Solutions to the current BPA bombardment....

Is BPA the only harmful product in plastics?

Any plastic when heated is definitely NOT A GOOD THING, for the ozone layer, or yourself or children. Absolutely never ever microwave plastics or use your stove to heat food with plastics….. lol…. I would like to see you try…. (just kidding, don’t try it for everyone’s sake, :P). We have stopped using plastic containers for food, and with the availability of glass food storage containers these days, it is quite easy to find simple solutions to this problem. As well, we don’t buy water bottles made from plastic anymore because even when they are sitting in a car in the sun, they have the potential to leak carcinogenic substances into your drink. Yuck!

And always remember, not only are these products harmful directly to our bodies, but as they say in advertisements, these products also sit in landfills forever and ever more. If the harm for your body is not motivation enough to think about this…. Maybe the landfill story is (for any of you who saw WALL-E, do we really want to get to that point…)?

Today’s topic: BPA, what’s the deal?

We set out this week to learn about the harm of different kinds of plastics, and with all of the “hullabaloo” around BPA lately, we thought this would be a great place to start!

BPA (Bisphenol A) can mimic the body’s hormones and possibly (more possibly than ever thought before) can cause negative health effects. Concerns are that long term low dose exposure to BPA can cause chronic toxicity in humans. Chronic toxicity can lead to diseases such as cancer, liver disease, kidney failure, reproductive organ dysfunction, heart disease, diabetes, and other malignancies. Do we really wanna risk it? So this is the reason that there has been such a popular “hype” around BPA lately. BPA has been known to leach from plastic linings of canned foods and in plastics that are cleaned with detergents (so…. Putting plastics such as cottage cheese containers into the dishwasher and then reusing them as food containers will allow BPA to leach into stored foods once washed…. Simple solution: Instead of reusing them for food storage, recycle!).


Where can we find BPA?

Types 1,2,4,5,6 DO NOT USE BPA DURING PRODUCTION OR PACKAGING!
HOWEVER, TYPES 7 AND 3 CAN CONTAIN BPA. ‘
Every company that produces plastic does it their own way, so we recommend simply being cautious of how you use plastic in your lives.

Email us at fightingfootprints@gmail.com between now and Sunday February 1st to tell us how you use and recycle (or not) plastics in your life, and our most loved entry will win a green-inspired gift!

Love Heather and Chanel

The continuation of one (mugs)... beginning of another (bottles)!

BPA to the beebop! Nevermind... DON'T be beebopping to BPA or other plastic bottles this week!

This week we are setting out to discuss how we can be informed consumers when it comes to products packaged in plastic bottles.

BPA-free bottles is the new rage, and this week we are determined to find out exactly what is BPA? HDPE? PETE? And why are they harmful to us and the environment? What do those pesky codes on the bottom of plastic products actually mean? Are they meant to be understood by commoners like us? Tonnnnnes of questions, so little time!

We feel plastic has multiple negatives because of it's harm to our environment (accumulation in landfills, etc.) and because of it's impact on our bodies. This is why we are setting out to explore this topic in detail instead of blindly following the trends...

Do you make a conscious effort to avoid BPA, etc products, or plastic bottles in general? To get us started, we need to know what products you use to carry food, water, and others in... Are you on the Glass, Aluminum, Stainless train? Let us know why!

This week will hopefully be informative... please learn along with us!

Here is an earth shattering stat to get us started (literally, it may shatter the earth):

• 3% of household plastic bottles are currently recycled (that means 97% ARE NOT and are sitting in our landfills)

More to come, stay tuned!

Heather and Chanel... ggg... girls going green (or trying to at least)