Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Plastic- Sleep Soundly

For the past few weeks, I've had a lot on my mind. Plastic. I have a jumbo box of plastic out in the garage just waiting to go into to town to be recycled. Plastic from milk jugs. Plastic from pop (soda) bottles. Plastic from medicine containers. Plastic from laundry soap.

How green am I?

Not so much. It's embarrassing.

I've been re-using my water bottles. Then, one day, my mom told me to stop. "You know, reusing water bottles can cause cancer."

"What?"

That just sounded nuts to me. My mom is the queen of water bottles. She buys great big packs every week.

My theory is that the marketing departments at the Water Bottle Companies decided to scare the crap out of us all so we'd keep buying more of their product instead of reusing this inert product. Nothing better than scaring soccer moms to selling more of your crap, right?

I went home and researched. All the evidence I saw pointed out that plastic was safe.

I called my mom.

"Mom it's a hoax. You can reuse your water bottles."

"Yeah, but can you trust your girl's health to that?" Geez, she got me right where it hurts.

So, I took out the big guns. I asked my friend, Bellhop, who's dad is an oncologist. This is what he said:

"I think he tends to use polycarbonate bottles ("Nalgene") (i.e. Plastic) or aluminum flasks."

Then he went on to say that his wife (who is now an animator- how cool is that?) used to be environmental toxicologist, focusing on human health risk assessment.

Bellhop's answer?

"Per V's friend, no significant toxicity risk.

Sleep soundly :) "

I got my answer. At least, I can sleep soundly and perhaps a little more greenly.

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