DEHP can be found in carpets, plastic toys for children, and dog toys. Humans are also exposed by eating microwaved food stored in plastic containers.
Stay away from microwaved food. Keep dogs away from plastic toys.
There was a woman a while back to went to extreme measures to avoid plastics. After 1 year of doing everything she could to avoid plastics, they STILL found plasticizers in her blood. Wish I could find the article...
1) Write your politicians about plastic overuse; 2) Vote based on whether they reply and how; 3) Tell your friends how you will vote and why
Without some form of action in support of changing our approach to plastics, you'll continue being exposed to plastics and any potential effects thereof, no matter what steps you try to take to avoid them personally.
Food microwaved in borosilicate glass food containers is unlikely to pick up plasticizers.
The challenge increases when you realize that a lot of canned foods have a plastic coating inside, to protect the can metal from corrosion by the canning liquid, particularly when that liquid is acidic, as with tomatoes or carbonated beverages.
I suppose you have to lobby your legislators to pass food safety laws that prohibit polymers and epoxies based on bisphenol-A to be in contact with foods or beverages, specifically, and generally any other substances proven to leach endocrine disruptors into food or beverage under typical handling and storage conditions.
Some food and beverage companies have identified this as a problem and are attempting to fix it in their own supply, but the majority of canned foods still have BPA-epoxy can linings, and most foods with a cardboard outer packaging also have a plastic inner packaging. Then there are the foods directly packaged in plastic containers. PET (1), HDPE (2), LDPE (4), and PP (5) are probably safe over the timespan you will be using them, but PVC (3), PC (7), and PS (6) may leach plasticizers into your consumables that mimic or interfere with the natural signaling chemicals in your body. The recycling symbol is no guarantee. Organic chemistry can produce a lot of different chemicals in very common environmental conditions; that's why life is based on it in the first place. You can still do things to a "safe" plastic to produce unwanted reaction products.
If you buy foods in glass, silicone (polysiloxane), or stainless steel, you're probably okay. Ceramics and stoneware might leach heavy metal ions, but you're probably safe from any unwanted organic molecules.
Brands that find this to be important will probably advertise as "BPA-free". Just don't touch that receipt printed at the point-of-sale terminal. Brands that sell directly to consumers are more likely to go BPA-free than those who supply food-service companies like Sysco or Aramark. So buying from the grocery store is more predictable than eating at a contractor-run eatery.
It's way too much cognitive overhead for a typical person, though. This is a job for a cartel enforcer. So either a privately-run food-safety testing union that controls an independent trademark, licensed to those who pass the tests--like UL is for electrified appliances--or the heavy hand of government.
Regarding "BPA free" products, aren't they using some other synthetic BPA chemicals that have unstudied health risks, simply to be able to claim they are "BPA free"?
Just make sure you don't use Pyrex if you want to use borosilicate glass. Unless it's decades old, Pyrex isn't borosilicate any more, even though they charge prices as if they were. It's a total rip-off. To get borosilicate these days, it seems you have to buy it from China.
Stay away from food microwaved in plastic containers?
Note that I still have a plastic top on the container but:
A: You don't have to microwave with that top, you could use some other cover.
B: I am less concerned (possibly incorrectly) with microwaving plastics if they're not in contact with my food.
Can anyone comment on B? Is it safe to microwave plastics if they're not touching food?
Depends how things leach out of the plastics. Is it outgassing?
Contact will cause much more absorption.
For the same reasons, heating soup will absorb a lot more than a salad without dressing.
Glass also won’t absorb some of your foods. Happens a lot with tomato sauces and plastic.
On the positive side, reused plastic is probably safer than fresh plastic, since more of the easily liberated fragments will have already broken free.
leave a plastic lid infused with tomato sauce for at least 4 hours in the mid-day sun and it can get rid of the stain
30 percent is a lot for such low levels of the chemicals.
Unfortunately, the non-plastic one I bought two years ago has already died, so maybe there's something to the casing.
Plastic takes a long time to visibly degrade and is pretty smooth using cheap processes.
Anyone have a safer method of brewing coffee? Like boil water in a glass Pyrex beaker and some sort of glass French press/glass aeropress?
The coffee tastes good, they are cheap (assuming you get a cheap one, which works just as well as an expensive one), they last for a long time and you can find them everywhere
So maybe it's just the brand. I did pay about $50 which is a little expensive but not extremely, and it's lasted over 10 years already.
Walking along carpet dusts up whatever is in the carpet with every step.
Why? If your dog is a pet, it should be neutered. Sperm quality shouldn't be an issue.
Unless you're not a sperm producer, then you can eat all the plastic you want.