Conservation Magazine January-March 2010 (Vol. 11 No. 1)
By Susan Casey
Garbage In, Garbage Out
When a single swath of ocean contains more plastic than plankton, the simple act of taking out the trash becomes a grueling scientific challenge
excerpt:
Ask a group of people to name an overwhelming global problem, and you’ll hear about climate change, the Middle East, or AIDS. No one, it is guaranteed, will cite the sloppy transport of nurdles as a concern. And yet nurdles, lentil-sized pellets of plastic in its rawest form, are especially effective couriers of waste chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, which include known carcinogens such as DDT and PCBs.

OP-ED COLUMNIST, NY Times, 11/8/29
Chemicals in Our Food, and Bodies
excerpt:
Your body is probably home to a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — to the tune of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.

More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike.

Now it turns out it’s in our food.

NYTimes, 10/29/08
Panel Rebukes F.D.A. on Plastic Safety
A scientific panel has issued a blistering report against the Food and Drug Administration, saying the agency ignored important evidence in reassuring consumers about the safety of the controversial chemical bisphenol-A.

NYTimes, 5/4/09
Well: Earlier Puberty in European Girls
A 15-year study of young girls in Denmark add to a growing body of evidence that the timing of puberty is changing, possibly related to environmental exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body.

Bio-Medicine, 6/1/05
Plastic to Cause Breast Cancer
development to cause breast cancer in adult life.

Children's Environmental Health Network, 1/09
How a common plastic ingredient may affect obesity and related diseases.
http://www.cehn.org/science_aom.htm

Grinning Planet
Polystyrene Foam Cups & Containers, Styrene Migration, and Your Health
http://www.grinningplanet.com/2008/04-08/foam-cups-polystyrene-cups-article.htm

Environment and Human Health, Inc.
The plastics problem is growing in scale and complexity due to a collision of factors, including government neglect of the importance of endocrine disruption; the explosive growth of the U.S. and international plastics industry; the absence of any plastic ingredient and source labeling requirements; nearly complete recycling failure for PVC and polycarbonate plastics; environmental contamination of air, water, soils, oceans, fish and wildlife; nearly universal human exposure to BPA and DEHP from food and beverages in high income nations; the dependence of the plastics industry on petroleum; and government failure to require health and environmental testing prior to chemical production, sale, and disposal. Collectively, these pose a serious challenge to the environment and human health.
http://www.ehhi.org/reports/plastics/

EJnet.org:, Polystyrene & Health Homepage
http://www.ejnet.org/plastics/polystyrene/health.html

Environmental Health Perspectives, Bisphenol A at Environmentally Relevant Doses Inhibits Adiponectin Release from Human Adipose Tissue Explants and Adipocytes http://www.ehponline.org/members/2008/11537/11537.html

Earth Resources Foundation, report on Polystyrene Foam Report
http://www.earthresource.org/campaigns/capp/capp-styrofoam.html

City of San Clemente, California Polystyerene Ban
http://san-clemente.org/sc/standard.aspx?pageid=453

Resource Conservation,
Portland Public School Washable Tray Pilot Project
http://www.facilities.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/11121

Plastics vs. the Environment, The Polystyrene Page
Problems with production, health, environment and disposal
http://www.ejnet.org/plastics/polystyrene/index.html

EJnet.org: Web Resources for Environmental Justice Activists,
Eliminate the Use of Polystyrene
http://www.ejnet.org/plastics/polystyrene/nader.html

NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation
Green Schools-Recycling and More
http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8803.html

New York's Green Cleaning Program, Be clean, be green, be healthy
https://greencleaning.ny.gov/Entry.asp

Times OnLine
Mission to break up Pacific island of rubbish twice the size of Texas
A high-seas mission departs from San Francisco next month to map and explore a sinister and shifting 21st-century continent: one twice the size
of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6206498.ece

New York Times, 4/13/09, Using Fungi to Replace Styrofoam
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/using-fungi-to-replace-styrofoam/#more-5351

The Gazette, 3/6/09, The Styrofoam dilemma
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/Styrofoam%20dilemma/
1362761/story.html

Technology Transfer Network Air Toxics Web Site,
Styrene Hazard Summary-Created in 4/92; Revised in 1/00
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/styrene.html

State Senator Liz Krueger (D- Manhattan) working to limit polystyrene use
http://www.lizkrueger.com/news/news433.html