New parents across America are taking a second look at a playpen staple of the 1950s: glass baby bottles.
Replaced long ago in most U.S. households by unbreakable plastic, glass bottles are making a comeback prompted by worries about a chemical used in making the plastic.
When Amber Rickert of Los Angeles first heard that a chemical might be leaching from plastic baby bottles, she felt sick -- and immediately bought glass bottles.
"For me, it was like a total no-brainer. I didn't even think about it twice," said Rickert, 34, who got wind of the subject from Booby Brigade, an online bulletin board for mothers. "A bunch of women are switching."
A report called "Toxic Baby Bottles" released in February by a Los Angeles environmental advocacy group helped fuel new interest. Afterward, business soared at websites selling glass bottles and prices jumped on EBay. Evenflo Co., a maker of glass and plastic baby bottles, saw a surprise surge in demand for glass.
"It really caught us unawares," said John Geleynse, owner of Lamby Nursery Collection, a baby products distributor in Washington state that ran out of glass bottles two months ago and doesn't know when it will get another shipment.
At issue is bisphenol A, or BPA. It is used in making hard polycarbonate plastic, which is clear and shatterproof. The chemical is used to make plastic baby bottles, microwave cookware, food packaging and many other products.
BPA can leach from polycarbonate plastic, but whether that poses any harm to humans is hotly debated. Federal regulators have taken no action to restrict use of BPA, which is found in most people's blood, and the plastics industry says it is safe.
San Francisco last year banned the chemical in products for children younger than 3 but recently decided to hold off as the state considered the matter. A state legislative committee considered a bill to restrict BPA's use but decided this month to wait for more study results.
Mary Brune, the founder of Making Our Milk Safe, an Alameda-based group with 500 members nationwide, called the recent alert about BPA "an outrage and a call to action."
"We're talking about baby bottles, something that's giving nourishment to your child," she said. "Nothing's more basic than that."
Orders for glass bottles from upset parents poured in to Natural Baby, an online store, after the report in February. "It was just a nightmare," General Manager Jennifer Thames said. "You would not believe some of the customers -- how angry they were."
