Do you eat frozen dinners heated up in the microwave? And if so, how closely do you look at the packaging for those meals?

Recent concerns about BPA, an endocrine disruptor linked to everything from breast cancer to sexual dysfunction, have convinced many people to stop using plastic water bottles that aren’t marked BPA-free. But if you’re heating up plastic-encased food in your microwave, your could be using containers that contain and leach BPA, as well as phthalates, a plasticizer linked to genital deformities and other health problems.

These plastic concerns apply not just to items like disposable yogurt cups that were never intended for the microwave, but also to plastic containers specifically marketed as “microwave safe.” That’s what Good Housekeeping found back in Nov. 2008 when it tested 31 plastic items people are likely to use to heat up foods. While the majority of the items showed no traces of BPA or phthalates, three items were found to contain BPA: Rubbermaid EasyFind Lids container, Rubbermaid Premier container, and Glad Press’n Seal Multipurpose Sealing Wrap. And one item — Glad Press’n Seal wrap — showed to contain low levels of both phthalates and BPA.

The disturbing part of this experiment is that these questionable items are expressly marketed as BPA-free products by Rubbermaid and Glad. Rubbermaid, for example, includes its EasyFind Lids on a list of BPA-free items — and contends its own experiments found no traces of BPA. Glad Press’n Seal wrap’s FAQ also brags that their item contains no BPA — and includes a link to an official-looking letter from Clorox (PDF) reiterating this statement.

In Good Housekeeping’s tests, the BPA or phthalates in the containers weren’t found to leach into foods. However, a similar test of 10 items — including a Rubbermaid multipurpose container — done by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal did find that BPA leached from “microwave-safe” plastics ranging from frozen food trays to plastic baby food packaging. Here are the charts and graphs (PDF) detailing which products contained how much BPA.

That’s why many people are worried about putting plastics in the microwave. Last month, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof asked doctors at a symposium what they do in their own homes to reduce risks of diseases linked to environmental pollution, like cancer:

They said that they avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5.

Even those “safer plastics” may not be safe in the microwave, however, according to the Journal Sentinel’s testing, which found BPA leaching in plastics marked 1, 2 and 5. Considering these uncertainties, it’s easy to see why some may choose the precautionary principle, keeping all types of plastics out of the microwave. Florence Williams, the author of the Good Housekeeping feature piece, says that her research has changed her habits in the kitchen:

Since learning more about the health effects of plastics, including how much we don’t know, I’ve changed some habits…. I now store leftovers in ceramic or glass containers in the fridge, and I don’t put anything plastic in the microwave because there’s still a lot to learn about the interactions of heat and plastic — and it’s easy to find an alternative….

I’d be happy to stop doing all this, but until the government starts testing household plastics in ways that will tell us what’s safe and what’s not, I will go on being a little obsessed.

With more environmentalists opting against plastics in the microwave, some organic frozen food companies have opted for less-plasticky packaging. Organic and natural frozen food company Amy’s Kitchen, for example, says it shuns plasticizers and uses paper containers for its products, though these containers are still PET-lined and usually have a top film made of polypropylene. “These measures have been taken to ensure that all of our packaging material is safe for use,” according to the FAQ on Amy’s Kitchen’s website. “However, if you would prefer not to cook in plastic, our products can be easily removed from the original container and cooked in glass.”

Of course, an easy way to avoid plastic or plastic-lined containers for frozen meals is to avoid frozen meals altogether. Yet although many green LA girl readers like to make their meals from fresh farmers’ market ingredients, the big aisles of overpackaged meals and frozen dinners at supermarkets — and even Whole Foods and many local co-ops — makes clear that microwavable convenience foods are still quite popular.

What decisions have you made to limit plastic-related health risks in your kitchen? Does the microwave meet plastics in your home?

Photo by rutlo

When: Fri., Feb. 19 from 2 pm – 4 pm
Where: In the Windsor Conference Room on the 15th floor of Metro, One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles.
RSVP: Required by Fri., Feb. 12 to Jennifer Gill at 213.922.4224 or gillj@metro.net. Mention if you plan to bike there, so Metro can arrange for adequate bike parking space.

This Bicycle Roundtable’s the first of a series, according to Metro, and will feature Doug Failing — Metro’s Executive Director of Highway Programs and Interim Chief Planning Officer who was active in the Caltrans Bicycle Advisory Committee. From Metro’s email announcing the roundtable:

The purpose of the first meeting is to initiate a dialogue and identify issues of importance to cyclists in Los Angeles County. This will lead to a vision for enhancing Metro’s current program. The outcome of the first meeting will determine the frequency, next steps, and agendas of future meetings.

Park your bike in Metro’s parking garage on the P1 level between the fish tank/customer service center and Metro elevators, sign-in for a visitor’s badge at the 3rd Fl. security desk, then proceed up to the 15th Fl. for light refreshments and bike-related discussion.

Metro’s Jennifer Gill said the meeting is open to all, and that details about the Bicycle Roundtable meetings will be added to the Metro website soon.

Not sure what cyclists are discussing these days? Some of the latest bikey topics:

>> Nearly a quarter of bike-car crashes are hit and runs, according to new data. One cyclist victim of that stat’s local bike activist Roadblock, who, despite the dismissive and unhelpful attitude of the LAPD, has managed to track down the  Jag that hit him. Streetsblog L.A. readers then went on to find the alleged hit-and-runner’s public blog, which quickly became privatized.

>> The Alliance for Bicycling and Walking’s Bicycling and Walking in the United States: The 2010 Benchmarking Report finds that “10 percent of trips are by bicycle or foot, yet bicyclists and pedestrians make up over 13% of traffic fatalities and receive just 1.2% of federal transportation dollars.”

>> The L.A. Bike Working Group’s released a map of L.A.’s Bicycle Backbone — not a map of existing bike facilities, but a vision of how the city should be connected for cyclists.

>> There’s good news for cyclists too, from a bike and ped plan in Culver City to an anti-harrassment ordinance in L.A.

Photo by Fire Monkey Fish

Not only is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s transportation deputy shelling out a small fortune to fuel his Hummer, but he’s got the added pressure of setting an embarrassingly bad example. Even as people switch to smaller cars and public transportation in droves, he’s sticking with a monster.

Jaime still has the Hummer — but has made a few changes. Writes Steve Lopez in last week’s column:

[Jaime] finally got the message and recently stopped driving the Hummer to work, instead carpooling with his wife in an Acura or using public transit. De la Vega says he made the decision on his own, but I hear that Mayor Villaraigosa finally got tired of the embarrassment and one of his minions gave De la Vega a nudge.

Steve and Jaime also tried racing from the Universal City train station to City Hall, with Steve driving Jaime’s Hummer and Jaime taking the Red line. Jaime won by 10 minutes!

Steve says he’s offered to buy Jaime’s Hummer to “donate it to charity or the National Guard” — but Jaime doesn’t sound like he’s ready to let go of the gas guzzler just yet.

Earlier: Hummer humping and Hummer bummer

Such is the silent cost of vampire power — the slow draw of energy and drain on your wallet by gadgets that are plugged in, but not in use. That’s why last year, I wrote about how to slash vampire power and save money. But while more people know about vampire power now, many have yet to take action to reduce it — maybe because the thought of running around the house unplugging everything all the time seems like a lot of work for releatively little money savings.

Once you have a vampire slaying habit worked out though, starving energy sippers comes really easy. Plus, new greener routines can be better for your health too. Increasing evidence shows electrical energy could be harming our health, as Katherine Butler points out in MNN — a concern if you tend to leave your wireless router on all night. And light pollution’s been linked to everything from insomnia to cancer — not to mention larger ecological problems for birds and other wildlife. While your microwave display or wifi router may not be creating a huge amount of light and electric pollution, it makes sense not to have dozens of electronics lit up and buzzing away while you’re trying to sleep at night.

Before you freak out about cancer and develop fear-induced insomnia: Reducing wasted vampire power, electrical energy, and light isn’t too hard — at least inside your own home. Below’s how I’ve gotten rid of all three in my apartment. Depending on your own quirks and preferences, you may want to use slightly different methods — like relying more on hi-tech smart strips and less on manual unplugging. But hopefully this post’ll help you figure out how to get started!

1. Get power strips. I have 3 power strips around the house — one for kitchen appliances, one for the TV and VCR, and one for the stereo and its accoutrements.  Basically, the gadgets plugged into each power strip are gadgets I use in tandem — like the electric kettle that boils water while I grind coffee beans in my electric grinder for the French press, or the VCR I put a Netflix DVD in to watch a movie on my TV (I don’t have cable or an antenna, so I never use the TV alone).

I simply flick on the power strip switch whenever I need to use any of the attached gadgets — which makes things a lot simpler than manually plugging and unplugging individual items — then flick it off when I’m done. Newbies may forget to turn the power strip off at the beginning, but the money-saving habit will form soon enough.

2. Unplug.  For items I use alone or use rarely, I manually plug and unplug — just as most people do with, say, irons. Remembering to unplug my laptop at the end of the day at home’s easy, since I’m in the habit of unplugging the laptop whenever I take it to a coffee shop or library. This unplugging habit also has the happy side benefit of extending the life of my laptop battery. As I write this though, I’m wondering if I should get a fourth power strip to plug my laptop and wireless router in together, since when I’m home, I always use the two in tandem.

I also manually plug and unplug my microwave — my kitchen power strip is full and the microwave’s the appliance I use least — and my printer, which I rarely use. Depending on your lifestyle, you may single out complete different gadgets for manual unplugging. In fact, if instead of a laptop you have a desktop computer-and-monitor setup, you may want to go with the third option altogether –

3. Think smart strips. Smart strips are like power strips, except they’re smart enough to figure out when to turn themselves on and off. Because I already had my vampire-slaying habits in place before I ever got a smart strip, I haven’t found these newfangled gadgets particularly useful — but for the forgetful, smart strips may be the way to go.

Smart strips can be especially useful for charging up gadgets with batteries overnight, or cutting off power to electronics like TVs and computer monitors if you’re the type of person who forgets to flick off power strips. To see if smart strips may meet your energy efficiency needs, read my review of one new smart strip devide on the market: the iGo Power Smart Tower.
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Figure out a vampire slaying solution before Earth Day so you can sign up on Unplug, a Facebook app that lets you pledge to unplug electronics for Earth Day! (via Treehugger)

Top photo by tim7423; bottom photo by Siel

>> Trap arachnids for the Los Angeles Spider Survey. According to LAist, the survey’s a Natural History Museum’s Citizen Scientist Project where “residents can bring or send in spiders they find around town for scientists to study (added bonus: you’ll get a call-back from a scientist who will identify your spider and tell you all about it).”

>> Tree killers caught on Google Camera. Those Google’s images could help prosecute for illegal tree removal, but future Google images may not be so helpful for law enforcement: “After the Canadian privacy commissioner and others raised questions about whether the roaming cameras were legal … the company implemented an automated feature that blurs faces and license plates.”

Image via birdsource.org

I actually already have a vampire-slaying habit worked out, but I decided to give one of these smart strips a try. Honestly, I’m not all that enamored by this eco-smart gadget, but for the forgetful, smart strips may be the way to go. Here’s why one may work for you, even though they haven’t proved particularly convenient for me.

I tried out an iGo Power Smart Tower to see a smart strip in action. This tool has two types of outlets — “green” ones for those you want turned on and off, and regular ones for gadgets you need on all the time, like an electric clock. Plus, a couple USB ports at the bottom lets you charge mobile devices.

What I found the iGo Power Smart Tower most useful for was charging up gadgets with batteries. Plug in your cell phone, laptop, or iPod into a green outlet and the Smart Tower will recharge it — then cut off the power once the gadget’s juiced up, which saves both energy and your gadgets’ battery life. Every half hour, the Smart Tower boots up to check if anything requires energy, then turns back off if nothing does — thereby reducing vampire power by over 85 percent, according to iGo.

iGo also recommends the Smart Tower for gadgets like TVs and computer monitors, but I just don’t see myself using the Smart Tower for those items. Why? As I mentioned, the Smart Tower boots up just once every 30 minutes. That means that if I want to watch a DVD on my TV NOW, I have to press the Smart Tower’s “Instant On” button. And if I’m going to have to press a button anyway, I feel I may as well flick the switch on a simple, cheap, regular power strip than a bulkier though admittedly sleeker-looking Smart Tower that costs $79.99.

Of course, the Smart Tower does automatically turns OFF the power to the DVD player once it senses I’m not using it anymore — so if you’re the forgetful type, this smart meter might save you some money in the long run.

As I’m already in the habit of switching off my power strip once I’m done watching a DVD, this isn’t an issue for me. That, combined with my habit of charging all gadgets during the day when I’ll remember to unplug them once juiced up (I work from home), my slight annoyance with the small clicking sound the iGo makes when it boots up every half hour, and my reluctance to add yet another gadget to my life for extremely limited purposes, makes me think I’m not a smart strip kind of gal.

Still, for people who need to charge devices overnight, or who forget to flick off power strips despite their best intentions, the iGo could be quite useful.

Do you use a smart strip? What gadgets do you find are most convenient to use with these high-tech devices?

Update, 2/8/10: How I vanquished vampire power: 3 steps to home energy efficiency

Now, there’s a counterpart blog of sorts: A somewhat terrifying photoblog of school lunches.

Dubbed Fed Up, this blog’s written by one Mrs. Q — an anonymous teacher at an Illinois school who’s planning to eat the same food her students eat for all of 2010. We’re talking highly processed peanut butter and jelly graham sandwiches individually packaged in non-recyclable pouches, “100% fruit punch juice” with a label noting ingredients could come from 7 different countries, and “cherry icee” with no cherries on the ingredient list.

“Oftentimes what is served barely passes muster as something edible,” writes Mrs. Q — but her reviews of the meals are often quite forgiving. “It smelled terrific and it actually tasted really good,” she says of “rib-a-cue” — a mysterious hunk of probably-factory-farmed meat jailed in a single-serving container with a plastic film top. This makes me wonder if Mrs. Q’s taste buds are quickly lowering their standards to adapt to the overprocessed, overpackaged fare. Among the pleasant lunch surprises she exults about: “The fruit cup was not frozen!”

Read an interview with Mrs. Q at MNN — and follow Fed Up to read and learn.

Earlier: Another beef recall and a closer look at school kitchens

Photos via Jennifer McCann/Vegan Lunch Box and Mrs. Q/Fed Up

>> Now that you know the environmental and farming-related problems behind ethanol, you might understand why a Cali regional panel doesn’t want more ethanol fueling stations. The Southern California Association of Governments “turned down nearly $11 million in federal stimulus dollars targeted to build 55 ethanol fueling stations across Southern California.” This issue’s still a somewhat controversial one among environmentalists though.

>> The current debate over fuels in California has a lot to do with our tough global warming mitigation law, a.k.a. AB 32, and how best to meet its requirements. That law is under attack, by the way — by a group that wants to block it from being implemented until California’s unemployment drops below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters. Despite the fact that such a move would block efforts to create new green jobs, the anti AB 32-ers wanted to put it on the ballot as “California Jobs Initiative.” California Attorney General Jerry Brown renamed it “Suspends air pollution control laws requiring major polluters to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.” Yay Jerry!

>> Unfortunately, the U.S. EPA’s embraced ethanol — as well as “clean coal” and nuclear power. Writes Tom Philpott at Grist: “The Obama EPA has signed off on the absurd, abysmal Renewable Fuel Standard established under Bush a couple of years ago—ensuring that farmers will continue to devote vast swaths of land to GHG-intensive corn, of which huge portion of will ultimately be set aflame to power cars—but not before being transformed into liquid fuel in an energy-intensive process.”

Image via thefuelfilm.com

In case you haven’t heard: The Expo Line’s got the go ahead to prepare to roll out to Santa Monica — unless the project gets derailed into court.

Plans for the long-awaited light rail line got a boost yesterday, when the Expo construction authority cleared the second phase of the project, allowing design and construction plans to progress. Streetsblog LA’s Damien Newton has a detailed account and analysis of the meeting.

The first phase of the Expo line, which broke ground in 2006, goes from downtown Los Angeles south to USC then west to Culver City. It’s also $220 million over its original budget and more than a year behind schedule, according to the L.A. Times. The line’s expected to open partially this summer, with the Culver City station hoped to be running by the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012.

The second phase would connect Culver City to Santa Monica, with construction hopefully beginning at the end of this year and the Santa Monica stations opening — some day in the future.

While many westsiders eagerly seek this car-free alternative to travel, the Expo line’s been besieged with various groups arguing against at-grade crossings in their neighborhoods. An organization called Neighbors for Smart Rail wants the Expo line to go underground at Overland and Sepulveda, for example, citing noise, safety, and other issues. More Expo-friendly groups like Friends 4 Expo, however, have pointed out that the Environmental Impact Report done on the project didn’t show safety concerns at-grade, and argue that an underground tunnel would make construction a lot more expensive, potentially jeopardizing the rail project. According to Steve Hymon at Metro’s blog The Source:

Expo Line officials say that the cost of putting the tracks under Overland and Westwood would be an additional $224 million. Bridging over the two streets — which would likely create aesthetic concerns for neighbors — would cost $66 million. No source of money has yet been found for those upgrades; the line is currently going to be paid for with $925 million from the Measure R sales tax increase voters approved in 2008 and about $600 million in state and local funds.

Streetsblog LA wonders if Neighbors for Smart Rail will sue now that the project’s going forward — but perhaps a motion to study whether or not to elevate the crossing at Sepulveda that passed at the meeting will have appeased the group enough to keep the project out of court. Another motion pushed back the decision on whether to have a parking lot or a park space at Westwood Station. Both those battles will come up at a future Expo meeting.

Image via Metro’s The Source

Regular green LA girl readers already know to avoid products with “fragrance” on its ingredient list, since that innocuous-sounding word often serves as a mask for all sorts of questionable chemicals. The perfume and beauty product industry has long hidden chemicals like phthalates — linked to birth defects, asthma, early puberty and decreased sperm counts — under the “fragrance” label, claiming industry secrets.

Now, in an about turn of sorts, the industry group International Fragrance Association’s suddenly published a long list of ingredients that go into many consumer products. Anyone can go on the Association’s site to peruse the list — though with complicated-sounding items like “2-Hepten-4-one, 5-methyl-, (E)-” and “4-Methyl-8-methylenetricyclo[3.3.1.(3,7)]decan-2-yl acetate,” the average perfume wearer will be hard-pressed to figure out how safe or dangerous the ingredients are.

While the move towards transparency’s to be commended, the list brings up some troubling concerns. For one, the sheer number of ingredients that are allowed to hide behind the word fragrance — 3,163 by nonprofit Environmental Working Group’s count — is rather appalling. Not all of those ingredients are dangerous, but many are. According to EWG:

1 in 20 earned a “high” hazard score (7-10 of 10), and a full 1 in 6 rated at least a “moderate” hazard score (3-10 of 10). 26 of them scored a 10, the highest score.

Of most concern are phthalates, octoxynols and nonoxynols, and musk ambrette. According to EWG, musk ambrette is toxic to the brain, testes, and skin, banned in the European Union, and fingered by the IFRA itself as a chemical that shouldn’t be used in products applied to the skin — though the stuff’s still used in some fragrances by IFRA’s own admission.

How can you avoid these scary chemicals? Avoid products with “fragrance” in the ingredients. While the average drugstore’s still chock full of products with fragrance, greener personal care product options have greatly expanded. If you’re looking for a better-for-you perfume, Strange Invisible Perfumes and Honore des Pres are two of a growing number of eco-minded perfume companies making green scents.

Photo by Alastair Dunning