New health hazards seem to pop up all the time. Every week, a study uncovers mortal danger in seemingly innocuous products. A while back, we had the Chinese baby toy recall. Now, even water bottles have turned against us. I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t danger in everything we use. Most people will use anything without paying attention to how it is made or even what goes into making it. I know I do. Sometimes, I’ll willfully ignore warnings just so I can keep using a dangerous product.
What I don’t understand about the dangerous product craze is why anyone cares.
This ominous quote comes from the American advocacy group Environmental Defence on the offending chemical found in the water bottles:
“The writing is on the wall for bisphenol A. When a product loses consumer confidence to this extent it’s obviously time to move to the safer, comparably priced alternatives.”
While I can’t say anything about whether bisphenol A is exactly the terror described by Environmental Defense, I can say, with relative certainty, that the things we eat, from fast food chains to store bought meat, are probably a whole lot worse.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, bisphenol A disrupts the human hormonal system but is safe to consume up to 50 parts per billion daily. That is, of course, much more than one would find in a single bottle. It makes me wonder, now that everyone is so environmentally conscious, as long as environmentalism does not disrupt their daily lives, what’s next on the ban list? I mentioned that the food we eat is probably more poisonous (long term exposure to fatty foods has been proven to kill, whereas Bis A has not) than a water bottle. Maybe we’re about to enter an era where the government will start banning foods.
We’d probably live a lot longer and be much healthier but if I want to kill myself with poutine and poison water bottles, shouldn’t I be able to do just that?
Tags: environment, food, water bottles
