I was recently reading a blog about a woman who has stopped buying all things plastic. Everything except garbage bags and a few other daily items. How intriguing. This wouldn't work for everyone. Especially not a busy mom who sometimes believes that those pre-made dinners and frozen pizzas are an extension of her limbs. However, kudos, to you busy moms out there who have managed to minimize plastic waste so effectively!
The concept is very inspirational, in fact, it has inspired me to share my plastic research with you. By now, most people know that some plastic is recyclable and some just isn't. Some plastic will be around forever in its current form. What is even more worrisome to me than that is the idea of the toxins in plastic poisoning us and our children. I admit I am guilty of re-filling water bottles. I thought this was a good thing, I was using less plastic and therefore being friendlier to the environment. When I was done I would recycle it! WRONG! I mean minus the recycling part, that part I did right.
But when I was doing research about plastic bottles I came across The Green Guide Article that says this:
"A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However, as #1 bottles are reused, which they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a known carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disrupter. According to the January 2006 Journal of Environmental Monitoring, some PET bottled-water containers were found to leach antimony, an elemental metal that is an eye, skin, and lung irritant at high doses. Also, because the plastic is porous you'll likely get a swill of harmful bacteria with each gulp if you reuse #1 plastic bottles."
Did anyone else just think back to every time they re-filled a water bottle and feel really sick? That's just gross! I mean I don't like to think of "swilling" anything, but especially not harmful bacteria. (Am I the only one grossed out by the word swill? Probably).
In order to figure out a safer alternative for our drinking water I Googled "plastic bottle alternatives" and found Z recommends' blog on just this subject! Stainless steel water bottles! I will be purchasing mine within the next few days, especially with all of the fun colors available!
And as a quick side note, TruKid uses the safe plastic PETE 1 for our bottles and it is always and only used once. NO chemicals can leach into your products AND when the bottles are recycled my research and development department tells me that they are usually turned into speed bumps! That's a fun fact!