Do I take paper or plastic? Polyester or cotton? Tap or bottled? Trash or recycling? Vaccinations or Not? Organic or conventional? The options go on, and how, I wonder, is the average family consumer supposed to know the correct answers? Everywhere I turn is a warning about the possible side effects of my choices on my family’s health and on the environment. The daily headlines announce yet another recall of pet food, baby cribs, and children’s toys—not Thomas the Train! Then there are all of those new studies warning us about phthalates, fluoride, Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, polyvinylchloride, and Bisphenol-A! What is Bisphenol-A? Just reaching for a household-cleaning product on the grocery shelf feels like pulling the trigger in a game of Russian roulette. Whom might I hurt with this toilet bowl cleaner?
I can get myself tied up in knots over trying to remember whether our recycling company still takes #6 plastics, or was it #5’s that they can’t remake into something else? And my family cringes when it’s time for a “doggie bag” at our favorite restaurant. “Oh, you’re still using these polystyrene containers?” I’ll ask innocently, as my son slides under the table. “Well, could you just wrap it in foil, please? Foil’s reusable AND recyclable, you know.”
I finally trained myself to keep the cloth shopping bags in the car so I, at least, take them shopping with me; now to remember to take them into the store. I’ve taken to carrying a small bag-in-a-pouch in my purse to use when I’ve forgotten the bigger ones. I know that those plastic bags are a real menace to the environment, both in the energy consumed in their production and in the trash that they make. Now, if I can just remember to catch the bagger before s/he has put all of my purchases in plastic!
As a matter of fact, the whole plastics situation makes me shudder when I read that the ratio of plastic to zooplankton in our oceans is ever rising with plastics coming out the winner by much more than a nose. Evidently there are two so-called floating plastic "Garbage Patches" that are each bigger than the State of Texas out there! Not to mention that the Food and Drug Administration admits that “Yes!” plastics do leach into our food and water. The idea that plastic toxins migrate—without our knowing-- into everything, including food, water, air, even our skin, is quite creepy, and certain scenes from those old Alien movies form in my mind. But, what if we all chucked out our plastic food storage containers in favor of safer ones? Wouldn’t that create several mountains of plastic, a so-called “Mt. Tupperware,” “Mt. Everwear,” and Mr. Non-Destructible”? Even so.
Then, after cleaning out my kitchen cupboards, my thoughts go to all of those plastic toys that my children played with over the years. Who would have imagined that Barbie’s perfect features ooze phthalates, plasticizer additives that leach out from day one? Without it, Barbie, rubber duckies, teething rings, and those sweet bath books for babies would be hard and inflexible. I guess that saving my old Barbies for my grandchildren is a bad idea on all fronts, not just because they perpetuate a misguided beauty image.
I don’t really mean to sound cynical about all of this. Perplexed is really how I feel; perplexed about what the real story is, i.e. can we believe all that we read and hear, especially when so many stories and studies offer conflicting evidence? And, I’m perplexed about how we got from A to B, A being “the time before plastics and food additives and garden pesticides and polluted water supplies”, and B being the present moment where almost every choice we make may be hazardous to our health. I don’t recall being asked whether I wanted my breakfast cereal to be enriched or a plastic model made of that wonderful wooden train that someone’s grandfather carved for them one Christmas.
It’s not that I long for the good old days. Perhaps I long for a time that hasn’t come yet; a time when manufacturers value the safety of their products and the effects of production on the environment more than making millions of dollars; a time when health studies are not funded by vested interest groups whose aim is to sell worthless, unnecessary, or even harmful medicines; a time when I can confidently choose apples for my family, knowing that they contain no pesticides and were picked by workers who safely make a living wage for their families.
