The Story of Stuff & Sippy Cups

Karen from our listserve sent a link to The Story of Stuff, a quick online move about the myth and reality of our production cycle. It's animated, funny, really informative and has a frisky host. And it's only 20 minutes long with a pause button! I hope you get a chance to check it out.

I've been thinking about plastics this week and started looking at our sippy cups. We're advised to stay away from plastics imprinted with a 3 or a 7 on the bottom because they leach Bisphenol-A into the water and milk our kids are drinking. Bisphenol-A is an endocrine-disrupting hormone that produces precursors to breast cancer and infertile sperm. Turns out the sippy cups we've been using for a long time are toxic. So that's a . . . bummer?

Here's what the good folks at Z Recommends say:

We recommend bottles by Born Free, MAM and Adiri, breast pumps and supplies by Medela and Mother's Milkmate, and sippy cups by Born Free, Klean Kanteen, Thermos, and SIGG.

If you are here to check on information about bottles or sippy cups you already have, we can say with some confidence that you should be most concerned if you are using bottles by Avent, Dr. Brown's, Evenflo, the First Years, Munchkin, Nuby, Playskool, or Second Nature, or sippy cups or breast pumps by many of these brands. You are also likely, but less certain, to be using products containing Bisphenol-A if you are using bottles by Gerber, Playtex, or Tommee Tippee.

After I pulled myself together, Sadie and I headed to REI to buy some new SIGG bottles for the family. We found them interspersed and dwarfed by a huge wall of Nalgine bottles. I randomly picked a few up and looked at the bottom. One had a 3, the other a 7. This is freaking REI!

I feel like I'm coming to the going green party pretty late in the game, so I just can't get my head around why these major corporations, even those interested in health and the environment, aren't leading the way. Does anybody else know?