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The Beginning of the End of BPA
Janelle Sorensen
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Six new companies (Playtex Products Inc., Gerber, Evenflo Co., Avent America Inc., Dr. Brown, and Disney First Years) have announced that they will stop selling baby bottles and other children’s products that are made with BPA. Just a week after this announcement, one manufacturer of the controversial chemical pledged not to sell it for use in some products for children.
In fact, Sunoco, who makes 240 million tons of the plastic per year and has long defended its safety, is requiring its customers to guarantee that the BPA sold to them would not be used to make food and beverage containers for children under age three. “We will no longer sell BPA to customers who cannot make this promise,” wrote Sunoco spokesman Thomas Golembeski in a letter to shareholders last week, according to the Journal Sentinel.
Simultaneously, lawmakers across the country are reviewing bans on products containing the risky chemical. Suffolk County in New York has voted to ban the sale of infant and toddler drinking items that contain BPA. The chairman of the Health and Social Services Committee from neighboring Nassau County plans to introduce a similar ban.
The New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Minnesota and California, state legislatures are also considering similar measures. Meanwhile, Canada declared BPA a toxin last year and began drafting regulations to prohibit the importation, sale and advertising of baby bottles that contain the chemical.
The true pièce de résistance is the federal legislation recently introduced into Congress, the Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009 which would end the use of the additive in all plastic packaging and other food containers, not just those used by children.
The Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009 requires that:
- Reusable beverage containers (including baby bottles and thermoses) that contain BPA cannot be sold;
- Other food and beverage containers (such as canned food or formula) containing BPA cannot be introduced into commerce.
- If a manufacturer can show that there is no technology available to make a particular food or beverage without the use of BPA, the FDA can issue renewable one-year waivers to the ban for that particular food or beverage. However, the food or beverage container must be labeled indicating that BPA was used. The manufacturer also must submit a proposal for how it plans to comply with the ban in the future.
- The FDA also must periodically review the list of substances that have been deemed safe for manufacturing food and beverage containers, to determine whether new scientific evidence exists that these substances may pose adverse health risks.
This legislation will not preempt stronger state standards. The ban would take effect 180 days from enactment of the legislation.
You can help pass this broad-reaching ban on BPA by sending an email to your elected officials.
Posted by Nicole Lucas Haimes on 04/01 at 12:31 PM
Ban BPA now!
Posted by Rick on 04/02 at 03:18 PM
This sounds like a positive move, right..?! Well, if you really believe these purveyors of plastic profits at the expense of children’s health have all of the sudden “seen the light” and now will promote children’s health first and harmful chemical-laced product profits second are more gullible than they should be.
Glass and Stainless Steel. Period. Wake up and shut these plastic profiteers down. They really don’t deserve applause for the many years they have been knowingly jeopardizing our health and the health of our children and planet for the build up of the corporate plutocracy and their greedy shareholders.
PLEASE wake up to their trickery and manipulation. Down with plastic whenever possible. Drink out of glass and stainless steel.
Posted by Janelle on 04/03 at 03:49 PM
We do recommend people avoid plastic (particularly in regards to food and beverages) whenever possible. We are fully aware that industry generally opts for profits over health or the environment and that is why we have always pursued stronger public policies. I’m sorry if you feel we are gullible or that we are not “awake.” Quite the opposite is true.
Thank you for reminding our readers that glass and stainless steel are the safest options for food and beverages.
Posted by rick on 04/05 at 01:00 PM
Janelle,
please accept my apologies for coming off as indicting you or healthy child as gullible. I am a huge fan of the work you do. It has been difficult to watch the plastics industry worm and weasel out of any responsibility to their poisoning of our children, selves, and planet, and then all of the sudden get a “free pass” when they “get on board” with “bpa Free” plastics under questionable, if any independent, science to back it up… Firstly, I highly doubt that these “bpa free” labels are true, secondly, the chemicals that still comprise whatever these plastics are made of have not been proven to be “Risk free” to human health or the environment. I don’t believe there should ever be a hooray! for sunoco, playtex, gerber, avent, etc…
What replaced bpa and why should I believe it to be safe?? Am I to put my faith in Triton (Kodak?) for instance..?
Thank you for your work! for children and planet!
Rick
Posted by Martin at PlasticLess on 03/29 at 03:16 PM
Wait, aren’t soft drink cans lined with BPA containing plastic? I think this law is doomed. It would cost Coca-Cola and Pepsico much less to kill this than it would cost them to use an alternative to the BPA leeching can lining.
A very vocal outcry from the public MIGHT make the difference.