The word is out on BPA

Biome eco store had a rush of customers asking  for help with the topic they heard about on 60 minuets – BPA (Bisphenol A).

Here is a link to the full transcript of the 60 minuets article.

Link

See Biome eco stores online or ask us instore for our huge range of BPA free products. Not only bottles for children and adults,  also lunchboxes and a great range of glass bottles and stainless steel products. Biome stock brands you can trust like Lifefactory, SIGG, Klean Kanteen, Nathan, Goodbyn and many more.

Visit us soon, Biome is a BPA FREE ZONE.

www.biome.com.au

BPA-Free Glass water bottle.

NEW at Biome the fantastic long awaited Lifefactory glass bottles

A new BPA free water bottle is on the market and we all want one. Lifefactory have created  glass water bottles perfect for adults that looks smart, simple to use and safe.

Biome have always loved Life factory’s range of baby bottles and are now happy to be able to supply Adults with this great glass bottle option.

At biome we don’t only love our reusable safe products because they are free of harmful chemicals including BPA, phthalates, and PVC, we also want our products to cover your practical needs.

The Lifefactory bottles come in a great range of colours with a sleek modern design, no metallic tastes, they are dishwasher safe (both bottle and silicone sleeve),  made from borosilicate glass and therefore are thermal shock resistant, and have a great silicone sleeve that helps protect the bottle while providing ample gripping ability.

See also Goodbyn lunch boxes in colours Ghost and Slate, these match the life factory bottles very well to complete your waste free lunch kit.

You can find Lifefactory bottles on biomes website or come visit us in store.

www.biome.com.au

City Store: 215 Adelaid Street ( near Post Office square & Anzac Square)

Ph: 07 3221 9842

Paddington Store: 2 Latrobe Terrace

Ph: 07 3368 3009

Plastics and food

Choice help us out with a big question,  Are chemicals from plastic food containers and wrapping as safe as the industry and regulators claim or are they slowly poisoning us? See the choice report Plastics and food

On an environmental level it would be great to avoid extra packaging of any kind but when it comes to health concerns Choice have some information on two plastics of particular concern.

• Polycarbonate (often used to make food storage containers and bottles, in particular bottles marketed for use by infants and small children) and the epoxy resin used to line cans can release bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that many experts now believe can cause serious health problems.
• PVC (used to make bottles, cling wrap and the seals for screw-cap jars) contains added chemicals known as plasticisers. On its own, PVC is hard and rigid (it’s used to make drains, guttering and downpipes), so plasticisers are added to make it soft and flexible – in much the same way water added to clay makes it soft. Plasticisers can make up as much as 40% of the plastic material. Phthalates and DEHA (di-(2-ethyhexyl)adipate) are often added as plasticisers to the PVC that’s used for food packaging; again, recent research raises doubts about the safety of these compounds.

While these compounds are undoubtedly hazardous at high levels of exposure, scientific opinion is divided over the risk from the much lower levels that we’re exposed to every day in our food. There is, however, growing scientific evidence that even at these lower levels of exposure, phthalates and BPA may be causing problems such as infertility, obesity, breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

The evidence seems to grow everyday and some simple alternatives to plastics with the chemicals mentioned above are available.

Some great everyday use products that are BPA free can be found at Biome Eco Stores

• Lunch boxes – Something for children and adults
• Sandwich wrap -Great replacement for plastic wrap
• Bento boxes

How to clean water bottles

How to clean Klean Kanteen and other stainless steel bottles

How to clean SIGG and other aluminium bottles

Whether your bottle is a Klean Kanteen or other stainless steel bottle or a SIGG aluminium bottle with lining, or a BPA free plastic water bottle, it is important to stop mould and other deposits forming inside the bottle.

Any material kept constantly wet will breed bacteria, so the number one rule is to let your bottle dry out completely on a regular basis.

Wash your bottles with warm, soapy water at the end of every day, rinse in fresh water, and let the bottle air dry upside down with the top off.

Should any mineral deposits or lime scale form inside, fill your clean bottle with Distilled White Vinegar (no other kind) and let soak for 24 hours. Then rinse the bottle with warm water and one tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda and let dry.

We recommend using filtered water where possible.   It tastes so much better without chlorine–but also because water contains different minerals in every area and this may affect what happens inside your bottle.   Biome sells a popular range of hand made ceramic water purifiers.  Spots inside your water bottle that look like “corrosion” are most likely a mineral deposit.

Try also SIGG cleaning tablets and SIGG cleaning brush on all drink bottles.  Please only ever use a soft brush on SIGG so as not to damage the lining.  Stainless Steel bottles can handle a hard brush.

We recommend not putting your reusable water bottle into the dishwasher.  The dishwasher can damage the external paint coating and because most dishwasher powders are caustic, they will eat into the paint and metal.   Your outer colourful coating will deteriorate much faster when exposed to the heat of dishwashers.  Tops should also not be put through the dishwasher because extreme heat expands and deteriorates the plastic.

Never freeze bottles as metal can split even with only a little water inside.   Trust us, we have seen many bottles that expanded and split.  Water does not always expand in a predictable direction!  Even stainless steel bottles are not suitable to freeze.

Water bottle under siege – movies, books, governments

Carry a plastic water bottle at your own peril; the tide of public opinion is turning against you.  From top rating documentaries, to books and political campaigns, the menace of bottled water and the waste the discarded plastic bottles create, is the hottest issue in town.

The production, transportation and disposal of water in plastic bottles consumes large quantities of water and energy and produces large amounts of greenhouse gases and waste.

Stephanie Soechtig, Director of the new documentary Tapped: get off the bottle, says “1500 water bottles end up in landfill every second – that’s 30 million water bottles a day! We want to show people just how much waste is generated by bottled water.”  With a trans-America roadshow sponsored by Klean Kanteen, the Tapped team is collecting pledges from people to reduce their water bottle use and exchange their empty plastic bottle for a reusable stainless steel bottle.   You can download Tapped from Amazon or iTunes.

Another short film The Story of Bottled Water, released on World Water Day in March was created by Annie Leonard of the acclaimed The Story of Stuff.  This animated film shows the strategy that goes into conning Americans into buying more than half a billion bottles of water every week, compared with a few cents cost for water from the tap.

Browse & shop or continue reading article…

Shop now SIGG	Shop now Klean Kanteen	Shop now Nathan	Shop now Thermos	Shop now Stainless steel bottle

In her book Bottlemania, author Elizabeth Royte chronicles one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth century and gives a powerful environmental wakeup call. She investigates the questions we must inevitably answer. Who owns our water? What happens when a bottled-water company stakes a claim on your town’s source? Is the water coming from the tap completely safe? What is the environmental footprint of making, transporting and disposing of a plastic water bottle.

Politicians around the world realise they must take action – particularly as the institutions in which they serve are major consumers of bottled water.  How often do we see a politician at a press conference sipping from a water bottle?  Surely, the catering staff of Parliament House can provide a jug of tap water and a glass.    Afterall, tap water is virtually free while expensive bottled water can cost $4 or more a litre.

Leslie Samuelrich of Corporate Accountability International, said “Cities and states are spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on bottled water, and that’s not to mention what’s spent to deal with all the plastic bottles that are thrown out.”

In July 2009, the NSW rural town of Bundanoon became the first community in Australia to ban the sale of bottled water.  At least 60 cities in the United States and some in Canada and the UK have banned spending taxpayer dollars on bottled water.

No doubt these issues will be discussed at World Water Week 2010 from September 5 to 11 in Stockholm, Sweeden, the annual meeting for the planet’s most urgent water-related issues.