PlastiPure, ReliaBrand partner to produce EA-Free plastic consumer products

PlastiPure, a safer-plastics technology company, has announced a partnership with ReliaBrand to license infant feeding, sports bottle, food packaging, and medical products free of harmful chemicals that cause estrogenic activity (EA).  Chemicals with EA have been strongly linked to adverse health effects such as birth defects, reproductive cancers, and behavioral and learning disorders. The widely known chemicals BPA and phthalates are only a few of thousands of chemicals suspected to have EA.

Under the agreement, PlastiPure will develop, test, and certify PlastiPure-Safe™ EA-Free products for ReliaBrand release in late 2010 and 2011. This broad suite of products should retain the key benefits that originally attracted consumers to these brands, with the additional benefit of improved safety from avoiding the chemicals with EA that leach from most plastics, silicones, colorants, and other materials.

"We are pleased to partner with the innovative companies under the ReliaBrand umbrella who share our mission of providing the highest-quality, safest plastic products.  The Adiri, ReliaDose, and WaterGeeks brands encompass several industries concerned about the safety of plastics, which will greatly benefit from using our PlastiPure-Safe™ EA-Free technology," said PlastiPure CEO Mike Usey. "These and other ReliaBrand companies will be able to leverage PlastiPure's long experience in addressing endocrine disruption caused by plastics that leach chemicals having EA."

Increasing consumer concern over the safety of plastics has led to the introduction of BPA- and phthalate-free plastic products. However, these solutions are flawed because BPA and phthalates are only a few of thousands of estrogenic chemicals, many hundreds of which are used in plastics and many more which are unintentional side products of plastics manufacturing. These synthetic estrogenic chemicals can leach into food and beverages, and eventually into the environment.

In fact, tests of BPA-free products have indicated that the large majority released other chemicals having very high levels of EA. For example, PlastiPure's testing of fifteen premium-brand BPA-free baby bottles found that all tested positive for EA, with eight leaching chemicals with EA measuring at or above the EA of BPA-containing polycarbonate.  

PlastiPure technology can be easily implemented to make most materials and products free of leachable estrogenic chemicals. The partnership between PlastiPure and ReliaBrand is a key step to wider availability of EA-Free consumer products. "When consumers see the PlastiPure-Safe™ EA-Free certification seal on their products, they know the products are as safe as they can be," Usey said.