Wallet Mouth

Help CA say "See ya!" to PFCs

Some years ago, I started avoiding Teflon-coated cookware after hearing that the nonstick chemicals, while awfully convenient for cooking, are awful for human health. They're called perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), and it turns out that they're awful for the environment, too (especially if you're this species of turtle, or a pet bird).

So today, when I got an email from the Environmental Working Group informing me that PFCs are used in various types of grease-resistant food packaging (for things like microwavable popcorn, fast food, and pizza)—and that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to veto a bill in the California state legislature that would ban the use of PFCs in food packaging—I did the email's bidding, calling the gov and signing the petition. If you'd like to do the same, click here.

To me, the most irksome thing this battle has revealed is the fact that we have no way of knowing which specific packages contain PFCs. As this page from the Environmental Working Group's site puts it, "consumers are unfairly deprived of their essential right to know and to make informed, independent decisions.... [A] consumer going to the store would not know which brands to avoid because manufacturers are conveniently withholding this crucial information."

How about some legislation requiring transparency in this arena?

G, thanks!

Here's another case of a company changing a less-than-perfect behavior on its own just as I was starting to get a bee in my bonnet about it: We've been happily using gDiapers, which I've blogged about before, for six months now, but the other week, I noticed that the plastic packaging used for the product's flushable inserts had some misleading text on it. It said, "This Bag Is 100% Recyclable."

Um, no it's not.

Even in San Francisco's single-stream recycling system, plastic bags and films are a big no-no. And while some grocery stores accept plastic bags for recycling, the all-encompassing language in the gDiapers text was probably causing well-meaning but clueless parents to throw the bags into their curbside bins and gum up the machinery.

So I wrote gDiapers and asked what was going on. I pointed out that (as I blogged about in a recent post) the FTC's "Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims" consider calling plastic garbage bags recyclable to be a deceptive claim.

I got a nice reply from gDiapers acknowledging that yes, #4 plastic are tricky and are generally not intended for curbside programs. The statement also explained that the company knows plastic bags are not ideal from an environmental standpoint and is actively searching for a cost-effective compostable alternative that can stand up to the elements.

Meanwhile, the copy on the packaging changed! (I don't claim to take any credit for it, but what a coincidence!) It now reads, "For a happy planet, please recycle in communities where available." Much better.

A guilty pleasure no more

This week I've been pumping copy at one of my favorite clients, ReadyMade magazine. One of the great things about working there, as I do every couple of months during the production deadlines, is the office's proximity to VIK's Chaat Corner, a purveyor of delicious Indian food (the menu even includes masala dosas, much to my delight).

But there has always been a downside to my lunches there: no matter whether you were eating in or taking your food to go, the treats would always come in a nonrecyclable #6 polystyrene compartmentalized container. I tried washing off the containers and saving them, thinking perhaps I'd find some use for them later, but I never did. And since the editor-in-chief's attempt to get the restaurant to reuse one of its own containers was rebuffed, I never tried that, either.

Every time I ate at VIK's, I would look at the garbage can full of those plastic plates and despair. Then I'd toss my own and feel a terrible wave of guilt. But the food was so good and so cheap, I couldn't stop patronizing the place. I fantasized about starting a petition, but images of getting shooed away and told never to come back haunted me.

Once I asked the guy at the register why they didn't use real plates and a dishwasher. Too expensive, he replied. "But look at all this plastic that's just going to the landfill," I protested. "I for one would be happy to pay a little more, and I'm sure lots of other people feel the same way." This was, after all, Berkeley, the high altar of environmental activism. But he just gave me the Indian head nod/wiggle and suggested that I call the manager.

That was months ago. I've been busy with this parenthood thing. And besides, I first wanted to get info about Berkeley's composting program, because I'd heard from another restaurant that they actually got paid for their food scraps. So I emailed the city. Turns out, businesses get a 20 percent price break if they can use food waste recycling rather than refuse service. Fantastic! Hmm, but does that mean they can't have any non-food garbage? Clearly a phone call was in order.

But now comes the exciting part of my story: When I ate lunch at VIK's today (hunger having drowned out the little voice telling me to resist the restaurant's magnetic pull and stay true to my Wallet Mouth ideals), the food came in a ... paperboard container! My curry tasted so much better without the side order of guilt.

I didn't see any compost bins, however. Next time I'm there I'll make sure VIK's knows about the food-waste discount.

Amuse-bouche: Message in a bottle

I just learned, via the blog Fake Plastic Fish, that not long after my post about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, another journey to the North Pacific Gyre launched, this time on a vessel made in large part of plastic bottles. Read all about the educational effort buoying it here.

And enjoy this related graphic from Klas Ernflo, via Digg:

Garbage patch kids

I've been thinking about bags—and, more generally, plastic—a lot lately, and not just because of BPA.

For one thing, the final phase of San Francisco's plastic-bag ban just went into effect: as of yesterday, pharmacies can no longer hand out their heretofore fave kind of sack. For another, I just read this post from Sightline Daily (via Terrapass's blog), which contends that the importance of the paper vs. plastic choice is dwarfed by the choice of what you put in the bag.

That may be true in the embodied-energy sense—embodied energy being what's required to manufacture, supply to the point of use, and disassemble or dispose of something. But the unfortunate fact is that lots of bags and other plastic items never get properly disposed of (whatever that means) and instead end up polluting our oceans. A great number of them congregate in what's known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Two web videos explore that floating dump in compelling ways. The first episode of "Gorilla in the Greenhouse," SustainLane's web-video series for kids, raises awareness about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the evils of plastic pollution at the same time as it promotes eco-consciousness and action on the part of the next generation.

For the grown-up set, there's "Garbage Island," a 12-part VBS.TV series in which a group of "non-hippie environmentalists" takes a three-week boat trip to the North Pacific Gyre to find the garbage patch and analyze its waters. What surprised them (and me as well) was that the patch is not actually a visible clump the size of Texas; rather, it's a dense accumulation of debris (the size of Texas). "I came out here expecting to see a trash dump, with pieces you could pull out of the water," the narrator says. "But what I got was an even ruder awakening. Looking out, you don't see the garbage; most of the time you just see the water. But what's in the water is 1,000 times worse than a Coke bottle. It's every part of a Coke bottle busted down into a little digestible morsel."

The plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch disintegrates into its component polymers, and those broken-down bits act as a sponge for persistent organic pollutants. The horrifying realization is that the garbage patch represents much more than pollution; our castoffs have actually changed the composition of the ocean, in not-so-nice ways. As the narrator puts it, "It's not a matter of pulling shit out [of the water]; it's preparing our systems for the change that's on its way. It's part of the ocean now. We've consigned ourselves to eating our own shit." 

Pretty sobering stuff. In fact, you might want to watch the more-upbeat "Gorilla" afterward. That way you can imagine all the kiddies of today getting inspired, and then becoming savvy, and growing up to find ways to deal effectively with the change that's on its way.

More BPA resources

Two BPA-themed e-newsletters just landed in my in-box. The Center for a New American Dream’s dispatch mentions a helpful site, the Bisphenol A Portal, which compiles news reports about the endocrine-disrupting chemical. Particularly helpful is the site’s Smart Plastics Guide (pdf), which breaks down what all those numbers on plastic containers mean and gives tips on how to avoid BPA.

The most recent e-newsletter from the Environmental Working Group’s points to the BPA cheatsheet on its Enviroblog. Interestingly, the central graphic used on that page is a water bottle made by Nalgene, which recently announced that it will phase out production of BPA-containing bottles.

BPA blowup

Finally the mainstream media is talking about bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in many plastics, in light of a new brief by the National Toxicology Program that expresses concern over the substance. As the report puts it, “the possibility that bisphenol A may impact human development cannot be dismissed.”

It’s especially nice to see more light being shed on the fact that the FDA based its sketchy “BPA is safe” stance on two studies funded by the plastic industry [link], ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies that raised red flags about BPA.

In my recent post about the chemical, I expressed surprise to learn that it’s found not only in baby bottles but also in aluminum food cans and beverage cans and bottles. Turns out it’s in numerous other everyday objects, such as CDs, too. Today's Washington Post story on the issue quotes an overseer of the report as saying, “It’s everywhere.... Your cell phone is probably made out of it.”

In Canada, as the New York Times reports, the government is expected to label it toxic in the coming days. Meanwhile, big retailers there, such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, are already pulling BPA-containing products from their shelves.

Much of the focus in recent reports is on BPA’s presence in baby bottles, sippy cups, and infant formula containers. That’s as it should be, since developing bodies are more affected by endocrine disruptors than adult bodies are.

The Washington Post story points out that BornFree, a company that makes BPA-free baby bottles, can’t keep up with demand. I don’t know about other parents, though, but I’m sticking to glass bottles. Today it’s BPA, but tomorrow...?

FDA: WTF?

More bisphenol A blues: This story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the FDA deemed BPA to be safe at current exposure levels based on two studies ... paid for by an arm of the trade group the American Chemistry Council.

Endocrine disruptor in a can

The new issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter just arrived, and one of the articles talks about bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor that’s found in polycarbonate, which is commonly used to make plastic cutlery, sippy cups, and baby bottles. For those who don’t know what exactly endocrine disruptors are (I didn’t), they’re substances that mimic hormones (estrogen, in BPA’s case), thereby messing with the endocrine system, which regulates reproductive and developmental processes.

Scientists are divided on which particular health ills can be attributed to BPA—some believe it’s associated with increased rates of breast and prostate cancer, early-onset puberty, type 2 diabetes, and ADHD; others simply worry that it may affect the maturing brain in unspecified ways—but I say, why wait to find out? The article quotes the National Institute of Environmental Health Science’s Chris Portier as saying that “there’s sufficient evidence now to give people who want to be prudent—especially parents—a reason to avoid BPA.”

I’d vaguely heard of BPA as something to avoid in plastic water bottles (I’ve consequently said good-bye to my old Nalgenes and bought some Klean Kanteens) and baby bottles (we’re using glass ones). And it’s pretty infuriating that the substance is used in products designed to go into the mouths of kids, whose developing bodies are the most vulnerable to endocrine disruptors.

But what I didn’t know is that BPA is also found in the epoxy resin that lines food and beverage cans. “Close to 100 percent of our exposure [to BPA] occurs this way,” NIEHS’s Michael Shelby is quoted as saying.

The story suggests avoiding canned beverages and buying foods that are packaged in cartons or pouches rather than cans.

Mr. Wallet Mouth and I aren’t big on soda or any other canned beverages, but our cupboard does contain a good supply of canned foods, mostly beans, stewed tomatoes, and the odd veggie chili. So I was glad to read that there is one company, Eden Foods, using cans without the epoxy resin. According to Eden’s website, its custom-made cans have baked-on oleoresinous c-enamel lining, oleoresin being “a natural mixture of an oil and a resin extracted from various plants, such as pine or balsam fir.”

Having been recently turned on to who owns whom in the organic food sector, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Eden is an independent company, family owned and operated since 1968.

Cool, I thought to myself. I’ll start buying all my canned food from Eden. The only downside, I discovered, is that Eden offers only one product in a can: organic beans.

Clearly it’s time for other food producers to get on the oleoresinous c-enamel bandwagon, because I have a feeling that as more and more consumers get educated about BPA, this issue is going to amount to far more than a hill of beans.

Take-out blues

The other night I ordered food from one of our favorite local Thai restaurants. When I called to place the order, I first asked what kind of containers they used: paper or plastic? (Styrofoam foodware was banned in San Francisco last year.)

I had resolved to myself that I wouldn’t place the order if plastic was used (I know that cardboard to-go containers aren’t perfect, but at least we can compost them). “Paper,” the order-taker answered. Great! 

I was pretty disappointed, then, when the food arrived in a #5 plastic tub, two #6 plastic clamshell containers, and only one cardboard box (for the rice).

Now, the #5 tub is at least recyclable (though plastics recycling has problems of its own), but the #6 polystyrene clamshells are not. They’re also best avoided for health reasons. According to National Geographic’s Green Guide, styrene can leach from such containers into food. “Styrene, considered a possible human carcinogen by [the International Agency for Research on Cancer], may also disrupt hormones or affect reproduction,” it states.

And that’s not even getting into the issue of the environmental ills associated with its production and disposal.

In researching this further, I learned that my beloved Thai restaurant’s use of the #6 clamshells could actually be illegal. San Francisco’s law banning Styrofoam food containers also requires vendors to use compostable or recyclable to-go containers “unless there is no suitable product that is within 15% of the cost of non-compostable or non-recyclable alternatives.”

So, as soon as I finish this post, I’m going to write a letter to the restaurant detailing all my concerns. I’ll include a copy of San Francisco’s list of compostable foodware distributors and encourage them to make the switch from plastic to paper. Until they do, I’ll either dine in or get my veggie Panang curry elsewhere.