what is BPA and why is it bad?
In: Chemistry
Bisphenol A is a type of plastic additive commonly used in food containers and water bottles (normally hard plastic).
Why its bad is because its a carcinogen, it can cause cancer if consumed. Its stable enough that typically it won’t get into your food. If you put hot water/food or heat stuff in it then some of the plastic can leach into the food/water. Normally the amounts are small enough that it doesn’t matter, but particularly in baby bottles (which are used to heat milk regularly, and are fed to babies who require smaller doses of plastic for it to cause cancer) it was really bad.
So thats why there is a push for BPA free products, particularly baby bottles. It is still used because its cheap and its good hard plastic, so long as you don’t put hot stuff in it (a lot of them as labeled as not being good to put into dishwashers or not for hot liquids, or not to microwave for that reason)
Edit: I originally mistakenly presented bpa as the hard plastic itself as opposed to just a common component, I’ve fixed that.
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