Colin’s Beauty Pages

If you come across hard clear plastic there is a good chance that it is polycarbonate.  Like me, you have probably never given it a second thought. Well it turns out that this kind of plastic contains an additive called bisphenol A that has been shown to damage the development of reproductive organs in mice.  This was picked up by a researcher called Patricia Hunt, who as always seems to be the way with these things was looking for something completely different at the time.  Full details on the Scientific American website.  lt is apparently quite difficult to get this agent out of the plastic and so the manufacturers are saying that the risk is very small and can be ignored.

Patricia Hunt counters this by pointing out that she only detected it by chance because she was using a container that released enough bisphenol A to have a detectable effect, and that this sort of toxicity can often be manifested at very low levels.

But even if the risk is very small shouldn’t we be taking it seriously? We don’t need plastic bottles as much as we need fully functioning reproductive organs.  There are plenty of clever chemists around who could come up with alternatives. Lets treat it as a challenge not a problem. What are we waiting for?