As if anything more needed to be said after this:
http://fakeplasticfish.com/
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
A Small Victory!
Well, that was easy.
Last night my boyfriend informed me his office is ditching their water cooler (where will they gossip?) in favor of tap water. Turns out when he started examining the plastics he's surrounded by, he discovered the Crystal Geyser water jugs are made of Type 7 plastic.
A little bit of info on Type 7 plastic (from my trusty sources Wikipedia and the Series of Tubes they refer to as the "Internets"):
Type 7 is the dreaded "Other" plastic, often used for food containers and our recently dissed friend, Tupperware. It's really just a category for plastics that aren't #1-#6, and it cannot be recycled.* There are too many different variations of Type 7 plastic, so recycling centers can't separate them. Some Type 7s are made from bisphenal A monomer, or BPA. But, because they're the "Other" plastic, we can't know which ones.
So, get this: BPA is an endocrine disruptor (read: hormone mocker.) It's linked to early onset of puberty for females, bad moods, thyroid problems, breast cancer**, neurological issues including fetal and infant brain development, prostate development (bad!) and prostate cancer (worse!) and ... obesity.
Finally, a daily low dose of BPA in rats produced a permanent change to the genital tract.
So much for Tupperware parties.
Check your water coolers. The news is probably not good.
*Look for the upcoming post: What About Recycling?
** This one's important, and we'll see it recurring.
Last night my boyfriend informed me his office is ditching their water cooler (where will they gossip?) in favor of tap water. Turns out when he started examining the plastics he's surrounded by, he discovered the Crystal Geyser water jugs are made of Type 7 plastic.
A little bit of info on Type 7 plastic (from my trusty sources Wikipedia and the Series of Tubes they refer to as the "Internets"):
Type 7 is the dreaded "Other" plastic, often used for food containers and our recently dissed friend, Tupperware. It's really just a category for plastics that aren't #1-#6, and it cannot be recycled.* There are too many different variations of Type 7 plastic, so recycling centers can't separate them. Some Type 7s are made from bisphenal A monomer, or BPA. But, because they're the "Other" plastic, we can't know which ones.
So, get this: BPA is an endocrine disruptor (read: hormone mocker.) It's linked to early onset of puberty for females, bad moods, thyroid problems, breast cancer**, neurological issues including fetal and infant brain development, prostate development (bad!) and prostate cancer (worse!) and ... obesity.
Finally, a daily low dose of BPA in rats produced a permanent change to the genital tract.
So much for Tupperware parties.
Check your water coolers. The news is probably not good.
*Look for the upcoming post: What About Recycling?
** This one's important, and we'll see it recurring.
Friday, March 19, 2010
PlasticLand
Your average day in PlasticLand.
Turn off the plastic alarm. Stumble to the bathroom. Put two pieces of plastic in your eyes. Voila! The world is clear! PlasticLand! Brush your teeth with plastic. Wash your hair, your body, and your face with paraben soap steeped in plastic. Get dressed. Put on plastic shoes, a plastic hairtie, and a plastic watch.
For breakfast: cereal from a cardboard box with a plastic liner. Milk from a plastic bottle. A piece of fruit (hey! where's my plastic?!)
And etc, ad nauseum.
Plastic doesn't biodegrade, right? So it's made to stick around in some form. But plastic does not wear well. Plastic is like Living Forever. When examined closely, it's not really that pretty. Right now I'm examining a Ziploc bag. A nifty product. Waterproof. Clear. I can store the turkey sandwich I made in the morning in my Ziploc and eat it for lunch, the whole while having a nice view of my 'wich (and being confident it isn't switched for someone else's PB&J.) Then what happens to my Ziploc? I'm a good citizen of the earth, so I reuse my Ziploc. I rinse it out and put my uneaten half pear in it. (Soak in that plastic, pear! Soak it!) And once I've eaten my pear, maybe I use the bag to store my oil pastels when I travel. After that, it's pretty well used up. So what happens next to Mr. Ziploc? To the landfill. An object that will be on this earth forever (forever!) was useful for two months. The Material of Eternal Life is used to: create a one-time seal on a juice bottle; shrink-wrap fruit; satisfy your dog's chewing habit; and keep safe the sandwich you will eat in 3.5 hours.
Turn off the plastic alarm. Stumble to the bathroom. Put two pieces of plastic in your eyes. Voila! The world is clear! PlasticLand! Brush your teeth with plastic. Wash your hair, your body, and your face with paraben soap steeped in plastic. Get dressed. Put on plastic shoes, a plastic hairtie, and a plastic watch.
For breakfast: cereal from a cardboard box with a plastic liner. Milk from a plastic bottle. A piece of fruit (hey! where's my plastic?!)
And etc, ad nauseum.
Plastic doesn't biodegrade, right? So it's made to stick around in some form. But plastic does not wear well. Plastic is like Living Forever. When examined closely, it's not really that pretty. Right now I'm examining a Ziploc bag. A nifty product. Waterproof. Clear. I can store the turkey sandwich I made in the morning in my Ziploc and eat it for lunch, the whole while having a nice view of my 'wich (and being confident it isn't switched for someone else's PB&J.) Then what happens to my Ziploc? I'm a good citizen of the earth, so I reuse my Ziploc. I rinse it out and put my uneaten half pear in it. (Soak in that plastic, pear! Soak it!) And once I've eaten my pear, maybe I use the bag to store my oil pastels when I travel. After that, it's pretty well used up. So what happens next to Mr. Ziploc? To the landfill. An object that will be on this earth forever (forever!) was useful for two months. The Material of Eternal Life is used to: create a one-time seal on a juice bottle; shrink-wrap fruit; satisfy your dog's chewing habit; and keep safe the sandwich you will eat in 3.5 hours.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
60/40
Turns out 60% of what you put on your body gets absorbed through your skin.
I was visiting with friend and environmental sustainability consultant Rachael Dorsey McGowen recently and, after discussing the evils of parabens (more on that later,) we developed a motto: if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your body. And the inverse: if you wouldn't put it on your body, don't eat it. (This helps eliminate edible objects like, for instance, Doritos.)
The idea that 60% of anything I put on my body can be absorbed through my skin repulsed me. I licked my hand cream. Disgusting. I threw bottles of blue skin cleanser (from Bliss -- jam-packed with parabens, FYI) into the recycling. Bottles, bottles, bottles. So many bottles. So much plastic. If the creams I put on my skin were leaching into my body, are the chemicals in my plastics leaching into my food? My water? My body???
A Google later: Yes. They are.
Not only were the chemicals leaching into my food, which I was then happily ingesting, they were then mimicking estrogen in my body. MOCKING my estrogen.
Thus started Life After Plastic.
I was visiting with friend and environmental sustainability consultant Rachael Dorsey McGowen recently and, after discussing the evils of parabens (more on that later,) we developed a motto: if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your body. And the inverse: if you wouldn't put it on your body, don't eat it. (This helps eliminate edible objects like, for instance, Doritos.)
The idea that 60% of anything I put on my body can be absorbed through my skin repulsed me. I licked my hand cream. Disgusting. I threw bottles of blue skin cleanser (from Bliss -- jam-packed with parabens, FYI) into the recycling. Bottles, bottles, bottles. So many bottles. So much plastic. If the creams I put on my skin were leaching into my body, are the chemicals in my plastics leaching into my food? My water? My body???
A Google later: Yes. They are.
Not only were the chemicals leaching into my food, which I was then happily ingesting, they were then mimicking estrogen in my body. MOCKING my estrogen.
Thus started Life After Plastic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)