Is plastic toxic?

A growing body of scientific evidence supports the idea that toxins are toxic because they influence our hormonal balance. Let's start by looking at some a familiar toxic substance that affects hormones... plastics. Plastics are everywhere and we love them. We wear them, slip our feet into them, see through them. We sit on them, eat on them, eat from them, eat with them, walk on them, drive around in them, watch them and play with them. The synthetic polymer, a critical component of the chemical industry, has in many respects become the very substance of our material lives and is impacting on the hormonal balance of the pregnant mother and unborn child.

Since the first "plastic" was invented about 1910, industrial chemists have churned out a polysyllabic catalog of plastics: polymethylmethacrylate (Plexiglas), polyesters, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl), polyhexamethylene adipamide (the original nylon polymer), polytetraperfluoroethylene (Teflon), polyurethane and a host of others. But these new substances have been in existence just a few generations; only now are we beginning to understand the impact they're having on our health. And so dependent are we on plastics, even if it were proven tomorrow that they were directly linked to cancer, it might take decades -- if ever -- to find an alternative that would be accepted and mainstreamed.