susan — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

You’ve probably seen the news reports about the dangers of chemicals such as BPA (bisphenol-A, an endocrine-disrupting chemical) and others in plastic. Now it’s time for you to do something about it.

I know you’re trying to do the green thing by re-using your plastic water and juice bottles instead of being like 80% of the rest of the world who toss them in the garbage and don’t even recycle.

But cut it out. BPA has been linked to various cancers (breast and prostate cancer), early onset puberty, Type II diabetes and neurobehavioral changes in offspring exposed in the womb. And BPA is not the only danger lurking in your plastic containers.

Here are some simple steps you can take to stay healthy and safe. These tips are advisable for everybody – but especially for those most vulnerable to the effects of these chemicals -- infants and young children, as well as pregnant women or anyone even thinking about getting pregnant.

1. Do not re-use plastic water – or soda or juice -- bottles.

The danger here is not BPA -- these containers do not contain BPA as they are made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate), a petroleum-based material. (Turn them upside-down and look for the number #1 inside the tiny triangle.)

The primary danger is bacteria. With those small mouths, they are almost impossible to wash properly.

Danger Number 2: Once you’ve put those bottles in the dishwasher and they’ve gotten scratched and dented, this degraded bottle allows a trace metal, antimony, to leach into whatever you are drinking, according to one of the leading researchers on plastics, University of Missouri’s Frederick S. vom Saal, in a recent New York Times article.

2. Avoid hard plastic Nalgene containers, made from polycarbonates -- #7 on the bottom.

Yes, those cool, colorful, rigid transparent plastic bottles that are labeled Number 7 – or PC on the bottom -- contain BPA. This plastic is also used for hard plastic baby bottles, toddlers’ sippy cups, 5 gallon water cooler bottles, plastic silverware, and Lexan products, according to a report by The Environmental Working Group.

“Some polycarbonate water bottles are marketed as 'non-leaching' for minimizing plastic taste or odor, however there is still a possibility that trace amounts of BPA will migrate from these containers, particularly if used to heat liquids,” according to the EWG.

When possible it is best to avoid #7 plastics, especially for children's food. Plastics with the recycling labels #1, #2 , #4 and #5 on the bottom are safer choices and do not contain BPA.

3. Use stainless steel containers – there’s a sippy cup adapter for toddlers.

And make sure you pick ones that do not have a plastic liner. That plastic liner can contain – you guessed it – BPA.

Here’s a web site – KleanKanteen -- with a selection of stainless steel bottles —one even has a sippy adapter for kids – instead of those plastic sippy cups.

4. Do not microwave or heat foods in plastic containers.

That means any plastic – even if it is a safer variety. When you heat liquids or foods in a plastic container, it causes even more BPA (and possibly other chemicals) to leach out.

Don’t use plastic wrap in the microwave either. Though the American Chemistry Council reports that phthalates stopped being used in any US plastic wraps in 2006, companies aren't required to list what's in their plastic wrap. So why take chances?

Use glass containers in the microwave. And cover with a paper towel or a glass cover.

5. If you must use plastic containers, hand wash them.

For times when you can’t use glass – like when you’re out running or biking – and you must use plastic, at least make sure to wash your bottle by hand. Use a mild dishwashing soap – and do not put it in the dishwasher as this will degrade the plastic and allow more BPA (or trace metals iin the case of single-use pplastic water bottles) to leach out.

For more information on BPA, check out these stories:

BPA: The Dangers of Canned Food May Be Greater Than Plastics

Where to Find Baby Bottles Without BPA -- and Formula and Pacifiers, Too