"Facts" on Plastic

It never ceases to amaze me, the monumental bald-face spin job the plastics industry tries to put on their miserable products.

They're ratcheting up the intensity of it, too, which is a red flag that desperation must be setting in. They've moved from "Isn't plastic wonderful?" to a serious damage-control mode. Here's but one example:

http://www.factsonplastic.com/

Who makes this blog? Why, the American Chemistry Council, of course. Which is a "trade organization" for chemical manufacturers, one that helps them put a positive PR spin on their toxic products.

Scroll down to my favorite entry, "Today Show Reverses 40 Years of Industry Science" . Read the flimsy arguments they give to feebly attempt to refute the statements of the NBC program. It pretty much amounts to "this study says it's safe, we believe it, that settles it" and of course, they choose to ignore the avalanche of studies that disagree with their own position. They also refute a certain website that NBC cited - but refuse to even acknowledge what that website is in their rebuttal! Clearly, they don't want you reading anything that disagrees with their view.

These people are liars, plain and simple. They have multi-billion dollar business interests and they will stop at nothing to protect that, no matter how many people have to die.

"Not so fantastic plastic"

The British Daily Mail newspaper has a short but good piece about the dangers of plastic bottles here.

A letter to the editor of the Malay Mail newspaper tells of a 12-year-old girl who died from reusing the same plastic water bottle over and over. See here.

And the StarPhoenix has a feature article this week about plastic debris endangering the oceans. See it here. "Based on its surveys of the huge ocean current, the non-profit marine research group estimates that degraded plastic pieces in the central North Pacific outweigh surface zooplankton -- which plays a critical role in ocean food webs -- by a factor of six to one. In other words, for every single kilogram of zooplankton there are six kilograms of plastic."

War on Plastic Toys Escalates - In Slow Motion

Toys-R-Us has announced their intent to reduce PVC plastic toys in their stores. Well, whoopty-do.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/02/plastic_toys2.html

So why am I not especially excited about this development?

Because it's merely a statement of intent. Anyone can announce good intentions. We all do it every January when we make New Year's resolutions. How's yours going so far?

It's being referred to as a change in policy. But all "policy" ever does in a corporate structure is provide a middle-management scapegoat for future whipping. We all know of companies who do things differently from their "official stated policy" on a daily basis, do we not? That policy becomes a P.R. safety valve for some spokesman to say "see, we have an official policy on this, we can't help it if some of our stores violated it."

According to Consumer Affairs, the Toys-R-Us press release also insists that "by the end of 2008, juvenile products must be produced without the addition of phthalates." Well, that's just great, but what about the products that they're going to be selling ALL YEAR LONG?

If there's nothing wrong with PVC products, then why get rid of them? And if there IS something wrong with them, why would you wait a YEAR to "phase them out" off your shelves?

PVC toys are already completely banned in the European Union, incidentally.

Plastic-hating Elitism?

According to Jamie O'Boyle, speaking in the article "Plastic Sacked" by Joan Klimkiewicz, "Consumers who shun plastic grocery bags tend to be college-educated urban dwellers who live near stores promoting such awareness, such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods".

This is precisely why a voluntary and gradual attempt to switch over to cloth bags is just not going to work, however well intentioned. The plastic bags must be banned, not merely discouraged.

It may sound elitist to say, but there exists a vast section of the world's population which will never ever be made to functionally grasp why plastics should be avoided. And even if you do manage to drive this point into their heads, most are too lazy to act upon it. The decision of "paper, plastic, or cloth?" must be taken out of all our hands at the grocery store.

Transparent shills for the plastics industry

Just happened across this sickening link to a magazine article that is so blatantly pushing the party line of the plastics manufacturing industry, it's ridiculous. "Life in plastic, it's fantastic"? I think I'm going to throw up.

I don't know who this "Julie Maske" is, but considering what a huge quantity of statistics and inside-industry data she's spouting about the plastics industry, she certainly must have done a herculean amount of research. Problem is, it ALL seems to have come from ONE source: Heidi Johansen and Paal Skjetne at SINTEF Applied Chemistry. If any effort was made to seek information about plastics from an opposing or differing view, it's not evident in the article. The article seems clearly pre-designed to promote the nauseating idea stated in its headline, that plastics are fantastic.

Good examples of the unquestioning dull-mindedness of this article are observations like "without plastics, we would be living in the stone age" and "without disposable articles, it would be like the Black Death again". Not only are both of these statements demonstrably not factual, it underscores that this article is a blatant advertisement in disguise; a puff piece designed to promote the ludicrous views of the plastics industry, who have far more in common with "the Black Death" than the lack thereof.

It also adds insult to idiocy by illustrating the lead-in with a huge photo of a Barbie doll (if ever there were a perfect symbol of all that is wrong with the world, the Barbie doll would be a contender near the top of the list).

Not all shills for plastic companies are this obvious. Keep your eyes and ears open for the gentler, subtler spin promoted by plastic lobbyists and PR-spin-doctors in the media.

Coca-Cola Experimenting with Aluminum Bottles

According to this story at BrandWeek, Coca-Cola will be product-testing aluminum bottles for their products in 2008.

This is good news, not only because of the ecological health ramifications of the plastic bottles, but also because I've always hated that plastic bottles just don't get as cold as the cans. I've tried the Budweiser aluminum bottles, and though I'm not a fan of the beer, I have to say the intense cold of the aluminum help makes it almost palatable to me.

Of course, aluminum isn't without its own health issues, and I have to wonder what kind of coating the interior of the aluminum bottles are lined with...

Carcinogenic PFOA still at large until 2015

Ever heard of PFOA? Probably not. It stands for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (also known as "C-8"), which is a man-made substance not occurring naturally in the environment. It's the same chemical compound used to make Teflon, slick coatings for candy wrappers, and other so-called "food grade" plastic coatings. And there are, in all likelihood, deposits of it in your body and mine.

Ever heard of Glenn Evers? Probably not. He's a whistleblower who worked at DuPont Chemical for 22 years, before being laid off in 2002. Evers called attention to the health effects of perfluorinated chemicals being used in food packaging, and charged that DuPont continued to allow its usage, even after being aware that company tests proved the stuff was leaching out at much higher levels than the FDA permits.

When the chemicals from the perfluorinated paper coating are absorbed into the human body, they break down into perfluorooctanoic acid.

Evers, speaking in the Washington Post, said: "We have a chemical that is bioaccumulating in every man, woman and child in America. DuPont stayed in the market strictly to make a buck."

A 2007 study found PFOA linked to low birth weight and smaller head circumference in newborn babies.

So, is anything being done? Probably not. According to the U.S. Government's official EPA website on PFOA, they want to - and I quote - "work toward eliminating emissions and product content by 2015".

Gee. Wow. That's just brilliant. How many people will be dead by 2015 because these scumbags are putting this ban on the slowest possible track? And notice they're not even promising a ban by 2015, they're saying it's just something they're "working towards". Which means precisely nothing.

If PFOA isn't bad, then why even bother calling for its elimination by 2015? And if it is bad, then why would you wait almost a decade to fully eradicate it, while people continue to absorb this dangerous crap? Who made this decision? I want to know his name.