But back to the polymer minefield of my home: moms are advised to reduce all our use of plastics. Healthychild.org warns, “If you’re serving your dinner on plastic, you’re likely eating a little plastic for dinner.” What the heck am I supposed to use then?
I sometimes forget that plastics haven’t always been a ubiquitous part of our households. When I was a toddler milk bottles were made of glass and my school sandwiches were wrapped in foil and I drank water from a tap right until college when I started drinking beer from one. Our house didn’t even have Tupperware until the 1980s and it was another 10 years before we had a microwave so we never heated it.
But today, plastic is everywhere in my kitchen — from the Brita I “purify” water in, to the spatula I flip my free-range eggs with, to the ice cube tray I’m storing precious breast milk in.
It couldn’t all be bad, right? This is America! Our government and the nice capitalists at the plastics companies as well as folks like BP CEO yachtsman Tony Hayward wouldn’t purposely harm their own customers. This isn’t like lead paint or tainted beef or aluminum in deodorant or fluoride in toothpaste or mercury in fish or carcinogens in mattresses or gases in carpeting. No. It’s not like demanding 37 immunizations within the first 18 months of a child’s life! Besides, I see corporate America went so far as to label plastics from 1 to 7 right on their products! Every container that touches my body has a 7 on it, so that must be the high end.
Oh, wait now. I’m googling “number 7 plastic” and it does not sound so lucky. Number 7 denotes “PC or polycarbonate which can leach the hormone-disruptor bisphenol A especially when heated or chilled.”
What does leach mean? When I hear “leach,” I think “leech”: a blood-sucking thing in the swamps of Mississippi — and I don’t mean Tony Hayward. Is someone making a verb out of this “leach” noun and merely changing a vowel in an attempt to hide the fact that plastic can suck the good stuff out of foods or beverages and spit out cancer?
I don’t want to get hysterical. It seems everything I own can only hurt me if I antagonize this otherwise well-behaved compound by making it hot or cold. I’m sure the FDA, CDC and maybe even the ATF have looked into this potential disaster and made sure this provocable composite is no where near my dairy/soy/gluten-free turkey bacon.
Yet I could swear that’s a 7 on my water jug. And another on the “microwave safe” container I put my husband’s lunch in. And more on my infants’ bottles that I put in boiling water to warm milk and then sterilize in the microwave in another plastic container, daily!
Now I’m glued to the TV, waiting for a news channel to tell me the truth about everything I’ve ever bought from Target, Costco and Walmart. While here, I’m rubbing diaper cream and petroleum (Hi, Tony!) jelly on my child from a plastic container. Could it also be true that perfumes provoke plastic, causing it to leach more? And does plastic have actual feelings that get hurt and then retaliate by leaching?
I’m feeling really unsafe. In my own kitchen. In fear of waking the sleeping tiger in my plastic, I’m loading my kids into my carbon-producing SUV — into their recalled and then un-recalled car seats — to head over to McDonald’s and get them some food from the dollar menu. It still comes in cardboard, thank goodness.
(Diane Farr is known for her roles in “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me,” and as the author of “The Girl Code.” You can read her blog at getdianefarr.com, follow her on twitter.com/getdianefarr or contact her on facebook.com/getdianefarr.)
I love a good rant! The American alligator almost went extinct due to byproductsfrom the plastics industry. Synthetic estrogens are worse than they sound. I try to avoid plastic/food/beaverage combinations in all forms, but that is nowhere near easy. Nicely done.
so interesting! thanks for adding in
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Catherine McCord. Catherine McCord said: Plastic companies are doing a fine job. Plus the FDA is protecting us! http://getdianefarr.com/?p=489 [...]
OKAY — so now I am officially freaked out. Because I bath my baby in a plastic bath tub and use soap from a plastic bottle…and all her toys are plastic…and her sippy cup and her bib…and her ABC playmat and so on and so on. WTF. What do I do? I need some solutions…I mean, my bottles are glass but the G-D DAMN NIPPLE is plastic.
Ok my momma friend – don’t throw in the towel on all your plastic at once. The most important thing to consider is that it becomes problematic once heated or chilled. the bath is warm – but it’s not hot. So it is probably fine. Once i learned all the pitfalls of plastic, we went and purchased all wood and organic cotton toys. The do come in every price range. And your bottle nipples and other things you use in the kids mouth should be checked. Go to their websites and see what it says about the plastic. if it’s not proudly saying its bpa and every other bad thing free – it’s not. Born Free and Medela have always been bpa free, and many other manufactures are catching up now. Also, silicon on baby spoons is a great alternative for feeding. Soaps and lotions though – they need to be checked against the mommy-websites that tell which products have good plastic and which don’t. because most of the brand name hygiene products for kids, are still using bad plastic. Throw them out! DF
This was in my Preschool Newsletter!! go mommy’s!
You are a funny girl DAF
This is why I miss the old days of cokes in glass bottles. Things always tasted better in glass. Thank goodness I stopped using plastic saxophone reeds again…
OK., so I’m going to clearly be the voice of dissent here
I have to defend “chemicals” and plastics. It does annoy me that in the eyes of the public “chemicals” are bad. We are all constructed from Chemicals (and descended from animals), and chemicals are not. bad. What we need to be aware of however are the levels of chemicals that enter our, and our children’s, bodies by absorbtion, ingestion, and inhalation.
In general, neither you, or your child are at risk from the products around you (except the extremely small minority who have a particular genetic or chemical imbalance already present in their bodies). The risk from chemicals such as bisphenol A, dioctyl phthalate, pesticides etc etc etc are well documented including the hazardous levels needed to cause us problems. For example, if you were to eat oranges which had been treated with pesticides (without those pesticides being removed from the oranges), in order to die from pesticide poisoning you would need to consume such a large amount that you would actually die from liver and kidney failure due to vitamin C overdose… oh god does that mean that nasty chemical vitamin C can kill you too ?!?!
As they say… a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing
Love the voice of dissent Steve P. I like all your valid points. I’m worried though if you are considering a person who is only, let’s say six pounds. Who’s brain matter is really soft. and who’s intenstines are not that equiped to get a toxin out of the body and it could stay in this persons system for over 3 days. maybe even enough days to break the blood brain barrier. And let’s say this person eats only one thing – milk – from a plastic bottle every two hours, 24 hours a day. and that bottle has toxins in it, and it is washed in scalding hot water, and then put in a microwave in another plastic container to be “sanitized” in steam and boiling water for 7 minutes. do you think that might sku how harmful that small amount of poison is? to make the ideal less dramatic but still real – let’s imagine a 25 pound person, who eats off a plastic plate 5 times a day with a platic fork and sucks on a bottle twice a day and a plastic teething ring 6 times a day. Keeping in mind that same brain, is not even half way formed for another two years – but definately not full formed until TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS, do you think this still might be too much of a trace amount of toxin, if we add in that this 25 pounder is eating one untreated fruit every single day and is constapated (harmful toxin staying in the system over three days and possible crossing a blood brain barrier) at least one time every week.
I am not being sarcastic – I’m actually asking because that’s what those of us in MommyLand are worried about.
Go Diane!!
Love Dev and Jane in France.
Ps is there a column coming on the bottomless pitfalls of red eye flights to europe with children??
48 hrs later, we are still reeling…
She would be proud of you, stopping people one article at a time
-Elizabeth
I love this so much. so many shout outs to Tony Hayward!! ha
I think every body would like to shout out Tony huh…
DEV – RE FLYING WITH THE KIDS – first of all I’m sorry. and second, YES! I’ve been writing an article all week! That’s the subject of my next one!!! I feel your pain. I literally feel it.
very informative D…. Keep it comin!
we try, mr. Karl, here at GDF dot com