Plastic Time Bombs

For quite some time now I've been boiling the water for tea in a hard, white plastic tea kettle.

I must have bought it at least 4 years ago and the thing is indestructible. I once even left it on the element, which was turned on when I thought it was off, and in spite of the strands of toffee-like plastic that melted off its bottom as a result, it kept on workin'. And, until now, have I once thought about its impact on my health? Of course not! Don't be silly! I'm no little paranoid, hypochondriacal woos.

Suddenly, with all this talk about ensuring that your food/water is not in contact with plastic, (especially if you're heating it up) I'm feeling a bit like Oops!

One day I expect I might just get out of bed and begin to sound like I'm trying to cough up a hairball, like a beautiful little kitty might, and instead of hair, I'll cough up a sizeable, round ball of contaminated white plastic. Ugh. Gross!

It was the new Blog called The Green Room on the David Suzuki Foundation website that reminded me how I've never really been all that good in dealing with those things in life that others categorize as "obvious".

I had no idea that different numbers within the recycling triangle on the plastics actually correlated with different levels of toxicity for humans. Hello! What does it mean when your tea kettle doesn't even have one of those? Oh my god. The sky is falling! I should probably be living in a bubble and be quarantined.

Why not take a look around your own digs and see what plastic gadgets you may need to get rid of, especially, if you're heating food or boiling water in the toxic thangs.

Oh, and while I'm ranting. Kudos to David Suzuki for making it clear to people that it's actually perfectly fine to drink the tap water in Vancouver and spending money on bottled water is just too freakin pampered Northern American for words. My words, not his.

You can find out more from The Green Room, a new Blog from the David Suzuki Foundation.