Why My Family Quit Using Plastic

By James Glave, The Tyee. Posted August 13, 2008.

I said goodbye to a few old friends this morning.

I dropped Sabrina and Duncan at day camp and continued on down the road to my community's recycling depot. There, I walked up to the big green "mixed plastics" bin and tossed in my FridgeSmart stackables, Ziploc Twist n' Locs and, perhaps most painful of all, my beloved half-cup-size Rubbermaid Servin' Savers -- indispensable snack-stashers that fit perfectly inside my kids' lunch boxes.

All these little tubs are now gone, casualties of a recent pact between my wife and me to minimize the amount of time our family's food spends inside plastic containers.

It was a watershed moment for the two of us -- the latest stop in a journey that has begun to wander into territory that I once reserved for a class of people I once referred to as "eco-fruitcakes." It has taken us beyond social norms, outside the fuzzy boundaries of mainstream consumer behavior.

Go ahead and laugh

It's now socially acceptable to forgo plastic bags at the store -- even Ikea is calling them "so last year." But my Servin' Savers purge represents a far more radical act.

I can hear you snickering out there, and I don't blame you. As far as eco-resolutions go, this one is probably both ridiculous and futile. We know that the lion's share of our food -- yogurt, milk, berries, applesauce, nuts, cooking oil, you name it -- is sold to us in plastic packaging. For decades, industry and government scientists have assured us these "food grade" pots, tubs, and sacks are completely benign.

They're lightweight compared to glass -- which means less of a carbon penalty from shipping -- and of course they're recyclable. And as a former Servin' Savers evangelist, I know the convenience is unbeatable.

But here's the thing, Mr. Industry and Ms. Government. I've been struggling with a few trust issues as of late.

BPA blues

You see, when Sabrina and Duncan were infants, we often fed them pumped breast milk that we warmed up inside polycarbonate Philips Avent plastic bottles -- bottles that we recently learned were leaching bisphenol-A, or BPA.

Unless you've been living on Baffin Island for the past six months, you know that's bad news. Earlier this year, Health Canada declared that chemical "toxic" and stated that there is "some concern for neural and behavioral effects in early stages of development" for low levels of exposure.

On its Avent website, Philips today touts a redesigned BPA-free baby bottle that the company assures us it is developing "because we know that needs sometimes change."

Needs do change, yes. So do paradigms. And the thing is, I'm presently undergoing a shift so foreign and clumsy that it feels like puberty all over again. It boils down to this, Philips: I don't trust you anymore. My consumer confidence has plummeted. In fact, it's in the basement.

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James Glave's first book is Almost Green: How I Built an Eco-Shed, Ditched my SUV, Alienated the In-Laws, and Changed My Life Forever (Greystone/Skyhorse) It will be released next month.

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