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« Children sifting the earth for gold | Main | Enviroblog hosts: Carnival of the Green #141! »
My quest for the perfect BPA-free sippy cup
You can probably imagine what it's like to work for EWG and be a parent. In a word: fraught. In two words: consumer paralysis.
Maybe it's just because I'm new here. In time, I'll (hopefully) recover and be able to walk down a store aisle without my 5-year old son saying, "Is that one of the bad toys, mama? What if Georgia (his 2-year old sister) puts it in her mouth?" Of course, for many, my husband included, consumer paralysis is a wonderful condition and he is glad to see I have it. All that said, my kids do need to drink liquids occasionally and their grubby hands aren't the solution. So, in my spare time (ha!), my quest for the perfect BPA-free sippy cup began.
If you're not up on Bisphenol-A yet, check out our cheatsheet or get the whole sordid story from our BPA web page. It's not pretty.
Let's just say a lot of common food and drink containers like baby bottles, formula cans, sippy cups, and tin cans (our entire pantry!) are leaching hormone disruptors right into me and the kids. The kids! Isn't one of my main jobs as a parent to keep them out of harm's way? To make sound choices on their behalf until they can (hopefully!) make their own? It's this kind of thing that makes that job so. much. harder. than it should be. I already have a job, thanks, I don't need another one researching every product I buy! What parent does?
So back to the quest. How'd it go? Long process, positive end result:
The process. We are lucky to have several local stores in Portland, Oregon, where I live, that sell only environmentally healthy baby products. So I visited them. And while they carried one type of BPA-free sippy cup, it was $15. Two kids = $30. And for playdates? Not too kind on the bank account. Plus, when you (inevitably) leave one of those at the local pool/park/bus, it hurts. Next stop, a trusted green mom blog for her BPA-free sippy cup product list. Several weeks later the stars aligned and I found myself alone in a grocery store with - here's the miracle - the list crumpled at the bottom of my purse. Yay! I actually felt organized, gazing at the colorful array of cups, armed with my list. Was there one brand from the list on the racks? Without a movie character? Nope. Internet shopping was starting to look good. Really good.
Buying It Online. The good news is that there are more and more online stores that do the work for you - screen out the bad stuff and sell you only the good stuff. How I love it when someone else does the work for me! So I happily ordered two sets of very reasonably priced Nubu cups from The Soft Landing. I also love Safe Mama's online store, but she didn't have these and they were exactly what I was after. And yes, we like them. Great colors. Plus, now all the lids match all the cups. Something my husband has requested for years - literally.
The End Result. So all in all a pretty happy ending. But the real end to this time-consuming affair, is that the perfect cup was in our basement, gathering dust, throughout my entire search. Another two words for you: jam jars. Cheap, durable, natural, not plastic. Ok, so they don't have lids. But our youngest is two, so it's high time to use a real cup anyway, right? And, if you don't have some little ones in your basement, you can always hit a garage sale or, if you gotta have new, buy them here and EWG will get some money. How great is that?
Comments
Good idea Lisa--I also used jam jars for the milk I pumped because they are fine in the freezer and easy to clean in the dishwasher. Those same jars served me later for sending food to daycare. A great investment all around!
Posted by: Sonya | August 15, 2008 10:40 AM
Tupperware(yes,I have been in the company for 18 years and now sell w/o personal profit)was the inventor of the sippy cup. It was the 1st item Earl Tupper ever made in the 30's.They are made from polyethylene or polypropylene and retail for a set of 4-$9.50/$6.50 for 4 seals.Also come w/lifetime warranty!!
Posted by: Brynda Bechtold | August 16, 2008 2:18 PM
For years, my children have used the "mug style" canning jars as water/sipper cups. At first, we used the metal lids and rings, but then I found plastic screw on lids (which don't touch the liquids) at Lehmans.com
You might want to try those -- they're great for travel, too!
Posted by: H | August 17, 2008 12:40 AM
Have you seen the blog ZRecommends? She has cheat sheets and recommendations for everything.
Here's her Tupperware page:
http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2008/02/z-report-bpa-tupperware.html
And here's everything else:
http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2008/02/z-report-on-bpa-in-infant-care-products.html
Posted by: Robyn | August 22, 2008 5:09 PM
Oh WOW! Ok, well I am new here. I have been one of the slow to turn green mommas, but slowly and surely I am getting there. I have a 6yr old and a 15mo old. So this article caught my eye. As I read it I am thinking ok well I just got rid of all the yucky bottles and now I have to try to figure out if the sippy cups I replaced them with are seeping nasties too. Much to my surprise these Nuby cups were in my kitchen in every color of the rainbow. We went on a huge trip this summer (Alaska to North Carolina) and I didn't have any with me. We stopped at a Walmart, which I normally would say NO WAY, but we were in a pinch in an area we didn't know. They had these cups that were only like a dollar or two! So if you can't find them...you might suck it up and venture into good ol Wally-World!
Posted by: Courtney | August 22, 2008 7:59 PM
Please have a look at our site. Our goal to inform people about heathy choices for our enviroment and their bodys.
We are trying to get our School Fundraising to take off by enabling children to promote Enviroment benifiting products and get great money for thier schools.
We have multiple options for Stainless Bottles and new things like the Wrap-n-Mat for a garbage free lunch for the kids.
When the kids fundraise with our products we can give them great info on how much carbon, plastics and chemicals they have diverted from landfill with thier fundraiser.
Let us know what you think. We are a small company and would love an email just to let us know we are on the right track!
Thanks
Corey
http://www.envirobottles.ca
Posted by: corey | September 4, 2008 2:32 PM