Organic Mom: Stonyfield Yogurt Uses Suspect Plastic
I'm not a morning person. Never have been. My daughter is aterrible/odd sleeper but the upshot to her late nights is that she wakes uplate (for a kid), too. If I had to do morning duty, her schedule makes itpossible even for me. But I'm actually not "on" in the mornings as I tend to domost of my writing late at night or in the morning before her father goes towork. All of this preamble is getting to a story, I swear. I happened to wakeup with her one morning over the long weekend so her father could have a muchdeserved sleep-in. I do like the opportunity to be in charge of her breakfastand we have fun things we make together just-us-two on these rare mornings. Weespecially like to make buckwheat pancakes that I load with all sorts ofgoodies (flaxseed oil, wheat germ, organic eggs, blueberries etc.) and makethem even more special by dotting the resulting misshapen things with (the mostminiscule amount of) maple syrup that comes from someone near our CSA farm.
Lately, the kid wakes up most mornings requesting yogurt before she even saysgood morning. This is what she asked me for. She has always been on the tinyside weight and otherwise for her age so long ago when we were a bitconcerned about this, we gave her packaged baby yogurt. I went back and forthon the decision to do this for a while I'm not someone who willingly givesthe kid sugar and baby yogurts are oddly loaded with the stuff. But she wasn'teating plain whole fat yogurt, even with organic fruit preserves stirred intoit, so I gave in. I wanted her to have the extra calories and fat. Sadly thesethings are a bit addictive and we've never been able to wean her off of them. SoI've accepted them in our life, especially as I'm not doing breakfast and don'thave to witness her devouring them daily. I'm rarely anout-of-sight-out-of-mind mom, so this is a big concession.
So, on this morning, I gave her her yogurt, which she ate in 3 seconds flat.Then she requested another one. I declined, distracted her with somefresh-from-the-farmers-market (unsprayed!) strawberries and went into thekitchen to start the pancake process. I rinsed out the yogurt cup andabsent-mindedly looked at the bottom of it before tossing it into the recyclingbin.
To my shock and horror there was a number 6on the bottom of it!!!!!!!!!!Aaaaaaack!
For those of you who don't follow plastic numbers, 6 is polystyrene. Styrene isa possible endocrine distrupter/carcinogen. (For information about what each of those recycling code numbers means, see this decoder from The Daily Green.) It's a plastic we tell readers toavoid entirely in The Complete Organic Pregnancy. It's something I go out of myway to avoid. I had never looked at the bottom of the babe's yogurt cupsbecause it never occurred to me that Stonyfield, the environmentally-concernedcompany that makes her organic baby yogurt, a company so concerned withrecycling that they give their old cups to another company to turn intotoothbrushes, razors and the like (Recycline.com), would ever in a zillion yearsuse plastic No. 6. Needless to say I was seriously pissed off.
I shot off an email to their publicist asking for a comment, which I'll posthere in comments as soon as I get. And then I started searching online to seeif anyone else has noticed this, and if so, what Stonyfield has responded tothem. There's some information here, and some more in comments, from citizen-scientist readers hereand here.
On their site (stonyfield.com), they have the following explanation:
Does Stonyfield Farm use ... Polystyrene (#6 plastic) in its packaging?
We do use polystyrene cups for our yogurt multipack offerings and our pintsized Oikos Organic Greek yogurt. Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationand the European Union (EU) consider polystyrene (#6) containers safe for fooduse. The FDA requires the styrene content of the packaging be less than 5,000parts per million (ppm). The styrene content in Stonyfield Farm'spolystyrene packaging does not exceed 400 ppm (12 times less than the allowablelimit). For those who prefer, our Organic Greek yogurt can also be purchased in5.3 oz. containers made of polypropylene (#5 plastic); and our fat free, lowfatand whole milk yogurts can also be purchased in 6 oz. and 32 oz.polypropylene (#5) containers.
At Stonyfield Farm, we are continuously searching for packaging materials withlower environmental impacts since all packaging can have an adverse effect onthe environment. We have made great strides to reduce the overall amountof packaging material we use, because less packaging means less consumption of resources,less pollution, less solid waste and a lower carbon footprint.
Looking to the future, we are actively working toward the day when we can getour product and packaging to you in ways that will not create waste or depleteour natural resources. Ideally, when you're finished eating your yogurt, you'llconsume the container, or toss it onto your compost pile to return to itscarbon roots. We're not there yet, but we are currently working with oursuppliers on alternative solutions including cups made from carbohydrates orexcess agricultural materials such as cornhusks or potato skins.
Well, until that future day arrives, Stonyfield, you just lost a (loud-mouthed,well-connected) customer. I refuse to feed my child something stored in aquestionable material that is unrecyclable where I live and totallyunbiodegradable, something I have known for a long time to avoid and thought Iwas avoiding. I guess I should get up earlier in the morning. Here's hoping thekid will accept my stance.
Meanwhile, join me in emailing Stonyfieldto tell them just how much you'relooking forward to feeding the tots yogurt stored in better material (even abetter plastic).
posted by Alexandra
Related links from the Daily Green:
The Dirty Dozen: Top 12 Foods to Eat Organic
30 Days to a Greener Diet
5 Eco-Friendly Wines For Under $25
The Zen Cleaner: How to Green-Clean Anything
For More Parenting Advice, Subscribe to Good Housekeeping & Save up to 75%!
Reprinted with Permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.
