I mentioned something in passing in our plastics conference call yesterday that I figured I'd better follow up on.

At ZRecs we have always maintained - both to concerned consumers and to companies making unsubstantiated claims about the safety of their products - that our goal as consumers and as a society should be to reduce our overall exposure levels to many chemicals, knowing that we will never completely eliminate them, at least not within our lifetimes. The production, use, and waste cycle of these products ensures that chemicals like these are present not only in a huge array of products, but in our environment as well. It is quite likely, for example, that there is some (very small) amount of BPA in your tap water.

Another example, and one most people aren't yet aware of, is paper products. The one I mentioned specifically on the call was toilet paper.

As it turns out (post-call research on my part) the source of BPA in toilet paper appears not to be that it is added deliberately to the product, but that a lot of toilet paper is made from post-consumer sources that include lots of recycled thermal printing paper (credit card receipts). Dresden University did a study examining BPA turning up in wastewater streams and traced it back to toilet paper as the culprit. We first learned about this study here and here.

Environmental regulators consider sources like this disconcerting because endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA and phthalates can wreak havoc on marine ecosystems. Ultimately, it's sources like these that are the reason you probably have BPA (at extremely low concentrations) in your tap water, too.

The same thing goes for other kinds of recycled paper, too. When we add up all of the sources we now know of, BPA can be found at smaller levels, and less clear exposure levels, than the children's products we have been talking about for some time. These products include:

• Credit card receipts


• Recycled cardboard pizza boxes and paper


• Beer and wine (vats are lined with a BPA-containing resin)


• Rubbermaid polycarbonate-lined baking tins used by Subway


• Soda cans and food cans


• Baby food jars (lids) and formula packaging (metal cans, glass jar lids, and paper packaging foil seals)


• Many non-polycarbonate plastics (including the color-changing plastics used by Sassy and others), in addition to PC

Consumer advocates and reporters like us often avoid raising topics like this for a few, closely-related reasons:

1. Consumers often have difficulty managing their feelings about a given chemical, and think in terms of eliminating individual ones rather than chipping away at the overall chemical load of known harmful substances.


2. We believe not all sources are created equal. BPA is found in many of these products at extremely low levels. Most of these also expose us to BPA in far less obvious ways, if at all, and more research is needed on the dose/effect relationship of different levels of BPA and other endocrine disruptors.


3. We don't want people to feel powerless, or like the changes they make don't make a difference, because, to the best of our understanding of an emerging area of scientific scrutiny, they do make a big difference.

That said, we consider toilet paper to be a specific source of concern, for reasons a polite blogger should probably avoid getting into. Suffice to say that exposure is certain and frequent.

I also mentioned on the call that I don't believe there is currently enough scientific data to warrant fears about melamine tableware, or about chemicals leaching from #1, #2, and #5 plastics. A few isolated studies and alerts have come out on each of these but we believe a lot more rigorous data collection is needed before calling for any changes to regulation or to consumer habits. We may post more specifically about this if there is interest, or wait until we see more data and do so then.

I also discussed how our ability to test for these chemicals at lower and lower levels is steadily advancing, and that the scientific and regulatory community is going to face some challenging questions regarding what constitute acceptable levels of different chemicals. We'll write about that again in a future post.

We've made our first corrections to the ZRecs Guide: Burt's Bees products were incorrectly identified as containing phthalates. Many sources flag Burt's Bees products as hazardous for their use of fragrance, which often does contain phthalates, but in the case of Burt's Bees the company take aggressive measures to avoid them, and has worked with the Natural Products Association to develop a certification process that allows companies to demonstrate that their "natural" products meet a high standard that includes avoidance of any phthalates in a given product. We apologize for the error, and will post about any further needed corrections as well as major updates to the Guide.

We're thrilled to announce that the next generation of ZRecs consumer research is now online. Tell your friends! And tell us what you think.

The ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products tracks a variety of potentially harmful chemicals, ranging from BPA and phthalates to parabens, PEGs, triclosan, flame retardants, and a range of other chemicals that are used and abused in products that affect your children. Products are presented in individual listings that are sorted by brand and product type, and you can decide for yourself which chemicals to ban from your life and see filtered results for products reported to be free of them. Product areas span not only bottles, sippys, tableware, and pacifiers, but also apparel, bath products and bath toys, infant toys and teethers, kids' sunscreens, water bottles, relevant kitchen appliances, and much more.

In addition, we've added an independent "Confidence" rating to each product to express our semi-professional belief that the reported BPA status is true. Confidence levels are expressed as Low, Moderate, and High, and we have a variety of reasons - materials used, type of reporting provided, company track record, and more - for arriving at our independent conclusions regarding just how reliable we feel a product's reported chemical status actually is. This is designed to offer consumers the chance to not only decide for themselves which chemicals they'd like to avoid but how much risk they are comfortable accepting.

We've thrown in quality ratings for products with a clean chemical profile, as well as links to buy almost every product in the database. Our ratings are based on one of two things: Our own usage and reviewing of the product, or a clear pattern of consumer assessments on blogs and sites we monitor.

This site is a work in progress and will be continuously monitored and updated. No more blog post updates and content that gradually becomes obsolete. We're in database country. We'll also be continuously adding to it; we already have not just a list of additional companies to add (the site covers 130 so far) but of new product areas and chemicals we intend to track. All of this will happen sooner rather than later, and we'll post major upgrades or additions to the site here on Z Recommends to keep our readers abreast of what's offered there.

Rest assured, we're rethinking how all of this kind of research should be done, and we'll be moving forward with some exciting (and collaborative) projects in the months to come.

You'll always be able to access the ZRecs Guide from our network front page at zrecs.com. We'll also have promo ads floating around on some ZRecs blogs, and will tack one up on Z Recommends as well so you always have a quick link to the site.

A note to readers: We have published a post with new information about this issue. Make sure to read it after you read this one!

Last week we reported on skin lesions being suffered by infants wearing Carter's tagless clothing, and have since received dozens of similar reports from readers, many of them intensely frustrated because their pediatricians declared the issue simple eczema and prescribed medication without examining potential underlying problems. Since that time we have been in frequent communication with Janell Cleveland, Carter's Senior Director of Consumer Affairs, throughout the week regarding the issue some consumers are having with the brand's tagless infant clothing, a story we first reported on last week. So far, we have received responses to some of our questions, a statement from the company, and the promise that they will work to provide us with additional information.

What we know

According to Cleveland, Carter's labels do not contain formaldehyde, but might contain phthalates, which are common in tagless apparel applications. Their labels undergo frequent redesigns and their Fall 2007 line had a full-screen label that used an estimated 300% of the plastisol ink used in previous or subsequent collections, which may account for the skin reactions, as the formulation of their tags has not changed in that time. The company is working to get us information for publication regarding the presence of phthalates in these labels and, if present, which phthalates are being used. The company is accepting clothing for refund and requests reports be directed to them as they further investigate the problem.

Right now their working hypothesis is that it is the Fall '07 line that is the problem, so reports of injuries relating to other seasons, especially later ones - Spring '08 and Fall '08 - would be tremendously helpful to them. We'd appreciate receiving these reports directly as well at editors (at) zrecs (dot) com.

A statement from Carter's

At our request, Carter's drafted the following official statement for publication:

Carter’s is aware of several reports from consumers whose children have experienced skin reactions while wearing apparel products containing heat-transferred, or "tagless" labels. Some of these products have been identified as Carter's products. We want to assure our customers that we take this matter seriously and are doing everything we can to ensure their continued confidence in and satisfaction with our products.

Carter's has used different types of heat transferred labels for many years on hundreds of millions of products. Our experience with these labels is that they are safe and that any skin reaction is extremely rare. Regardless, we take our quality control very seriously and carefully review all consumer concerns. Prior to being used in our products, these labels passed third-party testing for all applicable safety standards.

Since this issue came to our attention, we have contacted the label manufacturer to further review the manufacturing process, and we are conducting further testing and have engaged experts to determine the source of the skin reactions, which we currently believe to be a rare allergic reaction. Because of design trends, the features and appearance of our labels change frequently. In fact, before receiving any of the recent complaints, these labels underwent further design and feature changes for our new product season.

Your feedback and comments are important to us. We encourage you to contact us at 1-888-782-9548 with any questions or concerns you may have with any Carter’s products.

What you should do

• If your child gets a rash or lesion, call Carter's at 888-782-9548. Then call the CPSC to report the problem at their hotline number: 800-638-2772. Then email us photos and some information so that we can reference it when dealing with Carter's and the CPSC and reporting accurately on this issue.


• If you're using Carter's tagless infant clothing, we recommend you stop using it if a reaction occurs or if you are using the Fall 2007 line, even if your child has not had a reaction. This is our personal opinion.

What we're still trying to learn

We are looking forward to receiving and sharing additional information from Carter's, particularly what is in their plastisol labels. We are investigating through additional channels as well. We're also trying to compile information on other brands that might be causing similar reactions, so would appreciate any reports and photographs - send them to editors (at) zrecs (dot) com.

Note: Now check out our more recent post for the latest information on this issue.