Should We Panic Over Plastic?
I spent a funny, enjoyable, informative hour in a chat room last night.
And get this…
the topic was plastics!
No, I don’t need to get a life (very funny!) I was live tweeting The Real Truth About Plastics: What You Should and Shouldn’t Worry About, part of the Health Chats series put on by MedHelp.
The speaker was Joe Schwarcz, PhD, the Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society.
And I’m ready to take a year of organic chemistry from him starting yesterday. He’s that good!
*****
Of course, the first thing you want to do in a conversation like this is “follow the money”. Well, there is no money to follow here. The Office for Science and Society (OSS) accepts no funding from anyone; their “allegiance is to the scientific method”. Whether a substance was banned or not, made no difference, only that the decision was based not on emotion or hearsay, but “on proper scientific methodology”.
*****
So, should we be panicking over plastics in our environment?
In a word, no.
Per Dr. Schwarcz, single serving and two liter drink bottles are made of PET and and there is no BPA at all involved. They can be reused and even frozen without worrying about anything leeching out.
The bottles that can leech BPA are made of polycarbonate #7 and include the jugs on top of water coolers. The question concerns the trace amounts of BPA that leech out – do they matter? Dr. Schwarcz believes no, and points out that we are exposed to thousands of chemicals in out daily lives…
…including the thousand in coffee aroma alone!
There is no way I can re-create the enlightening, enjoyable chat here and do it justice.
- Ever wonder why your water bottles taste like plastic after sitting in a hot car?
- Can you safely microwave a plastic container?
- What about Ziploc bags?
- Are pig balls safe?
Yeah, it’s goes there……
I told you it was fun!
Dr. Schwarcz answers all of these questions and the chat log is available in it’s entirety at MedHelp.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
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Sylvia
February 15, 2011 at 9:26 pm
“it?s goes there”
I’m sorry. You’re trying to make light of a very serious subject. You are ridiculing the concern that a lot of people have over chemicals which can cause developmental problems. You cannot bring yourself to treat common people with dignity. I will not be wasting my time reading your drivel.