Baby bottle blues

Your baby bottles, toddler cups and baby tableware may not be what they seem. Jane Turner looks at what you might be serving up to baby.

Roughly 95% of all baby bottles currently on the market are made from polycarbonate plastic (marked PC with the number 7 in a recycling symbol). Trainer cups with spouts or straws and tableware may also be made from it. This plastic contains the chemical Bisphenol A which is known to mimic the oestrogen hormone.(1) It is feared that Bisphenol A may be partly responsible for the decline in sperm counts and increased rates of hormone-related cancers such as cancers of the breast, testes and prostate.(2)

Studies have shown that Bisphenol A leaches into the contents of containers, particularly when they are scratched or heated.(1) The levels leached are very low compared with the EU’s ‘tolerable daily intake’, but many parents may feel that it is best to adopt the precautionary principle and avoid the risk, however small.

There are two choices:
• switch to baby bottles, trainer cups and other feeding equipment not made from polycarbonates
• discard scratched polycarbonates and buy new ones. Heat food and drink outside the containers and transfer it when it is cool rather than heating the containers up as well.

Non-PC bottles
There are a number of alternatives to polycarbonate products. For baby bottles there are a couple of toughened glass bottles available on the UK market, the Baby-Nova and Emil brands, made by German companies. The Emil bottle comes with a padded, drawstring bag. Glass is also a good environmental option because it can be easily recycled and is more sustainable when compared to plastics, which are usually petroleum-based.

The Bfree brand of anti-colic baby bottles are made from Bisphenol-A free plastic because of its associated health risks, hence the brand’s name – B free. The baby bottles are made from polyethersulphone (PES) and the trainer cups from polypropylene. The Bfree website has links to articles about Bisphenol A and endocrine disruptors and to NGOs campaigning in this area such as WWF and Friends of the Earth.

Polypropylene baby bottles are also available. They may be marked PP with a number 5 inside the recycling symbol. Polypropylene is Bisphenol A free and has one of the lowest impacts on the environment of all plastics, according to Greenpeace.(3)

It also has a high potential for recycling, although the infrastructure is currently not in place. Two baby bottle manufacturers market their products as made from polypropylene - the Farlin and Medela brands. The Medela brand is sold as breastmilk storage bottles so you’ll have to buy teats.

Polypropylene is more widely available in trainer cups and beakers. But whilst many brands may be made from polypropylene only one brand markets its products as using it for environmental reasons - the Bfree brand.

A sterile environment?
It is recommended that baby bottles are sterilised before use and you can buy electric steam sterilisers or microwave steam sterilisers. The major brands of these are covered on the table.

Another option is cold sterilising using a chemical solution, most often sodium hypochlorite, a product of chlorine chemistry and the sort of thing used in waterworks for the chlorination of water. A lower-tech option is to just boil them in a saucepan. Bear in mind that if you are using polycarbonate bottles, heating facilitates the leaching of Bisphenol-A so allow them to cool down thoroughly before filling them.

TOTAL shock
The companies featured in this report are the obvious candidates - baby products manufacturers and retailers and toy companies. The most unlikely appearance is that of the the French oil company TOTAL which owns the NUK brand. TOTAL is the fourth largest oil company in the world and one of the biggest foreign investors in Burma.

It has a joint venture with Burma’s dictatorship in the Yadana gas project in southern Burma, which earns the regime hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democracy leader, has said that “TOTAL is the biggest supporter of the military regime in Burma.” A global campaign against TOTAL which aims to force the company to withdraw from Burma was launched earlier this year. See the links section to check out a report on the campaign.

Breaking the rules
Many of the companies on the table receive a mark in the Irresponsible Marketing column for breaking the baby milk marketing code. The code was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1981 as a minimum standard to help protect and promote breast as best. The Code prohibits any advertising of baby bottles and teats, free samples or special offers to mothers and misleading labels which often equate bottle feeding with breastfeeding.

Avent, Chicco, Dr Brown’s (now called Bfree), MAM, NUK, Playtex and Tommee Tippee have all been criticised for breaking the code in their promotion of bottles and teats. Of these, Avent was judged to be the worst in a survey undertaken in 2004 by the International Baby Food Action Network.(4) Boots and Heinz have both been criticised for violating the code for their marketing of baby milk.(4)

References
1 ENDS Report 360, January 2005 2 Bisphenol A - a known endocrine disruptor, WWF, April 2000 3 Greenpeace Plastics Pyramid 4 Breaking the Rules 2004 (IBFAN)

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