Friday, April 18, 2008

Earth-friendly Living Tips: This Week in Plastic News

Plastics: Adored, Deplored and Ubiquitous - New York Times:

The author agrees we need to use less plastic bags but then asks: "Now tell me this: What am I supposed to line my garbage cans with?"

I also think this statement is true. If you look around, almost everything is plastic.
"We adore plastics for their versatility, lightness, strength and affordability, and it seems we can’t get enough: the United States produced 6.5 billion pounds of raw plastic in December alone, up 2.3 percent from a year earlier. We deplore plastics for being cheap petroleum products and fear we’ll never get rid of them."
The article then goes into what is being done to create non-petroleum based plastics.

Bag Monsters to educate shoppers on evils of plastic bags- Gristmill:

The bag monsters, made of 350 plastic bags (amount an average family of four uses in four months) will be handing out educational material and reusable totes at malls across the country.

The project is sponsored by the cosmetics company Lush, and the bag monsters will be making an appearance at malls in NYC, LA, Carmel, Pasadena, Aspen, Boulder, Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, Portland, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

U.S. health agency says ubiquitous chemical may harm kiddos- Gristmill:

"A U.S. federal agency has declared that there is "some concern" that chemical bisphenol A can harm the development of children's brains and reproductive systems...
BPA can seep from hard plastic beverage containers, including baby bottles, and was detected in the urine of 93 percent of participants in a recent study. In light of the NTP report, congressional Democrats are asking the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its view that BPA is safe."
See our earlier posts on using less plastic.

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