Bagging Plastics

The remorse over buying those damn plastic baggies at Target is still looming in me.

With my stomach growling, I reached into my lunch bag for the mid-morning snack I had planned: Organic Wheat & Flaxseed crackers with Organic Peanut Butter. I was pretty excited to get to the treat as I was remembering the buttery deliciousness of the crackers from last night.

I gingerly pulled the first cracker from zip top plastic baggie it was stored in, schmeared it with PB and popped it in my mouth. Something did not taste right. I tried a couple more crackers to confirm the off-taste. Did the crackers taste plastic-y? Yes, it was a distinct plastic taste on my crackers.

The new baggie had leached its noxious scent and taste onto my deliciously organic snack!
So, I did a little research on the toxicity of plastics (hey, things are slow at work) and I couldn't find much on sandwich bags being bad (other than for the environment since they take up to 1000 years to break down and because we reuse our bags pretty much indefinitely, I'm feeling OK).

But, as a person who brings lunch (and an assortment of snacks) with me to work everyday, I was interested to learn the following about those trusty Tupperware containers:

Some types of plastics can leach traces of chemicals into foods and beverages. These chemicals include suspected carcinogens or endocrine disruptors, which have been linked to reproductive system harm. Plastic used for containers can be identified by their recycling codes, as listed below. Most wraps on pre-packaged foods lack identifying symbols. As a precaution, you can unwrap these foods and store them in nontoxic glass, ceramic or steel bowls, or Ziploc bags (made of LDPE). Heat promotes leaching: To be safest, never microwave or heat foods in plastics.

Plastics to avoid:
#3 Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC or vinyl)
Grocery stores commonly use PVC to wrap deli meats and cheeses. Reynolds cling wrap is PVC. Appalachian Mountain spring water and some vegetable oils are bottled in PVC. And PVC's manufacture and incineration produces highly toxic dioxins, as does the PVDC used in Saran Wrap

#6 Polystyrene (PS or Styrofoam)
Yeah, hi - I thought these went out in the early 90s when even McDonald's opted for a paper Big Mac box.

#7 Other Resins, including Polycarbonate (PC)
Most clear plastic baby bottles and 5-gallon water bottles are made of PC. Bisphenol-A, an EDC in PC, has been found in water and heated infant formulas bottled in PC, as well as food cans lined with a plastic film.

(info can be found on TheGreenGuide.com)