Why don't we all just put our shotguns in our mouths? That's what we are doing en masse anyway.

A thought - In a million years a large embankment slids from a mountain side during a particularly heavy storm, exposing the perfectly preserved bodies of hundreds of humans in varying ages. Scientists have determined these humans had lived around 2020. The bodies were found to be made up of three fourths plastics, which history reports was a large part of the diet of people living then. Along with the plastics in their food supply, they found unimaginable amounts of chemicals that were used in the plastic eating and drinking vessels, along with the concoctions meant to kill the lesser life forms thought of as pests. The bodies found are believed to be a small group reported in 2010 who'd left civilized life, determined to live close to the earth as their distant ancestor had done. Unfortunately, it appears the damage had already been done, and nothing they might have done could have reversed that.

Around 1978, Coca-Cola introduced their "new plastic bottle". So for 30 years now, we have all been ingesting these chemicals. Is not the purpose of the FDA to protect us from these things?

I guess we are just guinea pigs in Monsanto, Dow, et al's grand experiment.

It is time to ban these plastic bottles and bring back the reusable glass deposit bottles. And it would better for us all if we cut back on soda and bottled water anyway.

The bright side is, people who care so little about the enviornment that they buy plastic drinking water, will not reproduce as much.

Use water filters, there are even pen sized UV devices for Restaurant water glasses.

Giam has a good selection.

The right wing seems so obsessed with their macho issues so it should not be attacking gay marriage; it should be attacking plastic water bottles!

Environmental Working Group published their similar study with great fanfare more than a year ago. EWG.org. According to EWG, the largest exposure to BPA comes from canned food. 99% of cans have plastic linings which contain BPA, and since food is heated during the canning process MUCH MORE BPA leeches into canned food than leeches from plastic water bottles into water.

Also, the above article is confusing because it suggests that plastic water bottles are made of polycarbonate. Only reusable plastic bottles are polycarbonate (SPI code 7). Throwaway plastic bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (SPI code 1), which does not contain BPA.

However, polyethylene terephthalate, or PETE, does contain other harmful chemicals. Of course, plastic water bottles are also an environmental disaster. 80 million of them are thrown away every day, according to "Waste Not Want Not," in the May/June issue of Mother Jones.

I don't eat canned food, and I don't buy water in plastic bottles. I use a Kleen Kanteen stainless steel water bottle (with a stainless steel cap). I fill it with triple-filtered tap water, and am looking forward to buying a home water distiller.

They all loved techno-science, or technology, as they more often called it. They wrote hundreds of thousands of articles, books, and scholarly studies about, and devoted innumerable television and radio shows and news items to it. Universities organized debates and colloquia about technology. Technology was all the rage for about one hundred years. Then, its side-effects, of which they were so many as to be countless, started taking their deadly toll, and within a couple of decades most of the worshippers of technology had been decimated. Dear students, that is the origin of our word 'techno' as meaning 'dead' or 'death'.

Next time, dear students, I shall begin the account of the history of earthlings after the age of technology, the age, that is, of science-induced death and destruction.

Convenience comes at a price.

Everything, no exception, that comes in a bottle, can or package is harmful. Everything.

IF WE WERE A DEMOCRACY...

we wouldn't be poisoning ourselves. But as we all know, the same companies who profit by poisoning air, water, climate and our bodies also own the media and our government.

Real democracy and real socialism are interdependent. A real democracy wouldn't allow a minority of capitalists to hold the power of life and death over our lives and over the life of our planet.

Capitalists are killing us in more ways than we even know about. I know that many of you are thinking that the Soviet Union was at least as poisonous as the corporatocracy. True, but the USSR wasn't socialist; it was state capitalist. The state acted as a capitalist over everyone.

In democratic socialism local workers' councils and community councils control production, and are the foundation of the government. As is beginning to happen in Venezuela. We start our revolution by organizing for democratic community and solidarity where we work and where we live. If we can't do it, the 21st century will see a greater collapse of population than the 14th (from bubonic plague).

How about our milk too? That's in a plastic container most of the time as well.

PS. Hydrogenated Oil is in most food we eat.

The process to make Hydrogenated oil is to heat the oil to a temperature very high and then let it cool down, which in turn allows the products shelf life to increase.

But our body's never reach that high a temp, which in turn means we are unable to burn off that kind of oil and fat.

Now you now why America is so fat.

Well, plastic is a convenient substance, using it for what ever and especially easy to just throw away, styrofoam really makes it easy to feed a family, much like octomom's, and then just throw it in the can to get hauled away where is will somehow make it out to the pacific island twice the size of texas made of pure non-degradable substances, geezus crist damnit we are a fine bunch of stewards of this planet ain't we? And so what if some of those chemicals end up in our bodies, those are just temporary anyway.

But, I would advize us to save those glass jars contanters and jugs because those will be collector's items in a decade or so.

What's with the transphobic headline?

BPA is the tip of the iceberg. We always hear about the valiant effort to find a cure for cancer. What about a more direct approach and look for the cause? That is strictly off limits as industrial capitalism itself would be the culprit. Capitalism isn't just anti-democratic, it's toxic!

if one has a look at the origins of BPA, it was first developed as a synthetic estrogen in the 30's. but it had nasty side effects.

then decades later they found it made pastic easier to make.

[http://www.ewg.org/reports/bpatimeline

Whatever happened to ceramic jars, jugs and cups?

A great spill-proof to-go container is a ceramic Hussong's Tequila jug. It's got a cork cap - way easier than a screw-on lid. You can find them at any liquor store.

But of course you must first drink all the Tequila. No problema! Have a margarita party! Ole!

Fiesta! Fiesta!

mankind. the only animal to foul his own nest. knowingly.

samosamo - already the old ball canning jars are increasingly difficult to find, and when found, bring a premium price. especially the blue and green ones, pint size.

If America had a Universal Single Payer health care system
then our elected officials would be responsible for curing
the damage this sort of corporate poisoning has caused.

Excellent comments and info here, thank you, and I wonder if anyone knows if hard plastic, as opposed to the softer reusable water bottles, also leeches BPA into the water? We filter our water into a hard plastic Brita pitcher, and then store the filtered water in the frig in a hard plastic jug. Do these hard plastic containers also have the same problems with BPA as the soft plastic containers?

Also, I wonder what this portends for the future of recycled bricks made from discarded plastic containers for building construction -- will BPA or other lethal chemicals be leaking into the home as the bricks are heated by the sun?

rsj,

i'm not sure about the plastics leaking or out-gassing into the home environment, but it's a known fact that, as homes continue being built tighter, harmful chemicals in lumbers, carpets, waxes, glues, sealants, etc. increase health risks for occupants of said homes.

if you are near one, or have the opportunity, go check out a straw bale home. if built correctly, not only will you see the difference in sound green building practices, but you will also smell and feel the difference.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/medical/a/bottled-water.htm

Please note that the plastic used in the manufacture of pre-packaged, disposable water bottles is different from those believed to pose a human health threat in other applications, such as baby bottles, plastic children's toys, and reusable sports water bottles. For example, disposable water bottles don't contain bisphenol A (BPA), about which human safety concerns have been raised.

Those poor people on the island on LOST (ABC)..they have been reusing plastic drinking bottles for their entire stay. Maybe THAT'S the reason for all of the weirdness:-)

Here's what I managed to Google on plastics containing BPA, and it's similar to what has already been posted here. I'm including a few brief paragraphs and the links for further reading.

"There are seven classes of plastics used in packaging applications. Type 7 is the catch-all "other" class, and some type 7 plastics, such as polycarbonate (sometimes identified with the letters "PC" near the recycling symbol) and epoxy resins, are made from bisphenol A monomer. When such plastics are exposed to hot liquids, bisphenol A leaches out 55 times faster than it does under normal conditions, at up to 32 ng/hour.[clarification needed](in an 8 ounce glass, boiling for an hour will give concentrations of 29 parts per trillion) Type 3 (PVC) [poly-vinyl chloride] can also contain bisphenol A as antioxidant in plasticizers. Types 1 (PET), 2 (HDPE), 4 (LDPE), 5 (polypropylene), and 6 (polystyrene) do not use bisphenol A during polymerization or package forming."
-- From Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A#Identification_in_plastics

"Findings of low-dose effects from BPA are controversial not just because they could damage the plastics industry, but because they also call into doubt long-held beliefs about measuring risk from any kind of chemical exposure. Generations of toxicologists have been taught that “the dose makes the poison”— that the impact of a chemical will be strongest at high doses and will decrease in proportion to a decrease in dose. Below some threshold level, there should be no biological effects at all. But according to Welshons, such assumptions are wrong when it comes to chemicals that imitate hormones, because the endocrine system is designed to respond to small, subtle changes in hormone concentrations—far below doses used in traditional toxicity testing.
"Industry scientists note that researchers still have not proven that BPA affects humans, and they question whether the results of mouse studies are relevant. Welshons and Hunt find that argument odd, given that BPA was developed in the 1930s as a synthetic estrogen for people. After a rival drug, diethylstilbestrol (DES), proved to be a stronger estrogen mimic, BPA was shelved until an inventive chemist realized it could be used to form a plastic polymer. “Nobody should be surprised,” says Hunt, “that a chemical designed as a synthetic estrogen can disrupt the endocrine system.”
-- Sharon Levy, " Protecting Yourself From Unsafe Plastics," National Wildlife Federation, May 2004.
http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?articleId=890&issueId=66

"While most of the focus is on products for children, including clear plastic bottles and canned infant formula, the chemical is also used in food-storage containers, some clear plastic pitchers used for filtered water, refillable water bottles and the lining of soft-drink and food cans." [...]
"How much BPA are we exposed to? BPA migrates into food from polycarbonate plastic bottles or the epoxy resin coatings that line canned food. The typical adult ingests an estimated 1 microgram of BPA for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight. Babies who use polycarbonate bottles and formula from cans get more, an estimated 10 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. A microgram represents a trace amount. Consider this: a single M&M is about a gram. If you cut it into 100,000 slices, one slice would equal about 10 micrograms." [...]
"Any product made of hard, clear plastic is probably made from polycarbonate unless the manufacturer specifically states that it’s BPA-free. One way to check is to look for the triangle stamp on or near the bottom: polycarbonate plastics should have the numeral 7 in the triangle, sometimes with the letters PC." [...]
"What about canned food and drinks? While much of the focus is on plastic bottles, most human exposure occurs through the lining of canned foods. Canned beverages appear to contain less of the chemical than canned foods like soup, pasta, fruits and vegetables, which are often processed at high temperatures. Virtually every canned product, even those labeled organic, has a liner with BPA."
-- Tara Parker-Pope, "A Hard Plastic Is Raising Hard Questions," NY Times, April 22, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/health/22well.html

Bisphenol A FAQs, from the CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/01/28/f-health-bisphenol.html

Environmental Working Group Bisphenol A Tips
http://www.ewg.org/bisphenol-a-info

I was wrong in my earlier comments -- I thought BPA was in soft plastics -- instead it is in the hard, shatterproof variety. Well, time to get some new glass pitchers for my water and it's just my luck to have a pantry filled with canned soup.

It has been known for years that plastics mimic hormones in the human body. HOWEVER, there are places in the U$A where tap water from private wells, even when filtered, is not safe to drink, and there is NO access to a public water supply. The location of public water lines is a political decision.

I have been carrying ALL of my drinking water home for 25 years now. The only way to purchase it is in plastic bottles - unless you have the income necessary to have a water service deliver the large glass bottles.

I do not live in the boondocks. I live in a town - just 100 feet off an interstate main road where the municipal water line is located. Too bad we can't have some of that bailout money to extend the municipal water line down my street. There are many households like mine. All over the US, public water supply delivery lines need to be extended to include more households.

Anyone who thinks tap water from a public source is not acceptable, should try water from private wells in my area. It is not safe for human consumption.

check out what the town of Pa'ai (Maui) did voluntarily to eliminate plastic bags... nice to see people taking on these possibilities... i know it's not bottles but shows that some business people will even pay to help clean up the environment, that we can make a change. cool article.

http://www.hanahou.com/pages/Magazine.asp?Action=DrawArticle&ArticleID=731&MagazineID=46

They didn't mention the level of BPA that is considered dangerous so while the level were raised by 2/3 in the study, it might have been a micro fraction or a nano fraction of the danger level - we don't know because we're taught to ask no questions.

The other question is what are the residuals in the other materials? It's not like they are 100% pure. They can contain all kinds of heavy metals, etc. If we weren't so busy being the world's policeman we could actually perform some comprehensive tests of all materials. Aim high people!

Wood is a good material for food. Wooden bowls and cups.

I have read all of this and I still am not clear which plastic bottles are the bad ones?

I don't understand much anymore. Life gets so confusing.

Are water fountains okay? Here in Berkeley, I used to fill my hard plastic, sports-like, reusable water bottle at my neighborhood Peets. Peets used to have a water faucet that anyone could use to fill a glass or bottle and they provided paper cups. A few weeks ago, they removed all the water faucets. They will still fill your water bottle or give you a cup of water but people can't use, the, um, water fountain?

And what municipality maintains water fountains anymore?!!

People need water, need to lift it to their lips but what the heck are we supposed to use? Water fountains and faucets not safe in public? Plastic not safe?

At home, I can drink form a glass, filter my tap water.

but when I am out and about what is the right thing to do?

I drink a lot of water. I have diabetes and need lots of water. Plus I exercise a lot, a couple hours daily (I swim an hour, bike to and from the pool, don't own a car and walk). I need to drink water.

So I have a water bottle with me.

I had a pretty pink 32 ounce hard plastic bottle. I think it was one of the bad ones. I bought it at STarbucks cause it was pink. I got some carabiner clamps so I could drape the water bottle from my ever-present messenger bag. Since I don't own a car, I can't keep stuff in the back seat. I keep a sweater, sunglasses, socks (this is the bay area, it gets cold out of the blue), protein (usually packets of nuts), wallet, ipod and bus pass in my bag. . . and the water bottle. The bottle sweats so I like to clip it to the outside of my bag on the clamp/clips I buy at REI.

last week, after three years of daily use, my pink water bottle started to leak. I tossed it in a public trash can in San Francisco, only later did it occur to me that maybe I shoulda recycled it but I don't think Berkeley would recycle llit. Who knows?

And then I bought a stainless steel water bottle and I will use it for a few years. I know it would be best for the earth if I never ever buy another one, and this could last a lifetime but I will probably lose it, hopefully not for a long time cause it cost forty bucks. But I am human. Flawed.

It's not my imagination, right? I need water. If I leave my home at 9 a.m. and don't return until, let's say, 4 p.m and I exercise for a couple hours and walk a lot cause I don't own a car, I need water and restaurants in the bay area tend to refuse to give nonpaying people glasses of water. . . it is so easy to have a bottle of water with me and it used to be easy to fill it at Peets before the city made them remove the public water spigots.

life is so fucking complex. Water?

and we are lucky in this country. at least most tap water is safe. what about people without safe drinking water?

ack!! stop the world and let me off.