More Bad News About Plastic Bottles

A chemical used in the manufacture of food packaging, bisphenol A, has recently been shown to cause all sorts of ill effects in infants:

...everyone who drinks from hard plastic bottles or eats canned food has minute amounts of this hormone-like chemical in their bodies.

Now, a federal advisory panel is warning that the chemical could be causing neurological and behavior effects in unborn babies and young children.

Bisphenol A is a high production volume chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.

Polycarbonate plastics are used in food and drink packaging; resins are used as lacquers to coat metal products such as food cans, bottle tops, and water supply pipes.

When I was in India, the roadside chai shops used to serve beverages in disposable clay cups that looked a bit like tiny flowerpots. I can't vouch for the safety of the clay, which may for all I know have been full of pesticides and what have you, but it seemed an elegant solution to the very real need for disposable drinking vessels. And as usual, the healthier solution is also the more aesthetically pleasing one...