The Plastic Purge

Ahh, it's SO nice to be back to blogging!  Simply writing each day and thinking about what my next post will be is keeping me in a greener mindset.  I was doing just that as I emptied the dishwasher the other day and realized, I have TONS of plastic.  Plastic cups, plates, containers...wasn't I trying to decrease the number of these items not that long ago?  If you know me, you know I have obsessions (did I mention that I started running?!?) and although they're often short-lived (remember when I was going to get backyard chickens?) they often times help me in the long run.  I've selected decreasing the amount of plastic in my house as my next mini-obsession. (So you can relax.  I'll still talk about running all the time and continue to blog.)

Why get rid of plastic?  There's bad stuff in there.  And that's not just hippie me saying that. ( *I read an article from Pinterest yesterday about running and in the comments, someone had written "Where's the scientific proof for the information in this article?"  I realized that I do that a lot on here.  I make a comment, but don't show evidence to back it up.  Mrs Abrashoff, Ms Palmer, Mrs Barthel and Mrs. Klase would be horrified.  So out of respect for the Hoover High School English Department I'm siting my sources.  Sorry folks, no APA though.  You just get linked to the original article.* )  The Breast Cancer Fund states, "Three plastics have been shown to leach toxic chemicals when heated, worn or put under pressure: polycarbonate, which leaches bisphenol A; polystyrene, which leaches styrene; and PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, which break down into vinyl chloride and sometimes contains phthalates that can leach."  I've blogged before about the harmful effects of bisphenol A (also called BPA) and phthalates but I'll give you a quick refresher here.  BPA is found in water bottle and lots of plastic cups (you've seen the BPA-free label on sippy cups and baby bottles and increasingly more and more plastic bottles)  the bisphenol A leaches from the plastic into the food it's touching, either the liquid or also, the food from the can it's touching. (BPA is also found in the linings of cans.  Look for canned food that says BPA free.  As if you didn't have enough going on at the grocery store!)  WebMD states that 90% of us have detectable levels of BPA in our bodies.  As for the phthalates,  it seems they're everywhere!  They're in cosmetics and they're used to make plastics soft so things like teethers and pacifiers may contain phthalates.  They also leach into the food or liquid they touch, but in the case of things like pacifiers, they can even leach directly into the body.  Styrene, also a know carcinogen, is found in styrofoam and #6 plastic.  

OK, so enough scientific stuff.  It's bad for you.  So what am I going to do?  While I'd love to grab a bag and walk around the house tossing everything plastic, that's not really realistic or necessary.  So first, I'm just going to focus on the kitchen.  I'm going to decrease the number of plastic cups and plastic plates and work (again) on tossing those plastic food storage containers in favor of glass.  In the past the thought of getting rid of the plastic, unbreakable, kid plates and cups seemed a little scary, but I think the bigger kids are fine "real" plates and cups.  Olivia is still a spiller, but I'm hoping the sturdier glass cups might actually help her with that.  I'm also going to look for some stainless steel water bottles.   The only issue with that is the spouts are almost always plastic!  But, as always, I'm just going to do the best that I can.  I'm going to head over to World Market and have the kids pick some fun cups.  They have such a big selection and most of the cups are around $1 each.  When we got married we actually has a full set of salad plates (aka kid sized) but over the years we've broken so many we're down to 4.  I'll be honest, I'm actually REALLY excited to get rid of the leaning tower of Pisa in my cupboard.  Those dumb plastic plates don't stack and they're always falling over!  I'll grab a few more fun ones when I'm at World Market, but there's not really a good reason the little kids can't use a big plate.  The only thing I need to watch is portion size.  That big plate makes a normal kid-sized portion look super tiny.  

While I work on that, I'll also try to think about plastics in other parts of our house.  Keep reading those bottles for phthalates and BPA. Look at the bottom of plastic bottles for the safer plastics, 2, 4 and 5 and stay away from those really bad guys, 3 and 6.  I found this cute chart on babygreenthumb.com. 

With birthdays coming up (Ellie and Caden) I'm going to try and think about the number of plastics coming into our home in toys.  I'll check out Magic Cabin and Nova Naturals before I look at Toys R Us.  I'll also try to think about eliminating some of the crap toys we have downstairs that no one ever plays with.  Many of them are made of cheap plastic.  It's a big job, but it doesn't have to be completed right now.  It'll be a work in progress for a long time, but like everything else I do to green this house and family.  That's why I say I'm doing the best I can.  Sometimes it's really a lot and sometimes it just throwing out a few cups and plates.