July 2010: What is your opinion on the anti-BPA communication campaigns & the latest regulations?

If the pro BPA industry spent their lobby money on implementing known solutions the discussion would be over. There exits BPA free coatings that in addition consume 60% less energy, emit no voc's during curing and are cost neutral. The fight is against change, period. BPA combined with the energy these facilities consume is irresponsible enough, but the voc's are even worse. If it were not for the consumer demanding the change it would be business as usual.

Your suggestion is like an accused thief going free on some legal technicality rather than proving he didn't do it.
I'm mainly concerned now with bottles, not coatings. The overflow of emotions is making people believe that ALL clear plastic is unhealthy, including the standard PET water bottles. Our industry must fight this vigorously in the name of technical truth. If you call this "lobbying" you are throwing a dirty word to inflame feelings, which is just what the junk-scientists are doing. Further, we need to learn WHY the vast majority of the general public is afraid of plastics and all too vready to attacxk and even ban them in so many applications, even as they love and use them to keep their lives sanitary and convenient.
My criticism is that the industry is too busy on defense and doesn't put eny money into finding out the basic reasons for such bolonium.
BPA is NOT an ingredient in PC, but a building block that should be gone and inactive by the time the resin is made. Why aren't these junkies using the other building block, phosgene (a known poisonous gas) to justify their anti-PC arguments?
ALG

Legislators should await the release of BPA studies from the FDA and the European Food Safety Authority, which are expected this summer. This is particularly pertinent in the U.S. where California and New York are in position to potentially sign laws into effect to more severely restrict BPA use, which in effect with two of the three largest U.S. states would in turn de-facto create a national ban where packaging companies would extend the ban to all 50 states by virtue of not wanting to make two separate (non-BPA, BPA) package alternatives.

It is the same old same old. Not enough data to prove anything and yet they continually attack BPA. If the data were to show BPA to actually be harmful, then it warrants being studied further. I am for alternative solutions for just in case, but if such a replacement exists, it apparently is not cost affective enough. Polymers containing BPA are used inside of food cans so I have no idea how they expect to actually ban it anyways even if they want to. It is just so sad how they continually try and skew the data to what their agenda is. Similarly to how they push the Cap and Trade bill and healthcare as well. The people with this agenda are not here to help, they are here to control!

...when bashing BPA. Fact is, the amount makes the venom, and most products under fire are made with BPA or its derivates, but do not contain any free BPA. Think about it when drinking your next cup of coffee, which would be banned by FDA as toxic and not suitable for public use if introduced today as a novel chemical formulation into the market..

eye...in canned food TOO!

Reaction to John of Plastics USA.

1. Bans on BPA itself, if done professionally with threshholds, are livable although of dubious value re bottles. Very little PC is used in bottles, makers might be able to get below limits (as with PVC in the 1970s) and maybe even with cans, which I know less about. BPA is the building block, not the product. Why is it so hard for our own industry to remember this?

2. My main worry is the extension to all clear bottles (mainly PET), and the fueling of general plastophobia. My own family tells me not to heat foods in "plastics" in a microwave, saying I have been brainwashed by corporate propaganda. Again, I say I want to see a study of WHY people are so ready to bash plastics. The FDA and EFSA work may block bans on a legislative level, but they probably won't touch the emotional issue I am raising.

3. The link to "the agenda" is an example of how people with their own agenda can't see the issues for the politics. I do not follow an agenda, nor any one party, but decide each issue on its own merits. I supported the healthcare bill, I want more control over banks and insurance companies, I support corporate agriculture and do not eat organic or local, I believe FDA is doing their best (and I'm glad they are around), I don't summarily toss out Cap & Trade, and I want our lifestyles restrained if necessary to leave a safer world for our children and grandchildren whom we so proudly have borne and cared for. I support responsible public-corporation behavior and distrust privacy (secrecy). And I am for sensible science in managing chemicals. I try to balance the future, the present and the past. Yes, John, we want to control -- that is, to take control back from those people who do not want a real democracy but will say what they have to, at any cost, especially the future.

I know this is about BPA but I guess Allan, you agree with Ron Bloom- Obama's Senior Counselor to the U.S. President for Manufacturing Policy. In 2008, Bloom spoke to an audience at the sixth annual Distressed Investing Conference held at the Union League Club and said, among other things, "Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog

Market-'society' have already imposed their position, far away of all scientific availabe studies. Studies will continue until somebody find something to justify what have already imposed by the market. Why spend more money in additional studies if they are not taken into account?