An Enthusiastic Thumbs Up

So I'm fairly intelligent and semi-savvy scientifically, and I have read at least a dozen articles on this whole plastic thing, but it's still a swirl of long words and vague facts in my head. I think it boils down to this--don't put boiling water in those baby bottles! It seems like plastic water bottles, yes, but also the harder plastic (think baby bottles and Nalgene trail bottles) leach bad stuff when they get heated (think cup holder in the car on a summer day!). This bad stuff apparently disrupts the endocrine system, which certainly doesn't sound good. Hmm, quick research needed here:

Although we rarely think about them, the glands of the endocrine system and the hormones they release influence almost every cell, organ, and function of our bodies. The endocrine system is instrumental in regulating mood, growth and development, tissue function, and metabolism, as well as sexual function and reproductive processes. (from www.kidshealh.org)

This baby bottle problem was big in the news a month or so ago, and just yesterday there was an editorial in the New York Times about it. Apparently, our friendly and far more environmentally sound friends to the north, Canada, have announced plans to restrict the use of this horrible stuff, bisphenol-a (BPA).

Here in the States? There's a task force, folks. Oh, that makes me feel confident. And retailers such as Wal-Mart plan to pull the plastic baby bottles by early next year. So, let's see, a baby born today, in May, will be 8 months old by January, 2009. That's a lot of bottles (yet another supporting reason for breastfeeding).

I don't need a lot of facts and figures on this one, folks. Plastic=bad, especially when used for drink or food and heated. I have a small collection of hard plastic water bottles, none of which I have really liked, for other reasons besides the leaching of poison. That Go Green, Live Rich book I read during my week-long eco immersion that resulted in a long action list included the recommendation for this stainless steel water bottle, Klean Kanteen. Stainless steel is the only material currently used for water bottles that don't contain or leach the bad stuff. Many stainless steel water bottles, by the way, contain a plastic liner inside, so watch out for that. Klean Kanteen doesn't.

So that's what we've been using for about a month now. I didn't want to write about it until I was sure that I liked it, and I can say that these bottles get an enthusiastic thumbs up from both my daughters and me. And, they come with or without a sports cap and in various comvenient sizes. I just got a small one for my younger daughter's lunch box and the cashier at REI (which may be my new favorite place, by the way, but I'll write more about that another day) told me the little ones don't sell so well. The children are the ones most effected by this endocrine-disruption, so this doesn't make sense to me. I would think the little ones would sell out first.

For a one-time price of between 15 and 20 bucks, you can say goodbye to disposable plastic water bottle waste and leaching BPA. And that makes Klean Kanteen an Ecomomical choice, in my book.