Dangerous BPA in Plastic - Reduce the use of Plastic

Hi friends,

I recently read an article about a dangerous chemical that is used in plastic products which we use in our daily life without even thinking much. We all know that plastic is very bad for earth and indirectly for us. Much has also been written about it. But we should also know that it is directly affecting our life. Read on to know more about BPA and some ways to reduce your exposure.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an industrial chemical widely used in common plastic products, such as baby bottles, children’s toys, and the linings of most food and beverage cans. Many scientific studies—including the largest study of BPA ever conducted on humans—have found links between BPA and serious health problems, from heart disease, diabetes and liver abnormalities in adults to developmental problems in the brains and hormonal systems of children.

Given the wide use of BPA in so many products we encounter every day, it is probably impossible to completely eliminate your exposure to this potentially harmful chemical. Still, you can lower your exposure—and your risk of possible health problems associated with BPA—by taking a few simple precautions.

In 2007, the Environmental Working Group hired an independent laboratory to conduct an analysis of BPA in many different canned foods and beverages. The study found that the amount of BPA in canned food varies widely. Chicken soup, infant formula and ravioli had the highest concentrations of BPA, for example, while condensed milk, soda and canned fruit contained much less of the chemical.

Here are a few tips to help you lower your exposure to BPA:

• Eat Fewer Canned Foods
  The easiest way to lower your intake of BPA is to stop eating so many foods that come into contact with the chemical. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, which usually have more nutrients and fewer preservatives than canned foods, and taste better, too.
• Choose Cardboard and Glass Containers Over Cans
  Highly acidic foods, such as tomato sauce and canned pasta, leach more BPA from the lining of cans, so it’s best to choose brands that come in glass containers. Soups, juices and other foods packaged in cardboard cartons made of layers of aluminium and polyethylene plastic (labelled with a number 2 recycling code) are safer than cans with plastic linings containing BPA.
• Don't Microwave Polycarbonate Plastic Food Containers
  First and foremost you should not use microwave but if it highly required then read ahead.

Polycarbonate plastic, which is used in packaging for many microwaveable foods, may break down at high temperatures and release BPA. Although manufacturers are not required to say whether a product contains BPA, polycarbonate containers that do are usually marked with a number 7 recycling code on the bottom of the package.

• Choose Plastic or Glass Bottles for Beverages
  Canned juice and soda often contain some BPA, especially if they come in cans lined with BPA-laden plastic. Glass or plastic bottles are safer choices. For portable water bottles, stainless steel is best, but most disposable plastic water bottles do not contain BPA. Those that do are usually marked with a number 7 recycling code.
• Turn Down the Heat
  For hot foods and liquids, switch to glass or porcelain containers, or stainless steel containers without plastic liners.
• Use Baby Bottles That Are BPA-Free
  As a general rule, hard, clear plastic contains BPA while soft or cloudy plastic does not. Most major manufacturers now offer baby bottles made without BPA.
• Use Powdered Infant Formula Instead of Pre-mixed Liquid
  A study by the Environmental Working Group found that liquid formulas contain more BPA than powdered versions.
• Practice Moderation
  The fewer canned foods and beverages you consume, the less your exposure to BPA, but you don’t have to cut out canned foods altogether to reduce your exposure and lower your potential health risks. In addition to eating less canned food overall, limit your intake of canned foods that are high in BPA.

NO ICE in Arctic by 2013..!!!!

Hi friends,

I knew about melting ice in the Arctic. But the following article is very shocking. It says there will not be any ice after 2013 in the Arctic. It is just five years hence. So we need to wake up immediately and stop polluting this beautiful abode of ours. Otherwise the day is not so far when we won't have one to live on.. So WAKE UP FOLKS & START ACTING

The Arctic is warming up so quickly that the region's sea ice cover in summer could vanish as early as 2013, decades earlier than some had predicted, a leading polar expert said on Thursday.

Warwick Vincent, director of the Center for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec, said recent data on the ice cover "appear to be tracking the most pessimistic of the models", which call for an ice free summer in 2013.
The year 2013 is starting to look as though it is a lot more reasonable as a prediction. But each year we've been wrong -- each year we're finding that it's a little bit faster than expected," he told Reuters. The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world and the sea ice cover shrank to a record low in 2007 before growing slightly in 2008.

In 2004 a major international panel forecast the cover could vanish by 2100. Last December, some experts said the summer ice could go in the next 10 or 20 years. If the ice cover disappears, it could have major consequences. Shipping companies are already musing about short cuts through the Arctic, which also contains enormous reserves of oil and natural gas.

Vincent's scientific team has spent the last 10 summers on Ward Hunt Island, a remote spot some 2,500 miles northwest of Ottawa. "I was astounded as to how fast the changes are taking place. The extent of open water is something that we haven't experienced in the 10 years that I've been working up there," he said after making a presentation in the Canadian Parliament. "We're losing, irreversibly, major features of the Canadian ice scape and that suggests that these more pessimistic models are really much closer to reality."

In 2008 the maximum summer temperature on Ward Hunt hit 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to the usual 5 degrees. Last summer alone the five ice shelves along Ellesmere Island in Canada's Far North, which are more than 4,000 years old, shrunk by 23 percent. Vincent told Reuters last September that it was clear some of the damage would be permanent and that the warming in the Arctic was a sign of what the rest of the world could expect. He struck a similarly gloomy note in his presentation.

"Some of this is unstoppable. We're in a train of events at the moment where there are changes taking place that we are unable to reverse, the loss of these ice shelves, for example," he said. "But what we can do is slow down this process and we have to slow down this process because we need to buy more time. We simply don't have the technologies as a civilization to deal with this level of instability that is ahead of us."

'Great'..!! Pacific Garbage Patch

Hello all,

I recently read an article about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. See, the irony is we have used the word 'great' for a bad creation of humans. As written here every small bit of plastic you throw it ends up at the city dump or in one of the oceans because we do not have any kind of method to get rid of the plastic we have generated. The other important thing to remember is that we cannot just blame Americans or Chinese to create such a mess. As it is mentioned there might be one in Atlantic or Indian Ocean. So every single person on this earth has to take responsibility and stop using plastic immediately.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a tragic by product of the plastics industry and consumerism that is an island of garbage floating in the northern Pacific Ocean. Originally the size of Texas (more than twice the state of Maharashtra) and getting bigger and bigger day by day, this gargantuan pile of plastic is collected by currents that swirl around in a big circle. Most of the debris is picked up from the shores of both China and North America that sandwich it.

As plastic never goes away, it eventually crumbles up into tiny bits (photo-degrades). These bits of plastic enter the food supply and are passed from the jelly fish all the way back up to humans where it is stored in their livers (that part is only fair). Plastic also pollutes the water with PCB’s (Polychlorinated Biphenyls, dangerous carcinogens and hormone disruptors).

While no one person is to blame, every person has contributed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (it’s a safe bet the Indian or Atlantic also has one lurking somewhere). Whether one throws litter on the ground or trusts in their municipal trash companies to do it for them, everyone throws away plastic and it ends up in the ocean and then back in our bodies.

While some say cleanup is impossible, some say hopefully someday someone will find a solution. But do we sit idle till anyone finds a solution. The best and immediate way should be to stop using this demon named 'plastic' wherever we can. Some say there can be a way to convert plastic to energy (it is made of oil after all), and they can make a ship refuelling station out there that will produce energy from plastic. But it is not getting rid of the problem. It is like creating a solution which is in turn a problem (the green house gases generated by burning the fuel) itself.

Think Bottled Water is Safe?? -- Well Think Again

Hello all,

Still think buying bottled water is safer than tap water? A new study released by the EWG (Environmental Working Group) says that there is a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand they analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket’s Acadia brands, at levels no different than routinely found in tap water. We filter all of our drinking water at home and carry it in reusable bottles, but many people still buy bottled water in plastic, thinking that it is safer than tap water. Turns out, it is far from safer. Though this study is conducted in the US we can safely apply the logic that there will not be any difference in bottled water available in India or anywhere else in the world where there are numerous spurious as well as local products available. So please think again before buying bottled water because the plastic bottles which are thrown after use, pose another big problem for our environment. Instead, drink tap water and carry it with you always avoid drinking bottled water.

The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but comprehensive testing by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket's Acadia brands, at levels no different than routinely found in tap water. Several Sam's Choice samples purchased in California exceeded legal limits for bottled water contaminants in that state. Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in 5 states (North Carolina, California, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland) and the District of Columbia substantially exceeded the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry.

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Instead, the industry hides behind the claim that bottled water is held to the same safety standards as tap water. But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,900 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.

To the contrary, our tests strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted. Given the industry's refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified.

Laboratory tests conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand. More than one-third of the chemicals found are not regulated in bottled water. In the Sam's Choice and Acadia brands levels of some chemicals exceeded legal limits in California as well as industry-sponsored voluntary safety standards. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria.

Authors: Olga Naidenko, PhD, Senior Scientist; Nneka Leiba, MPH, Researcher; Renee Sharp, MS, Senior Scientist; Jane Houlihan, MSCE, Vice President for Research