United Airlines' Hemispheres in-flight magazine was recently taken over by Ink Publishing, a team of people with a track record of turning filler magazines into magazines that print stories that you might actually want to read. For the past several months they've been publishing, in addition to the travel and food stories you'd expect to read at 30,000 feet, some quality short-form features with a surprisingly web-savvy perspective - ice hockey, Etsy, and now, the tangled web of so-called "mommybloggers" and the brands that are munching on their brains and turning a growing segment of the blogosphere into Night of the Blogging Dead. We'd go further to sing the praises of this truly balanced article about the temptations and painfully obvious pitfalls of corporate-fed parentblogging, but, well, we're biased, because reporter Sarah Wildman not only spoke at length with us as a source for the story, and not only actually included us in the story, but called us


Sorry, I had to see that writ large.

Seriously, though, you should go read the article. Articles that show off the worst sell-offs of personal integrity without talking about the varied choices people are making or delving into how conscientiously some bloggers are addressing these emerging issues has gotten really old, so this is a breath of fresh air. We are immensely appreciative of Hemisphere's interest in publishing a broader (yet shorter!) summing up of this issue.

The current status of bisphenol-A, which is teetering somewhere between near-unilateral corporate disavowal and a patchwork of outright bans, is what it is because we - parents, consumers, and part-time, practical activists - made it that way. That means we also have the power to decide what Health Canada's discovery of trace levels of BPA in non-polycarbonate bottles means to us. And the choice we make as consumers can have a big impact on whether there is a bright future ahead for "BPA-free."

We disagree with the argument that you should not be worried because the study is flawed. Yes, the study needs to be replicated. But our primary concerns - the apparent lack of a control and the lack of disclosure of detailed information - have both been cleared up. We now have all the data, an explanation of how they established a control group (in glass!), and the bottom line is, HC probably correctly identified that there are trace quantities of BPA in "BPA-free" products.

The question is, what does this mean?

In the week following the release of this report data we have seen some bloggers working to publicize it in as sensational a manner as possible. Worse, we have seen hardworking brands dedicated to providing the safest products possible declared to be liars who acted in bad faith by presenting BPA-containing products to consumers as BPA-free.

We don't see it that way, for a couple of reasons.

First, these levels are really, really, really small. The highest levels of BPA detected in non-polycarbonate plastics was under 2% of that found in polycarbonate, and that was found in pure water. In a 10% ethanol solution, which is more comparable to breast milk or formula, there was no detectable amount.

Second, non-polycarbonate bottles aren't the only place you wouldn't expect to find BPA, but will. Remember, this BPA probably came from dust present in the manufacturing facilities where the bottles were made. Trace amounts of BPA have been detected in drinking water (the Health Canada study corrected for it), and in human breast milk, not to mention infant formula (in higher quantities still). If you use recycled toilet paper, there is probably BPA in it, because there is BPA in the heat-sensitive paper used in credit card receipts, which is a significantly recycled paper product, and for all we know there could be BPA in dust in paper mills as well. It is the very ubiquity of harmful chemicals in our environment that make them, on the whole, so worthy of excommunication from the chemistry of our lives.

In other words, if a study that showed virtually every non-PC baby bottle on the market during lengthy exposure to fatty liquid simulants showing a complete non-detect for BPA has you worried, you're missing the forest for the trees.

We say all this from the perspective of people who have helped shepherd people through an intense period of consumer self-examination. After reporting for a while on BPA leaching from polycarbonate bottles, mainstream media interest and coverage of the issue picked up, and a couple of watershed announcements got everyone searching online for answers. At its peak we had parents emailing us daily telling us they could not sleep because they had poisoned their babies and asking how could they get the poison out. It got to the point where we spent more time reassuring people that their children were going to survive than we did recommending safer bottles and sippy cups. But when you're talking about sperm counts, anogenital distances, possible links to upticks in diabetes or other problems, the specter of an unknown relationship to long-term cancer risk, and effects on fish and wildlife, you are not talking about children being poisoned by their own parents, you are talking about a population and an environment that is being subjected to exposure to a chemical that should be swiftly retired from the scene.

For that reason, many activists, including Z Recommends, Non-Toxic Kids, Eco Child's Play, the Environmental Working Group, SafeMama, and many others, worked hard from the start to address this issue on all fronts: To encourage consumers to buy products that were not made with polycarbonate plastic or were free of BPA using widely-validated methods of detection; to pressure companies to educate themselves about chemicals in their products, to allow ZRecs to share that information with consumers, and to find alternatives to BPA-containing plastics, which were usually quite close at hand; and to tell Congress that we as consumers believed this substance should be legislatively removed from the market.

In that case, the mass parental freak-out had a net positive effect. Parents abandoned BPA-rich polycarbonate plastic in droves, migrated to new companies using safer plastics or to glass bottles, and their children are genuinely better off for it. And ultimately, companies decided it was not worth their time to battle for a plastic that parents didn't believe in anymore, and they gave it up.

But this time, it's different. If you, as a parent, choose to freak out about trace amounts of BPA found in bottles not made using it, at levels far below the sensitivity of any prior established testing method and far below the level banned by the country at the forefront of BPA regulation (Canada); if you choose to demonize companies that have tried to protect your children from BPA, and done a very good job of it; and if there are enough parents who join you in freaking out about it, you will make every company that went into BPA-free products and had the temerity to say as much wish they had never had anything to do with you. You will make them wish they had continued to ignore and defy and work around you until you got so disgusted with the so-called responsiveness of the free-market system to consumer choice that you fed your children out of borosilicate test tubes.

We have read a few breathless accounts of the demonic duplicity of companies like Medela, Born Free, and Adiri, who are now "not really" BPA-free, and to those with such misplaced hostility we say: What planet are you on? We'd suggest you - as a consumer, a parent, and an advocate for change - do the same. The same parents who led the charge for change in the marketplace (change that has come to us, by leaps and bounds, over the past year) have the power to say, We have realistic expectations and reasonable concerns.

And from the looks of it, that's where this situation seems headed. Parents are not (at the moment) freaking out about these trace readings - perhaps because they understand the data, or perhaps because Health Canada took such pains to explain that they weren't worried.

What BPA-free will ultimately mean

We believe the U.S. government, if and when it gets around to regulating estrogenic chemicals like BPA, will have to set levels of tolerance, not outright bans. Like lead, phthalates, and other chemicals we wish to regulate for the protection of human health, we must set a level of "free-ness" that will be a clear standard to which companies will be held. Otherwise, "free" will be a slippery term dependent on the capabilities of scientists to measure, rather than the ability of companies to perform up to established expectations.

Companies have a right to expect this kind of treatment, and companies that have taken the lead in providing BPA-free products should be prepared to be the leaders on this, too. Our job as consumers and activists is to let them know that we're ready to hear that conversation happen whenever it needs to happen, and we will continue to support the companies that have supported our needs and our concerns. If you agree, don't be shy about it. If others dogpile on companies whose commitment to providing safer products for your children has made a positive difference in your life, say so.

It will still be up to the scientists to determine what level of exposure to chemicals like BPA may cause harm. But we do not believe a zero tolerance approach is a practical response, and we also don't believe that "BPA-free" must mean zero tolerance now and to whatever decimal place technicians can arrive at, any more than "fat-free" means truly free of fat or "phthalate-free" means truly free of phthalates (in fact, it means it has less than 0.1%).

If additional testing confirms the trace levels of BPA found in these non-polycarbonate products, we will flag items in the ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products to alert parents to that fact, but with the caveat that we don't think these levels should currently be seen as a concern. Unless and until established and realistic levels for what "BPA-free" means indicate that a given product doesn't meet the standard, we will not be changing our labeling of these products in the ZRecs Guide from "BPA-free" to mark them as containing BPA. The levels are too low, and the results too uncertain, for that to be either useful to consumers or fair to companies.

Brennan Donnellan and his kids bought a Banzai Alligator Pool and were surprised to discover that the photo on the box appears to have been populated by some little elves instead of full-sized kids. Rather than just take it back they decided to go all Internet on Banzai and share their disappointment as a cautionary tale. We love it. Check out the video they made:


[Via Consumerist]

This matter has been settled out of court. Thanks to all ZRecs readers for your support.

Bloggers at the fantastic Safer States website contacted us yesterday to help us update our map of proposed BPA bans across the country. I'd compiled all the ones I could find, but the folks at Safer States have ties to the National Conference of State Legislators, which feeds them info on early-stage legislation. Many of these bills may be long shots, but it sure changes the map!



The full list now stands at:

• California


• Connecticut


• Illinois


• Hawaii


• Maryland


• Minnesota


• Mississippi


• Missouri


• Montana


• New Mexico


• New Jersey


• New York


• Oregon


• Pennsylvania


• Rhode Island


• Texas


• Vermont


• Wisconsin


• Washington State

By this accounting, the only "leaners" we know of (others we were hopeful about now do have live bills) are Delaware and Massachusetts.

We're selling 50 Thinkbaby BPA Free Feeding Sets (or 50 orders for them), for the standard retail price of $40, but with free FedEx shipping to your door anywhere in the U.S. We'll keep 50% of the profits to support our work, and donate the other 50% to the Breast Cancer Fund, a non-profit organization that identifies and advocates for the elimination of environmental and other preventable causes of cancer.

This six-piece feeding set is, hands-down, one of the best products we saw in 2008, and one Z uses every day. (You can read our review of the set or Thinkbaby's detailed product info for more on this great tableware set.) Equally important to us is the fact that we trust the company's extensive product testing, which goes well above and beyond regulatory requirements, as well as their integrity and their commitment to staying on the leading edge of product safety. Products like these - ones we can recommend as "nearly perfect" and recommend without reservation - are, quite frankly, the only kind we want to sell at all.

If you've priced this product elsewhere you'll know that unless you have a local source at a brick-and-mortar retailer, you can't beat this deal. If you want one, we encourage you to buy now, before we run out. Then come back and read on for a lot more detail about how we're going about this and what it means for ZRecs.

Why we're doing this

If you've been reading Z Recommends for long, you're bound to have figured out two things: We value the independence of our product reviewing very highly (we never have and never will receive payment for reviewing a product), and we rarely find a product we think is nearly perfect. We also try to do our part to make a difference in consumer issues that impact all of us as parents - your right to information about the products and materials your child is exposed to, and your right to purchase goods from independent craftspeople whose materials and methods you trust. We believe in advocacy blogging as well as independent product reviewing. But we're ready to do more - both in finding ways to support the research and advocacy we do on Z Recommends and with the ZRecs Guide, and to directly support others who share our goals.

To that end, we're taking a first, careful step into the realm of what we'll call, for lack of a better term, advocacy-based retail. The way we've set this sale up is a dry run for a model we'll tweak as needed, if we decide to do more of this in the future.

What this means for ZRecs

Can an advocacy-based sales model work? We announced this sale in our ZRecs Newsletter yesterday (the full newsletter is now archived here) and had a dozen sales that day. Our profit will be small, but that's what allows us to offer readers a good deal while contributing meaningfully to a cause we and our core readership believe in.

Our goal after this sale is to refine this model for future use - always (and only) selling the rare items we have previously reviewed and can recommend without reservation, and only when we can bring readers a great deal in addition to the charitable donation we'll put up in every instance. In the meantime, we''ll also develop an even more stringent version of our network policies that will ensure readers know how we do what we do, and why.

Future product sales could take a variety of forms - short-term promotional sales of individual products, permanent sale links in the ZRecs Guide, or something else entirely. But whatever form it takes, you will never see the variations in product quality you see in traditional retail, nor the range of options. Our shortlist for potential products to try selling next includes three items, total, from the array of thousands of products we have reviewed, handled at trade shows, or researched online, and our sale of any of them will depend on our ability to negotiate favorable deals with manufacturers. We also have a shortlist of causes we'd like to include in our program, all aimed at improving the health and safety of children throughout the world.

We also have plans to begin donating a significant share of proceeds from the commissions we earn on sales of products through the ZRecs Guide to charity as well. More on that soon.

That's a lot of information about where we're going with this, more than some of you probably need, but this is an important move for us and we want our core readership - people who trust us and believe in what we're doing - to understand where we're coming from, and what our vision for this looks like.

Want in?

For this initial sale, we're planning a limit of 50 sales as we test our system, although this number isn't set in stone. We'll post again here on this topic when we've reached our quota or otherwise decide to cut off sales. With 12 of them gone already, we're guessing this offer will be available for under a week.

So whether you want to help out ZRecs and the Breast Cancer Fund in one fell swoop and signal to us that we should move forward responsibly along this path, or just want to take advantage of an awesome deal on a great kids' feeding set, we encourage you to take a look at some product shots of the feeding set and a rundown of everything that's included, and a nice "Buy Now" button. Payments are processed through PayPal, which can securely process your payment using any major credit card, with no PayPal account needed.