The Search for Replacing the Troublesome Plastic Chemical

A recent study that associated bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical compound found in plastic, with increased risk of heart diseases and diabetes had plastic production-related and plastic using companies act like cats on hot bricks, and currently, there is a race against the clock to find a proper, clinically-attested substitute.

 

The study has been contested, though, and the partisans of BPA invoke that the replacements that may be considered healthier at first may prove just as toxic or even more threatening than BPA. In addition, they suggest that no component will ever be able to successfully fulfill all the things that bisphenol is said to do, especially in certain fields.

 

Nevertheless, researchers and activists worldwide caution against further using regular plastic and ask for a maximal BPA reduction in plastic products, especially those destined for children use, such as bottles for babies. Plastic, although a highly non-ecological material, has been widely used in a vast range of products and fields, stretching from drink bottles to medical instruments. But BPA has been discovered to be able to somehow escape its plastic environment and get inside the content of the recipient it helped make.

 

Big-name companies like Wal-Mart or Target are slowly trying to reduce the number of BPA-based items that they sell, and in this regard, Ron Vigdor, the president of the BornFree company in Florida stated that "Large retailers are moving away from BPA products. I think it's going to force manufacturers to switch to BPA-free products only, in feeding (products) or in toys or whatever else you can think of that has BPA." Vidgor reports in an interview to Reuters that BornFree has noticed a major increase in sales for BPA-free items like baby bottles and Polyamide PA (some kind of nylon) cups.

 

Another company, Nalgene, used Tritan copolyester, a new kind of plastic, in order to produce water bottles. The novel material, although not made out of BPA, boosts BPA's positive features like transparency and resistance to shattering and is promised to be provided with many new, better characteristics.