So Long Poland Springs I Found Something Greener

Across the country the anti-bottled water movement is gaining momentum. Some city governments are installing water filtration systems in office buildings and reducing budgets for bottled water. San Francisco banned the use of city dollars for the purchase of bottled water and Chicago and Seattle have followed suit with their own initiatives. Chez Panisse started a trend and now Boston restaurants are following suit by serving tap water and using fountain jets to make their own club soda. This spring the Park Slope Food Co-op with over 13,000 members sold its last bottle of water.

So why now...in the same year that we learned that there is Prozac in the water has the plastic water bottle become the symbol of gross environmental disregard? It isn’t as simple as water is a precious resource and that those of us who have clean drinking water should appreciate it. It is about the massive amounts of fossil fuels used to transport the water and the billions of plastic bottles ending up in our landfills. Just so I am not the only one living in shame of my bottled water usage here are some facts I collected online....

According to Think Outside the Bottle:

Each year more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter.

Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil last year – enough fuel for more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year - and generated more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.

The entire energy costs of the lifecycle of a bottle of water is equivalent, on average, to filling up a quarter of each bottle with oil. Worldwide, consumers spent $100 billion on bottled water in 2005.

Seventy-four percent of Americans drink bottled water, and one in five drinks only bottled water.

Tree Hugger also provides similar reasons to ditch bottled water:

Approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil—enough to run 100,000 cars for a whole year—are used to make plastic water bottles, while transporting these bottles burns even more oil.

The growth in bottled water production has increased water extraction in areas near bottling plants, leading to water shortages that affect nearby consumers and farmers.

In addition to the millions of gallons of water used in the plastic-making process, two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the bottles.

Nearly 90 percent of water bottles are not recycled and wind up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose.

Below is an image taken by David Coale of Acterra. He calculated the amount of oil required to ship a bottle of water from its source to the Bay Area of California and poured this amount of oil into each bottle.

Yum…

So what am I going to do to wean myself off my bottled water addiction?

Read Bottle Mania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royte author of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash.

Take the Think Outside The Bottle Pledge.

Drink our tap water or buy a home filtration system:

Consumer Reports recommends:
Aqua Pure by Cuno, AP-DWS1000
Kenmore (Sears) 34551

In addition, you can compare ten different filter options at:
Water Filter ComparisonsThe Green Guide

Then for portability purchase BPA free water bottles for the whole family. Gardenaut provides a comprehensive list and in depth reviews of the bottles readily available.

To get my fix of bubbles this NY Times article provides or good list of options.

Enough about BPA in plastic bottles - What about BPA in infant formula?

It has been quite a week for BPA. In the five days since the release of the National Toxicology Program report:

Health Canada, the Canadian Health agency announced a move to ban the import and sale of infant bottles made with BPA that will take effect after a 60-day discussion period.

Wal-Mart Canada announced that they will stop selling baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, food containers and water bottles made with BPA immediately.

Wal-Mart announced that they will stop selling baby bottles made with BPA in the US as early as next year.

Nalgene a leading maker of sport water bottles announced that they would phase out the production of bottles containing BPA over the next several months.

Playtex announced that they will convert to BPA-free material by the end of the year, immediately suspend distribution of products made with BPA to all Canadian retail partners and distribute 1 million samples of their BPA-free Drop-Ins Original Nurser System.

In addition, the major networks ran several stories this week, including this ABC News segment.

While all of this is great news for consumers, with the focus primarily on plastic bottles, which are relatively easy to identify and avoid, many people remain unaware of potential exposure from food containers lined with BPA, which have been found by the Environmental Working Group to release the chemical in even higher concentrations. Watching the coverage unfold this week, it was hard not to think that this media blitz is just a diversion from the bigger issue of BPA exposure resulting from canned foods and the current Congressional investigation into the FDA's recommendations on the use of BPA.

But it's Sunday so let's set aside the conspiracy theories and focus on what you can do to minimize exposure to BPA.

Simple Sustainable Strategies to Minimize BPA Exposure

• Don’t feed your child canned liquid formula. (powder is cheaper anyway)


• Don’t eat or serve canned foods. (fresh fruit and vegetables are better for you anyway)


• Don't use bottles with the numbers 3 or 7 in the recycling symbol on the bottom, although not all contain BPA. (number 1, 2 and 4 plastics do not have BPA)


• Don’t microwave food in plastic containers. (even if they are BPA free other chemicals leach into food when microwaved)


• Don't use old or scratched plastic bottles.


• Don't wash plastics in the dishwasher.


• Use glass bottles and containers for storage and long trips.


• Use BPA free baby bottles to feed your child.

Interesting Facts About BPA

• Usage of BPA is regulated by the FDA and International Safety Regulations. (Ref)


• In the U.S. more than 2.3 billion pounds of BPA is manufactured annually. (Ref)


• Nearly half of the BPA produced in the US is produced in Texas in plants owned by Dow, Bayer and Hexion Specialty Chemicals. (Ref)


• The plastics industry in the United States accounts for more than $379 billion dollars in annual shipments and directly employs 1.1 million people. (Ref)


• The business of chemistry is a $635 billion enterprise. It is one of the nation’s largest exporters, accounting for ten cents out of every dollar in U.S. exports. (Ref)


• The EPA sets the safe level of BPA exposure to 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day (µg/kg/day). (Ref)


• BPA has been found to have hormone disrupting effects in studies on animals and human cancer cells at levels as low as 2-5µg/kg. (Ref)


• Infants fed canned formula with bottles containing BPA can consume quantities up to 13 µg/kg/day. (Ref)


• BPA was found in 93% of the 2,517 participants in a CDC study. The participants registered BPA levels between 0.4 µg/L and 149 µg/L with 57.4% of the participants with levels falling between 0.2 µg/L–20.6 µg/L. (Ref)

After conducting the research there are several questions that I still am seeking answers to including:

1. When mothers are breast feeding is BPA passed through to breast milk?
2. Is it possible that the epidemic of childhood obesity is caused by BPA exposure?
3. Is melamine really safe?
4. What about the lining in milk, juice cartons?
5. What about humidifiers?
6. Is there anything you can do once you have already been exposed?

If you find or know the answers, please comment. Also please provide any additional BPA facts or sustainable strategies to reduce exposure to BPA.

Attention Shoppers! Special on BPA Bottles in Aisle 7

Attention Shoppers! Special on BPA bottles in aisle 7
Originally uploaded by Sustainable Mom

These were on special at my local grocer today. Perhaps they saw today's article in The Wall Street Journal titled "Plastics Chemical Spurs Concern - Government Study, In Reversal, Links BPA, Cancer Risk". In other news, it is anticipated that Health Canada, the government agency that oversees Canada's health care system will classify BPA as a dangerous substance before the end of May. This would make them the first regulatory body to officially rule that BPA is harmful to people and the environment. Read more about this in the article in today's New York Times.

BPA the Next DDT - Says Who?

It was around a year ago that I received the first e-mail about toxic baby bottles. I read it and immediately went to the cupboards to check for sippy cups with the number 7 on the bottom. I only found one. Not surprisingly it was a tacky glittery Mickey Mouse cup I had bought at Disney World. It was very easy to part with it as I had always known it had insidious effects far worse than BPA.

I continued to receive a steady stream of e-mails about Bisphenol A (BPA) , detailing how it is a carcinogenic hormone disruptor, linked to breast cancer, male infertility, obesity and schizophrenia. I soon stopped microwaving and storing food in plastic containers. Eventually, I found myself checking the bottoms of all bottles, in the shower, the fridge and the grocery store. Then I learned that BPA isn’t just used in plastics, but they line cans and canned food with it. In fact, of all things liquid infant formula is a leading offender. Crap!

We used cans of Enfamil for the Freen when we went on road trips. I never thought I would actually be grateful for all the times he puked in the car…the more I thought about it the more I realized we used canned formula quite a bit. They were very convenient.

Plagued with guilt, wondering what kind of irreparable damage I had done to my son’s endocrine system, it occurred to me…where the hell is all of this information coming from? I’ve never been one to accept anything at face value, so why was I cleaning out my cupboards and beating myself up over product choices without doing any due diligence. Eventually like thousands of other moms out there, I took it into my own hands and scoured the Internet researching the origins and effects of BPA.

Generally when I look online for health information I do not (or at least did not used to) go to the Environmental Working Group for information. Working in health care for many years, I generally went straight to the ivory towers, the supposed pillars, proponents and practitioners of evidence based medicine. So the first thing I did was conduct a PubMed Medline search for BPA which returned 4,567 results.

Then a search of American Medical Association (AMA) website returned nothing except two links to articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that are not accessible without a subscription.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) website had no statement or advice but did have two links to articles with brief mention of BPA in dental sealants (yep it’s in them too).

Then a check of the American Academy of Family Physician (AAFP) website yielded a big nothing. Maybe I was looking at the wrong medical specialties.

A search of the Endocrine Society website generated a link to an abstract for a research report presented at their annual meeting in 2007 and a brief reference to The Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction’s (CERHR) expert panel report.

Perhaps the nation’s leading hospital? A search of Mayo Clinic’s Health Information site offered nothing, not even in the Baby's Health section where they advise parents on which formula is right for your baby.

It would seem that either the US medical establishment is asleep at the wheel or the 4,567 papers listed in PubMed are all flawed. What about the government agencies that regulate food and protect public health?

A search of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) website yielded 124 results but no official statement or position. However a statement from the FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety by biologist Julie N. Mayer, M.F.S. on FDA’s most current position on BPA use is available on Fit Pregnancy's website.

While a search of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website yields 318 results they provide no official statement or advice. However, you will find the summary result of the study which found BPA present in 93% of the 2,517 participants.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has several references to BPA and is home to the The Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) who has published research findings of their expert panel and most recently published the NTP Draft Brief for comment on April 14th, 2008.

Finally, a search of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website yields 894 results against their entire collection and 53 if you limit by Health Risks.

So it would seem that despite 894 environmental and 4,553 medical references to the topic neither respected medical institutions nor government agencies are prepared to make a coherent statement about BPA. Of course there are several groups and companies who have published and promoted clear albeit disparate conclusions about BPA and some even provide entire sites devoted to the subject.

The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) website provides a detailed and comprehensive statement on the safety of polycarbonate packaging in the aptly titled plastic and health section.

The American Chemistry Council/American Plastics Council (ACC) has numerous references including several timely press releases and they also provide this detailed information site which comes up right at the top when you google BPA.

In addition, Playtex Bottles, Inc. (Energizer Battery Holdings) has a statement on BPA. AVENT (Phillips) addresses BPA in their FAQ section. Even the pillars of product safety that have no trouble telling you to buy new products at the drop of a dime, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) touts the safety of baby bottles in a published statement.

Lucky for us there are numerous bloggers, media outlets and environmental action groups willing to sift through the research and provide some comprehensive and seemingly objective information. The best BPA resource online is the Environmental Working Group. I also found The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal’s review of 258 studies interesting albeit probably not scientifically valid and WebMD has a nice quick and dirty summary.

When I started this post, I began with the intention of understanding the real consequences of BPA exposure and how to avoid it, however, when it comes to BPA the real story is in the information and where it is, and isn’t, coming from. After collecting and analyzing the information, there is no question that I will do everything I can to minimize exposure to BPA for my son and my family, but what I think is more important is what we do as citizen scientists to tell the government and the medical establishment that they need to stop looking out for the interest of big business and do everything they can to look out for the interest of our children.

The good news is that on April 4th Congress sent a letter to the Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach requesting additional information surrounding the FDA’s selection of two industry studies as the basis of their recommendations on infant formula liners. I think this will mark a turning point in a very long, very confusing and very heated debate and I hope that the government will respond with a comprehensive and unbiased analysis of the current body of research and plans to commission additional research where needed.

I am in the process of compiling a list of recommendations, facts, resources and a BPA timeline which I will post soon. Please submit comments, questions and any other sources of objective information on BPA you find.

The New Mother's Dilemma

“What’s for dinner, honey?”

“Oh corn dipped in trans fats with a side of high fructose corn syrup and a glass of Prozac”.

Recently, I am finding that simple questions have increasingly complex answers.

When I had my son three and a half years ago, I never second guessed basic decisions like what bottles to use or whether or not to get him vaccinated.

I used BPA laden plastic bottles and filled them with formula mixed with Prozac-riddled tap water and didn’t bat an eye.

However, over the past year there has been a baby boom (explosion really) among my circle of friends and I have found myself an old mom surrounded by newbies, fielding a steady stream of questions that I had never confronted.

In "The Omnivores Dilemma", Michael Pollan uses the question “What's for dinner?” to explore the impact of the choices we make as we put food on the table for our families. After reading OD, it struck me that we mothers have a dilemma of our own.

Much like the challenge everyone faces when trying to put a healthy meal on the table, we must weed through tons of conflicting information, alarming headlines and marketing jargon to make decisions about the products we buy for our children. The information overload coupled with a healthy questioning of the intentions of big business and big medicine leaves us confused and concerned. In the next few entries, I will take a closer look at “The New Mother's Dilemma”, how we get our information, evaluate it and ultimately make a decision about what to do or buy.

Here are the questions my friends have been asking lately. I invite you to submit others and we can explore them together.

Which bottles did you use?

What did you use to mix the formula?

What diapers did you use?

What baby lotion did you buy?

When did you get him vaccinated?