Where Have All The Phthalates Gone?

That's me and Pete Seeger there (click to view my fuzzy phone pic in all it's glory). He lives in our area and gave a concert at the community day camp where Lowell and I have been taking swim lessons once a week. After he was finished he sat behind us and listened to the campers sing a rendition of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" Isn't that a beautiful smile from a living legend?  My favorite part of his set was when he explained that lullabies are actually propaganda songs. Yeah. Stick it to the Mom.

It's a little boring to complain that it's hot in the summer but dammit, I am fat, bloated and bitchy and I can't help myself. I am just so pissed that August is acting all august-y. I was hoping for some kind of reverse-global warning miracle. Not snow or anything, but you know, maybe highs in the 70's with no humidity? I'll be lucky if I get that in September at the rate things are going.

Speaking of global warming, I have so far avoided reading up much on plastic toxicity because honestly, I just don't want to know. Personally, I am quite fond of plastic in moderation and don't really want to worry about anything else right now. Stupidly, I followed a link off a blog I like very much the other day and now I am all caught up in the hysteria. Argh. Bisphenol A, PVC, phthalates, etc... don't follow any of those links unless you want to end up like me, tossing and turning about how I may have ruined my unborn child's reproductive health by using a Brita jug. (Silly, old me, trying to keep lead out of my system...) I am not to the point of throwing everything out and searching for wood alternatives but I am mildly alarmed by some of the studies out there, especially the ones on Bisphenol A. (I am not suggesting any causative link because I am quite aware of how ridiculous that is from a scientific standpoint but I was intrigued to find out that Bisphenol A is in dental sealants used on kids. I have had a myriad of conditions that have been attributed to haywire hormones and I was one of the first kids out there to get sealants in the 70's. Again, not causative but interesting as a possible contributing environmental factor -- in my f-in mouth). For the most part I try not to get sucked into anxiety about this stuff. We live in such a polluted world as it is that you could lose your mind if you really went there with every new study that comes out. And in general we try to keep plastic to a minimum and we are above-average recyclers but as soon as you have a kid it becomes much harder to keep plastic, especially the sucked and chewed-on kind, at bay. I guess I will just have to get more informed and figure out what to do going forward. I will be getting glass or bio-plastic baby bottles, pretty sure about that. Dammit. Damn Internet.

Comments

[Orange]

Pete Seeger! We had a Pete Seeger album of folk songs for kids in the early '70s. My sister and I had a whole set of dance moves we worked out for those songs. Lots of hopping about. Wow, he's not dead yet? (And I'll bet he's been exposed to plenty of plastic over the years.)

[Kyran]

yeah, I didn't hear anything you said after "Pete Seeger".

how cool.

as for plastics, my dad used to greet each newly discovered health threat with, "...and mortality is STILL at 100%".

helps me shrug some of the panic off.

[Assertagirl]

It IS hard. I want to freeze a bunch of stuff (due to a zucchini overload) but finding alternatives to plastic tupperware-type containers is really difficult. I guess I'll try aluminum?

[supa]

you could use glass, right?

man. way, way jealous of the pete seeger. and apart from making sure our plastic toys aren't on the recall list, I am just tuning out of the plastics talk. I can't handle it -- as you said, we live in such a polluted world in the first place.

[wordgirl]

I've discovered that the internet has the ability to both assuage and inflame my fears about whatever it is that I'm researching. What you've written here is a perfect example.

[braine]

Here's a link to an article about 'glass' Tupperware. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/11/qa_glass_tupper.php My brother and his wife are trying to eliminate plastic, although they then bought a disheveled 1800s former factory worker's house in a somewhat defunct upstate industrial town, so you've got your oil spill in the radon-filled cellar, the lead chips galore strewn about, the mold behind the later-addition paneling and the poison ivy running up the back wall, so I think there are a few other things to think about first.

I had the chance to meet Pete a couple of years ago. Still charming, still the working man's iron fist in an acoustic glove.

[Orange]

Assertagirl, my mom eschews antiperspirant because it contains aluminum salts, and she thinks they'll cause Alzheimer's (Mom's kinda nutty in a number of ways). And then there's the polluted assault on the earth that the aluminum mining industry is responsible for. I feel guilty when I use a piece of foil.

Wrap everything in butcher paper and tie it with string...if it freezes fast enough, it shouldn't be too leaky.

Or carve some little wooden or marble boxes for food storage. That can't be too hard...right?

[kara]

um yeah, thanks for those links...

[LetterB]

I gave a full disclaimer that said DO NOT FOLLOW - you were warned. What I should have written was "don't follow any of those links unless you want to end up like me, (this means you Kara.)"

Sing it with me: ...Zucchini in butcher paper tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite thiiiiiings!

Random zucchini picture to prove that above is honest sentiment: http://letterb.typepad.com/first_zuke.jpg

[Nicolle]

Scary place, the modern world, best not to think about it too hard... I once followed a fully disclaimed link about the plastic and spent the next week in the fetal position mumbling about going back to nature!

[Animal]

Like many folks who read the internet & listen to NPR just a LITTLE too much, Miss Tessmacher and I began to eliminate our plastic storage/drinking containers a couple of years ago. Those glass refrigerator dishes hearken back to 40's-era Pyrex, and being an old-house kind of guy, I've managed to hook up some great vintage pieces. A couple of trips through the dishwasher and they're good to go from 'fridge, to microwave, to the 400-degree oven. For drinking bottles, we just buy a few So-Bee fruity drink things, then just use those glass bottles to haul water around. Although I did drop one outside my car once. That sucked. I guess that's where plastic became a fave in the first place.

[Bobita]

Ah, Pete (meant to sound like I know him personally, which I don't...but would love to; and would also love to have even one phone pic of him in such a wonderful, heart-felt laugh)!

When I was pregnant with my last baby I read lots of research about artificial sweeteners, the Food & Drug assholes and Donald Rumsfeld's participation in the whole evil debacle. Of course, thereafter I was mentally tallying all of the Diet Cokes I have consumed in my life...yeah, not good. I can get myself worked up into one helluva tizzy over stuff like that!

I will never cease to be amazed at what people do, what they can live with doing, to other human beings for the fleeting pleasure of a buck.