Hellobee Boards

@yoursilverlining: re: baby cups in Europe. Almost all of the baby cups (and bottles, pacis, etc.) I see here are US brands like Avent, Playtex, Munchkin, etc. I'll start to look out for non-US/non-made in China products though.

I'm slowly eliminating plastic in the kitchen. For example, I got really freaked out about our electric tea kettle that was almost all plastic and found one that is all metal except for the water gauge. Glass storage containers are hard to find and expensive here, but I want replace our plastic containers little by little.

@lamariniere: that is interesting, because I found there was very little plastic in our day to day lives because there are no facilities to recycle plastic...is that the same where you live?

For example, we used to buy yogurt in glass jars and there are none of those deli containers available.

As for our Avent bottles, the ones we had were manufactured in England!

I really just can't even bring myself to get worked up about this. I guess I'm just one of those 'thoughtless' people, but there are studies out there that say practically everything on the freaking earth is or might be bad for us. I do what I can to protect my child and keep him healthy - extended rear-facing car seat, lots of sunscreen, zero exposure to cigarette smoke, etc., but I cannot and will not spend my life worrying and driving myself crazy over every single research study. That kind of stuff can just take over your entire life if you let it and turn you into a completely paranoid person. I mean, some of the more mommy wars baiting posts here seem to imply that if I'm going to keep using my bpa-free plastic bottles I might as well just take up smoking and start doing that around my baby too.

Making these changes is expensive, and in my honest opinion, unnecessary. Everything can be dangerous - glass can break and injure my child. Some kinds of metal contain SSIGs, which some studies link to alzheimers. Ever painted the house while your child is home or had them in the house soon after? Hope it was VOC free because otherwise you could be triggering asthma and affecting everyone's reproductive health - and getting carpet installed often causes VOC odors too. Ever used PVC on a project in your home? Well, the dust it releases when being cut or shaved can cause cancer and neurological issues. Do you have any pressed wood in your house? The glue holding pressed wood together sometimes contains a chemical that causes cancer and asthma! Do you own a laser printer? It releases compounds that have been linked to heart and lung disease.

I could go on and on and on, but I think you get the idea - and we all know that the second you think you've made everything safe, there will be a new study telling you that you're wrong. I do what I can to give my child a safe environment, but I assess risks and refuse to fear basically the entire world. Particularly when it's based on a limited amount of evidence based on animals, with little to no complaints of people actually getting sick.

@MrsLilybugg: Gah that is one of the first things I thought... I no longer use bottles and sterilize but when I did for both kids... sterilizing plastic bottles inside of a plastic container inside of a microwave. Like, cancer wrapped up in ambiguous sexual organs with a side of infertility....

Fortunately our bottle days are over, but we still have a lot of plastic in our lives. I will do my best to find alternatives but to me the thing that was so concerning (tho I guess not surprising) about the article is the amount of deception of the public. To me, that was the point of the article, really. It's so hard to know what is safe and unsafe.

As @bluestriped bee mentioned about Vietnam, I live in a developing country where there is little awareness even about BPA. Like, in Mexico they're just now getting on the BPA-free bandwagon. Have people been perfectly happy and content using BPA-laden plastics? Of course, they have no idea. However, does that mean that a few years down the line, they won't have the health problems associated with BPA and whatever else? I wouldn't put any money on that as this is sort of a multigenerational problem according to the research. Remember that plastics were not used on a wide scale in developing countries as early as they were in the US.

@looch: we have plastic recycling and there is still a surprising amount of plastic in the day to day. At the supermarket half of the produce is sold prepackaged in those plastic containers, which drives me crazy, and for yogurt, maybe only 20% of the selection is in glass.

@SugarplumsMom: I couldn't find a link, but the brand is Trisa (Swiss). I remember that Delonghi had some cool design-y all metal ones, but they were more than I wanted to pay.

@wonderstruck: You are my hero for this post. I've been feeling like a bad parent because I just can't handle changing our plastic use, on top of everything else. Now I feel better!

@wonderstruck: Yep, agreed. I'm gonna pick my battles...this isn't one of them.

@sugarplumsmom My parents, my aunt, and i all use this and we dont even drink coffee. It heats up really fast and we use it for tea and boiled water. http://www.amazon.com/Farberware-FCP240-2-4-Cup-Percolator-Stainless/dp/B00008ELEA/ref=sr_1_cc_3?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1393957408&sr=1-3-catcorr&keywords=Faberware

@wonderstruck: totally agree. I read this post yesterday, went home and fed my kid her dinner on her plastic tray from the Target dollar spot. She also drank out of her plastic sippy cups. I do my part by only warming things in glass or ceramic but I'm not going out to replace everything I own because of one study. Everything could possibly give us cancer one day. I have enough things to worry about in my life, I don't need to add more.

We try to live zero waste but that actually means we have more plastic in our life....because we can reuse it (example: yogurt tubs). I have wanted to upgrade to glass containers but we would need hundreds of dollars worth because we freeze a ton of food. For now I try to stick to containers marked with a 5, because 5 is supposed to be food safer than other types. But after reading this article I did drop by TJM today and got some glass containers; hopefully over time we can phase out the other stuff we have or use it only for freezing.

I agree with other posters that you cannot avoid everything ; in fact , plastic is used in an attempt to avoid other problems (spoilage, bacteria, etc.) that I am sure caused serious health problems before plastic. That being said, only conscientious consumption will encourage companies to offer safer products so I like to buy for that reason. It is amazing what is on the market right now that wasn't available 20 years ago (even that plastic is labeled is amazing) and that is due to consumer demand.

I am planning to buy LO some stainless plates and straws tonight!

I try to steer clear from any plastic that is unlabeled, because that means it is a proprietary formula like triton or whatever tervis uses. Whereas the formulas for 1, 2, and 5 are standard and transparent. Not to mention non-labeled plastics aren't recyclable.

I hate to bring this thread back to life (but not enough to shut up), but this article just popped up on my FB feed:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/guide-estrogen-common-plastics-bpa
I am 100% sure there is a better article out there with the same information, but the comments are cracking me up. I'm SO glad HB isn't so mean!

It's another scare-the-reader article, but it was an interesting read to get me thinking about the different types of plastics and what they're made of. The article makes it seem as if styrofoam is actually better than most of the other plastics, and I would have said it was worse!

Looks like snapware and take & toss plastic are both a 5....that helps

FWIW, some of the takeaways from my research are to use alternatives (glass/stainless) for hot/acidic/oily items that are more likely to promote leaching, and for longer term storage like dry pantry staples. And to handwash plastics to reduce degradation. I can handle that!