Safer plastics
Here's a helpful guide to understanding which plastics are the safest to use (and re-use). It also provides recycling information.
In brief, the safest for use and re-use are:
In brief, the safest for use and re-use are:
- #2 - HDPE
- #4 - LDPE
- #5 - PP
These three types of plastic are the healthiest. They transmit no known chemicals into your food and they're generally recyclable; #2 is very commonly accepted by municipal recycling programs, but you may have a more difficult time finding someone to recycle your #4 and #5 containers.
- #3 - PVC
- #6 - PS
- #7 - PC
Labels: environment, health
posted by michael at 10:28 PM
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1 Comments:
Consumers should be asking for a bottle free of chemicals that have estrogenic activity (an EA-free bottle), rather than a BPA-free bottle. Our data show that this statement applies to all types of plastics in all the recycle categories, bar none.
Plastics containing BPA and phthalates have been in news recently because they leach chemicals with EA into the water we drink. 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.
However, BPA and phthalates are just two of several thousand chemicals that exhibit 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. In fact, our data show that all the plastics listed in this article release chemicals having EA. NOTE: This includes PET.
Various plastics manufacturers are now attempting to solve this problem by removing chemicals having EA (BPA, phthalates) one at a time. For example, the consumer can now find an abundance of BPA-free products on the market. But are these products really the solution?? 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 as the EA-releasing plastic products that are on the market today. In fact, some of these advanced-technology EA-free plastics are already in the marketplace. If consumers demanded EA-free plastics, many hundreds of different EA-free plastic products could be quickly produced that cost pennies more than existing products that release chemicals with EA.
George D. Bittner, PhD
Professor of Biology,
The University of Texas at Austin
Founder: CertiChem, PlastiPure
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