OT: oceans now contaminated w/BPA, really not a surprise

[Guest guest]

(NaturalNews) Earlier this year, research linked bisphenol A (BPA), a

common component of plastics and a powerful hormone disrupter, to heart

disease (http://www.naturalnews.com/027974_b...). Now, in the March

issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for

Experimental Biology, researchers have reported yet another newly

discovered danger posed by BPA. Hugh S. , M.D., professor in the

Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale

University, and his research team have found for the first time that BPA

exposure during pregnancy can cause abnormalities in the uterus of

offspring and permanent alterations in DNA.

But at least you can avoid plastics and therefore avoid exposure to the

BPA, right? Unfortunately, another group of scientists has just

announced that's getting harder and harder to do. Bottom line: there is

now solid evidence that Earth's oceans have been contaminated on a

global scale with BPA.

Katsuhiko Saido, Ph.D., of Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, and his

colleagues announced their startling and worrisome findings at the 239th

National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in San Francisco

recently. He stated that the massive BPA contamination of oceans

resulted from hard plastic trash thrown in the seas as well as from

another surprising source -- the epoxy plastic paints used to seal the

hulls of ships.

" This new finding clearly demonstrates the instability of epoxy, and

shows that BPA emissions from epoxy do reach the ocean. Recent studies

have shown that mollusks, crustaceans and amphibians could be affected

by BPA, even in low concentrations, " Dr. Saido said in a statement to

the media.

The scientists noted that light, white-foamed plastic decomposed rapidly

at temperatures commonly found in the oceans, releasing the endocrine

disruptor BPA. It isn't just soft plastics that leach BPA, either.

" We were quite surprised to find that polycarbonate plastic biodegrades

in the environment, " Dr. Saido explained. " Polycarbonates are very hard

plastics, so hard they are used to make screwdriver handles, shatter-

proof eyeglass lenses, and other very durable products. This finding

challenges the wide public belief that hard plastics remain unchanged in

the environment for decades or centuries. Biodegradation, of course,

releases BPA to the environment. "

Dr. Saido's research team analyzed sand and seawater from over 200 sites

in 20 countries, including areas in Southeast Asia and North America.

Every site tested contained what Dr. Saido labeled as " significant "

amounts of BPA, ranging from 0.01 parts per million (ppm) to 50 ppm.

Dr. Saido pointed out that littering currently results in about 150,000

tons of plastic debris washing up on the shores of Japan alone each

year. In addition, a huge area of plastic waste known as the Great

Pacific Garbage Patch, which is about two times the size of Texas, now

contaminates the area between California and Hawaii. " Marine debris

plastic in the ocean will certainly constitute a new global ocean

contamination for long into the future, " Dr. Saido predicted in the

press statement.

In yet more BPA news, Rolf Halden, associate professor in the School of

Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University and assistant

director of Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute, has

just published a sobering research article on the hazards of chemical-

loaded plastics. His findings, which are included in the latest issue of

the Annual Review of Public Health, provide more evidence that plastics

in garbage dumps, landfills and the world's oceans are an ever-

increasing toxic problem.

In fact, Dr. Halden concluded in his paper that plastics and their

additives such as BPA aren't only around us; they are inside virtually

every human. The chemicals show up in blood and urine tests because they

are ingested with the food we eat, the water we drink and from other

environmental exposures.

" We're doomed to live with yesterday's plastic pollution and we are

exacerbating the situation with each day of unchanged behavior, " Dr.

Harden said in a press statement. " We are at a critical juncture and

cannot continue under the modus that has been established. If we're

smart, we'll look for replacement materials, so that we don't have this

mismatch -- good for a minute and contaminating for 10,000 years. "