The more studies are published, the more it is clear that our most common plastics are really bad for human health. Take plastic water bottles. Plastic drinking bottle contain BPA and phthalates, chemicals that can interfere with hormones in the body. BPA has been linked to prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer, as well as liver disease, brain disorders, obesity, diabetes, and learning problems. Phthalates have been linked to developmental and reproductive defects. These chemicals are leached out of those plastic water bottles the more they are used. Drinking from them once is bad enough. Refilling them and using them again and again is slow poison.
How about eating out of plastic containers? Nope. Those plastic containers flake off nanoplastics as you eat. Not only do those nanoplastics contain phthalates, but in themselves they are carcinogenic.
There is not such thing as safe plastics. Plastics contain multitudes of chemicals other than phthalates, including bisphenols A, S and F (BPAs, BPSs, and BPFs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). None have yet been proven safe for human consumption, and consume them is what we end up doing when we use plastic containers.
Nanoplastics have gotten into the food chain. All that plastic waste in the oceans and rivers eventually breaks down into nanoplastics. These are consumed by fish, contaminate the water used in irrigation, and end up in the food on our dining room tables. When we eat, we are ingesting all of those same poisonous chemicals in microscopic form.
This is why it is essential to stop using plastic wherever it is used to deliver food or beverages. There are plenty of ways to avoid it–aluminum cans, glass food storage containers, cardboard takeout boxes, steel or aluminum water bottles and travel mugs. Unfortunately, aluminum cans and cardboard takeout boxes often have plastic linings, but, as they are single use, the risk is less.
Don’t delay is giving up plastic food and beverage containers. You and your family’s health depends on it.
You can find this and all the Creation Care blogs for the church website I have written at my consolidating blog: faithandcreationcare.blogspot.com
Thanks for your commitment to caring for God’s creation!
