The Food and Drug Administration has quietly delayed its review of BPA, a widely used plastic additive that can act like the hormone estrogen in the body.

FDA officials had promised an updated position on BPA, or bisphenol A, by the end of November. Now it appears that any major change in the FDA's stance will wait until the agency sees results from a host of new government-funded studies.

Some of those results will be available in a few months. Others will take years.

BPA is used in polycarbonate bottles and in the lining of many food containers. The FDA's current position is that BPA exposure from these products is too low to cause health effects.

Disagreement About BPA Exposure And Effect

Studies of rodents show that large doses of BPA can cause abnormal sexual development. But there's bitter disagreement among scientists about whether the small doses most people are exposed to pose a risk.

Just a few months ago, the FDA seemed poised to act on BPA. In June, the FDA's new chief, Margaret Hamburg, promised that the agency would reconsider its earlier conclusion that BPA is safe. And in August, the FDA's Science Advisory Board held a public hearing that included testimony from many groups that called on the FDA to ban BPA from food and beverage containers.

Then in October, something happened that changed the regulatory landscape.

Missing Information

The National Institutes of Health announced it would spend $30 million on a whole new round of BPA studies. Moreover, the new studies would be designed to address perceived shortcomings in earlier research.

That put the FDA in an awkward position.

"You want to have all the information in front of you," says Sarah Vogel of the Johnson Family Foundation. "So I think that's a difficult issue that FDA is having to weigh."

Vogel is no FDA apologist. She's one of several dozen scientists who sent a letter to the agency this fall strongly urging it act without waiting for more research. Most of the letter's authors are academic researchers. And many have done animal studies suggesting BPA can cause developmental problems.

Existing Studies' Results Aren't Clear

But Vogel says these academic scientists have generally not conducted the sort of studies that government agencies use to assess risk.

"That community has been taking part in trying to build scientific consensus," she says, "which is slightly different than going and saying, 'OK, well, do we have a study that gives us a neat dose-response relationship? And did it follow good laboratory practice and can we then use it to set a regulatory guideline?' "

In fact, regulators around the world have found it very hard to draw conclusions from these academic studies.

That's because they typically require studies that meet a long list of criteria, says Wolfgang Dekant, a toxicologist at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany and a member of a panel that reviewed BPA research a few years ago for the European Food Safety Authority.

"Your study has to be reproducible; your effects have to be consistent; your statistics have to be correct; you have to use larger group sizes," Dekant says.

Many of the academic studies did not meet the standards, Dekant says. And scientists who repeated some of the studies were unable to get the same results.

In contrast, larger studies that met the standards found no risk from BPA, even with exposures hundreds of times higher than most people get, Dekant says.

BPA critics argued that some of those larger studies couldn't be trusted because they were funded by industry. But regulators in the European Union concluded that consumers are not at risk from products containing BPA.

Comparing Risks

In both the U.S. and Europe, regulators have been unsure how to interpret studies that injected BPA into laboratory animals.

They say that's because people are exposed to BPA primarily through food and beverages, which means the digestive system has a chance to remove most of the chemical before it reaches the bloodstream.

When researchers inject BPA, "you can see effects you can't get with oral administration," says Earl Gray, a scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Gray says that's why he has used oral administration in his studies of pregnant rats.

In those studies, Gray gave some of the rats BPA and some the type of estrogen used in birth control pills. His studies used large groups of rats and a wide range of BPA and estrogen doses.

Gray's studies found that estrogen produced abnormalities in the rats' offspring . But with BPA, Gray says, "We didn't find any effects."

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Plastics have been touted as a miracle material by some, and criticized as artificial and toxic by others. But, nowadays, it's hard to imagine life without plastics: Cars, textiles, televisions, computers and food containers all have plastic parts. But synthetic plastics are a relatively new invention; production of consumer plastics didn't really take off until after World War II.

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Critically ill newborns may help researchers figure out whether children are at risk from plastic additives called phthalates.

Scientists say the nation's sickest newborns are exposed to unusually high levels of phthalates — chemicals in plastics that can mimic hormones — because they often spend days or weeks connected to feeding tubes, breathing tubes and intravenous lines made of plastic. And the exposure comes at a critical time in human development.

One doctor conducted a follow-up study by testing patients years after they were exposed to phthalates as infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.

"If anybody is going to have problems, this would be the population to look at," says Dr. Billie Short, medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Of the patients — now teenagers — whom she was able to track down, Short says tests showed they had normal sexual development. But the study population was too small to draw any firm conclusions, she says.

Measuring Real-Life Exposure

Because they can act like hormones in the body, phthalates have generated a great deal of debate about whether low doses might affect a child's development.

Short says she began studying infants in her ICU years ago when she realized they were being exposed to a phthalate called DEHP. Eliminating DEHP wasn't an option because without the plasticizer, the tubes that keep many of her patients alive would be too brittle to use.

"This tubing has plasticizer in it," she says, reaching for a dangling plastic IV line next to a bassinet containing a tiny newborn in her ICU.

Studies of lab animals show that high doses of phthalates can cause abnormal sexual development and reproductive problems. There's no good evidence that phthalates are causing similar problems in people.

But Short wondered whether the chemicals might pose a special risk to infants who spend days or weeks on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a heart-lung machine for newborns who can't breathe on their own.

"This bag is one of the culprits," she says, pointing to a clear plastic bag connected to yards of plastic tubing and the ECMO machine.

Both the bag and the tubing contain phthalates. And they form a circuit that an infant's entire volume of blood will pass through again and again.

High Exposure In A Critical Time

Short thought phthalates were leaching out of the plastic and into kids' bodies. Tests showed she was right.

Phthalate levels in kids on ECMO can be more than 100 times the levels found in healthy adults.

Short knew that lab animals exposed to phthalates just after birth were especially prone to abnormal sexual development. And she thought infants exposed during the same period might also be vulnerable.

So Short and a team of researchers tracked down a small group of teenagers who had been on ECMO as infants.

"I think we brought 18 kids back," she says. "Luckily, all 18 of those kids were normal."

Tests and physical examinations showed they had normal sexual development and normal hormone levels.

But Short says that study was too small to be conclusive. So she has been trying to get funding for a larger study.

In the meantime, Children's National Medical Center and many other hospitals are switching to feeding tubes made without phthalates, and IV lines coated with a substance that keeps phthalates from leaching out.

Additional Study Needed

The ECMO study was a good first step, says Russ Hauser, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. But to detect anything but the most dramatic abnormalities, he says, "you would need a much larger population."

Hauser has spent the past three years trying to figure out how to do that sort of study.

The easy part, he says, has been deciding what to look for. They are the same problems that show up in animal studies: lowered fertility and abnormal development of the reproductive organs.

The hard part has been designing a study that will provide definitive results, Hauser says.

One problem is time, he says. Ideally, the study would follow kids from birth until puberty or even later.

He says another problem is that just about all kids in an ICU are exposed to phthalates. So how do you find a comparison group that spent time in an ICU but wasn't exposed?

And then there's the fact that even in ICU babies, phthalate levels aren't so high that they would be likely to produce dramatic abnormalities, Hauser says.

"To put it in perspective," he says, "they would probably be about 1,000 to 10,000 times lower than levels used in experimental studies in rats."

So any effect on ICU babies is likely to be subtle — a slight delay in puberty, or fertility problems later in life.

Hauser says the effect of phthalates on other kids — if there is any — would be even less obvious.

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A federal proposal to restrict a plastic additive called bisphenol A (BPA) is focusing attention on a guiding concept known as the "precautionary principle."

The proposal would ban BPA from food and beverage containers. Proponents say the precautionary principle requires such a ban because high doses of BPA can cause reproductive abnormalities and cancer in animals.

But whether you agree with that stance depends on how you define the precautionary principle. It's not written into federal law, and it turns out that people have widely differing views on what it is, and how it should be applied.

BPA In The Body

BPA is used to create polycarbonate plastic products that are clear and durable. It's also used in resins that coat the inside of many food and beverage cans.

In the body, BPA can act like a weak form of estrogen. And studies show that BPA is used so widely that most people have detectable levels.

Scientists don't know whether these low levels of BPA pose a health risk. So arguments about the proposed ban tend to involve discussions of precaution.

The precautionary principle dates back to at least the 1930s, says Jonathan Wiener, a professor of law, environmental policy and public policy at Duke University. He says there are at least three basic forms of the principle, though one scholar found 19 variations.

Weaker versions of the principle say it's OK to take precautions against a threat to health or the environment even if it's not clear that the threat has caused any harm. Stronger versions say it's essential to take precautionary action.

Extreme Interpretations

And then there's the variation that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) used last month when she introduced her bill to restrict BPA.

"If you do not know for certain the chemical is benign, it should not be used," Feinstein said.

But that standard has never been part of the precautionary principle because it couldn't be met, says Dr. Ted Schettler, director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, an advocacy group that has warned regulators about the potential risks from BPA.

"It's almost impossible to prove that something will never happen," Schettler says. You simply can't prove that a chemical will never hurt anyone.

Even though Schettler disagrees with Feinstein's take on the precautionary principle, he strongly supports her effort to remove BPA from food and drink containers.

Precaution Says To Seek Out Alternatives

Schettler says he backs a more mainstream version of the precautionary principle. It states: "When there are credible threats of harm from some proposed activity, precautionary action should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully understood."

The competing versions of the principle can be confusing, Schettler says. And he says that confusion has been made a lot worse by people who don't want regulators or the government to use any version.

"They say the precautionary principle requires you to ban something if you have the slightest glimmer that it might cause harm," Schettler says. "That is not what it does. It does ask you to look carefully, whether there are alternatives, and then look at the range of activities available to you."

Schettler notes that products like baby bottles are already being made without BPA.

"In my view, we've gathered enough evidence to say that we know enough to act," he says.

Europe And U.S. Treat Precaution Differently

The European Union, though, hasn't acted against BPA even though it has a law requiring it to follow the precautionary principle.

Wiener says that's a reminder that Europe's formal endorsement of the principle doesn't mean Europe is always more precautionary than the United States.

"On the contrary, what we find is that there is a complex pattern of particular precautions applied to particular risks on each side of the Atlantic," he says.

Wiener says the European Union is usually more cautious about chemicals than the United States.

Europe Requires Companies To Register Chemicals

In 2006, the EU passed a tough law requiring companies to register the chemicals they use, gather safety information, and switch to safer alternatives when possible.

But Wiener says it was the U.S. that proved more cautious when mad cow disease started killing people in Europe a few years ago.

The United States not only halted beef imports from affected countries, it banned blood donations from anyone who had spent much time in Europe.

That was "a highly precautionary strategy given that the evidence of transmission through blood transfusions was very preliminary and the countervailing risk of not having enough blood in hospital trauma centers was quite real," Wiener says.

Wiener says the United States also maintains tougher standards for certain types of air pollution, and acted sooner to get rid of chemicals that damage the Earth's ozone layer.

Taking Personal Precautions

Linda Birnbaum, who directs the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, has spent years pondering the precautionary principle.

She describes it in subjective terms: "The precautionary principle says that you act in the presence of concerning information."

In other words, Birnbaum says she finds the information about BPA "somewhat concerning," especially studies showing that the chemical tends to leach out of plastic that's been heated.

"So I stopped microwaving in plastic many years ago," she says, "not because I was convinced it was going to cause harm, but because it just wasn't a necessity."

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A new federal ban on chemical compounds used in rubber duckies and other toys isn't necessary, say the government scientists who studied the problem.

The ban, which took effect in February, prohibits making or selling duckies and other children's products that contain chemicals called phthalates, which are used to make plastic soft. Congress passed the ban in 2008 after concluding that the chemicals posed a risk to children who chew on their toys.

The action came despite advice not to enact the ban from scientists at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates toys.

The commission opposed the ban because "there was not a risk of injury to children," says Dr. Marilyn Wind, deputy associate executive director for health sciences at CPSC.

It reached that conclusion after studying phthalates in toys for more than 25 years and acting several times to make sure children were not exposed to even a slight risk from products that contain the chemicals.

Putting The Study Where The Mouth Is

Wind says that from the beginning, CPSC scientists have focused on products that end up in a child's mouth, including rattles, squeeze toys, teethers and pacifiers. "That's the most exposure," she says, because mouthing and saliva can release phthalates from plastic products.

Back in the 1980s, soft toys made from PVC plastic contained a type of phthalate called DEHP, which has been shown to cause cancer in rodents exposed to high doses.

The commission was concerned enough about DEHP to begin action that would limit kids' exposure to it. Before that happened, though, companies offered to voluntarily remove DEHP from pacifiers, teethers and rattles.

That solved one problem but created another.

Choosing A New Unknown

Instead of using DEHP, companies began softening toys with a phthalate called DINP, which appeared less likely to cause problems in rats and mice.

Then in the late 1990s, Wind says, scientists found evidence that DINP could cause liver problems in rodents.

"We met with industry and made them aware of what we found, and they voluntarily removed DINP from toys that could be mouthed," Wind says.

The commission also convened an expert panel to study DINP. And it began two experiments to figure out how much DINP kids could get from toys they put in their mouths.

The first experiment used volunteers from the commission's staff.

"We gave them DINP-containing piece of PVC to chew on and they then had to spit out their saliva," she says. Scientists measured how much DINP was in the saliva.

The approach was designed to extract more DINP than an infant possibly could from a toy, Wind says.

Do Kids Chew Toys Enough To Be At Risk?

The second experiment, done in 2000 and 2001, sent trained observers into homes and day-care centers. They studied 169 children to find out what they really did with their toys. The experiment did not include pacifiers or teethers, which by that time contained no DINP.

Wind says each observer carried a stopwatch and "every time a child put something in their mouth they recorded it."

Before this study was finished, the CPSC panel concluded, based on the data about chewing and saliva, that children would have to mouth toys containing DINP for at least 75 minutes a day to have even the slightest risk of health problems.

The mouthing experiment showed that even young children kept toys in their mouths less than two minutes a day.

So by 2003, the science was pretty clear, Wind says. "We could not ban DINP because there was not a risk of injury to children."

In testimony before Congress, Wind summarized the research her agency had done on phthalates in children's products and argued against the proposed ban.

An Abundance Of Caution

Scientists from the FDA explained why they, too, had concluded that the ban was not necessary to protect the public.

But lawmakers had other ideas.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said the ban was needed because phthalates had been "linked to serious reproductive defects."

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) talked about "potential harm to testosterone development and the male reproductive tract."

And during hearings, the lawmakers heard from scientists representing groups that want the government to ban all PVC plastics from children's products.

The frightening allegations helped pass the law banning phthalates.

But Wind says she stands by the studies done by government researchers.

"I know that we did really good science," she says. "And sometimes people don't listen to the good science."

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A federal law went into effect this week banning certain chemicals from children's toys and other products. Chemicals called phthalates make plastic toys soft. A child chewing on a toy made with phthalates could ingest the chemical, which could create health risks, studies indicate.

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A new federal law took effect this week banning chemicals called phthalates in children's toys and other kids' products. While the ban was hailed as a victory for children's health, it's no guarantee that the products are safe.

That's because companies currently aren't required to publicly disclose the chemicals they use in place of phthalates — and little is known about the health effects of one of the most widely used alternatives.

Phthalates have long been used as a way to make plastic soft and flexible. But the chemicals can leach out of plastic products and enter our bodies, where some scientists suspect they act like hormones. Phthalates have been shown to affect the development of the male reproductive system in lab animals, and a few small studies suggest they may be linked to subtle effects in the reproductive organs of infant boys.

In preparation for the federal ban, manufacturers have been reformulating baby rattles and plastic toys with phthalate substitutes. But the ban doesn't spell out what chemicals they can use to replace phthalates.

A provision of the U.S. law that would have required companies to pick safer alternatives was removed, according to sources close to the negotiations, after fierce lobbying by Exxon Mobil, one of the largest producers of plasticizers in the world. Exxon Mobil spokesman Chris Welberry says the phthalate the company makes is safe, so there's no need for the new law or the provision. And he says the U.S. is replacing known chemicals with chemicals about which little is known.

California enacted a similar ban on phthalates on Jan. 1. That law does require manufacturers to use substitutes that aren't known to cause cancer or reproductive harm — but it doesn't bar substitutes that might have other adverse health effects.

"There are 80,000 chemicals in commerce," says California Environmental Protection Agency toxicologist Stephen Dizio. "We know something about toxicity of about 400 of them. That really means that things come and go in the marketplace that you have no idea what will happen."

Federal Evaluation Of Chemicals

Under federal law, companies don't have to publicly reveal the chemicals in their products or alert any government agency when they swap out a banned chemical, such as phthalates, for a new one.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not routinely assess the risks of new or old chemicals, but it does keep a shortlist of chemicals deemed in need of evaluation.

So far, no phthalate substitute has been added to that list, according to an EPA spokesperson.

Even if one were to be added, evaluations can take years and have rarely resulted in bans.

NPR contacted several dozen toy companies about their use of phthalate substitutes, but most would not comment on which ones they were using, or said their product ingredients are confidential.

Two companies, Learning Curve and Mattel, maker of Barbie, Fisher Price, American Girl and Tyco products, did say they were using citrate-based plasticizers as well as a new chemical called DINCH.

Citrates, or citric acid esters, have been widely tested, and in 2005, European regulators deemed them safe for use in products for children. The additives also are approved in the U.S. and Europe for use in products that come in contact with food, such as plastic wrap and containers.

Lack Of Public Toxicity Data On DINCH

The German chemical giant BASF started selling the plasticizer DINCH in 2002, and a company official says it is the most widely used phthalate substitute in the world.

However, there are no peer-reviewed, publicly available data on the toxicity of DINCH, and what is widely known comes from animal studies conducted by the manufacturer and given to European food regulators. In those studies, BASF tested the chemical on rats and rabbits, and the results suggested that DINCH does seem to pose some risks to kidney health in animals.

Nearly all chemicals are toxic if given at high enough doses, so scientists usually look for signs of toxicity at low or middle doses. The male rats in the BASF studies developed kidney damage from middle doses. That led European regulators to set a limit on how much DINCH humans should be exposed to each day.

Exposure Levels Difficult To Assess

But it's difficult to know how much DINCH children might be exposed to from toys and other products.

While BASF's studies suggest how much DINCH migrates into food from plastic wrap and food containers, there's no good guesstimate for how much DINCH a baby could ingest from, say, a teething ring.

Several toxicologists said that DINCH looks to be a better choice than phthalates for children's products.

It will likely take years of research to assess the safety of DINCH, partly because the methods scientists use to evaluate health risks posed by potentially toxic chemicals are in some cases half a century old.

Moves Toward Transparency

In California, two new state laws will eventually require companies to post the chemicals in their products in an online database available to the public. And they will likely have to prove that those chemicals are safe before they're allowed to sell them in the marketplace.

And if the phthalate ban — which started in California — is any guide, manufacturers around the country may someday face those requirements, too.

Sarah Varney reports for member station KQED.

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Federal lawmakers are moving toward a ban on using certain chemicals called phthalates in children's toys. Phthalates are chemicals that are used to make plastics more flexible.

House and Senate lawmakers this week moved toward banning some types of phthalates, a family of chemicals found in many soft plastic children's toys. Here, a look at where phthalates are found and the health concerns they raise.

What are phthalates?

They're chemicals widely used to soften plastics such as vinyl. Manufacturers use hundreds of million of pounds of phthalates each year in products including children's toys.

What kinds of toys are they found in?

They're found in a variety of soft toys, including some rubber ducks, bath books and soft vinyl blocks. However, about a decade ago, companies voluntarily removed phthalates from toys specifically designed to be chewed by children, such as teething rings and rattles.

What are the health concerns?

Phthalates are part of a group of chemicals called "endocrine disruptors." Some of these chemicals act like a hormone in the body; others block the effect of the body's own hormones. Health concerns center on what happens when children chew on toys containing phthalates, and small amounts get into their bodies. Just handling toys isn't a problem. There are more than a dozen phthalates in common use. Studies have shown that some of these phthalates can cause reproductive problems in rodents, but the effect on humans is under much debate.

Why are lawmakers acting now?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has come under fire in the past couple of years amid a rise in recalls of unsafe products, including imported toys that contained lead paint. Both the House and Senate have bills to revamp the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Senate version called for banning some phthalates in children's toys as part of the commission's overhaul. The House version did not. House and Senate lawmakers, who met to reconcile the two bills, told reporters that they had agreed in principle to adopt the ban. The final bill still needs to go to a vote.

If you're a worried parent, what should you do with toys that may contain phthalates?

That depends on whether your children are mouthing or chewing on those toys. A 2003 study by the CPSC found that most children spent only a few minutes a day mouthing soft plastic toys, and that after age 2 children pretty much stop putting these toys in their mouths at all.

Will toys containing phthalates be recalled?

Some consumer groups want that to happen. But there is no language in the current legislation to suggest a recall. The ban would apply only to toys sold after it becomes law.

Is the ban likely to meet resistance?

Some companies that make the plastic, like Exxon Mobil, have lobbied against the legislation. They say the science suggesting that children are at risk from phthalates is weak. President Bush has said he opposes the ban, but he has not said he would veto the bill.

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Lawmakers on Monday moved toward banning phthalates, a type of chemical used as plastic softeners and found in all kinds of children's toys. Consumer groups say the chemical can harm children's reproductive development and cause other health problems.

Companies that make the chemical say the science is weak. Still, Congress is considering banning three types of phthalates, and temporarily banning three others pending further study.

The move is part of a broader bill that still needs a vote; the bill would overhaul the nation's product safety laws in the wake of last year's wave of toy recalls.

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Michael D. Shelby, director of the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction, says a report on the safety of Bisphenol A, a chemical used in some plastics, finds it might cause cancer, early puberty and neural and behavioral changes.

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Last year, Americans bought more than 4 billion gallons of water in individual-portion bottles. Most of the containers end up in the trash. But now, there's a competitive global market for the bottles, once they're recycled.

Poland Spring has a bottling plant in Hollis, Maine. It chose the pristine spot, in an area saturated with springs, about a decade ago, when the bottled water market was taking off. The company goes to great lengths to protect the watershed. But in order to sell spring water competitively, it bottles the water using a non-renewable resource: polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, made from natural gas and petroleum.

Birth of the Bottles

The bottling plant in Hollis produced 1.8 billion bottles of water last year. They march through the plant single file, knocking into each other like bumper cars before getting filled. The bottles are made from what is called a "preform," composed of PET resin that is melted and molded. Next, it's heated, stretched and blown out, like a balloon, into a bottle.

Kim Jeffery, the president and CEO of Nestlé Waters North America, says it was the PET bottle that jump-started the bottled water industry. Poland Spring, one of Nestlé's brands, first bottled water in PET in 1990.

"It revolutionized our industry," Jeffery says, "because now people could get bottled water in the same format they were getting soft drinks in ... and that changed everything."

Today, consumers can take water on the go. But the bottles don't always get tossed into recycling bins. Only about 23 percent of bottles, including soda, are recycled.

Demand for Recycled Bottles

In Hartford, Conn., trucks transport recycled plastic, glass and aluminum from residents' homes to the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, one of hundreds of recycling facilities in the U.S. Sean Duffy is president of Fairfield County Recycling, which operates the plant. He says water bottles collected from the curbside recycling program yield valuable material. Duffy's company makes a profit on each bottle made from PET. "We have the capacity to process it, and it is in high demand," Duffy says. "So we want every pound we can get."

Paul Zordan also wants every pound he can get. Zordan is constantly looking for bottles. He's vice president of UltrePET, a PET "reclaimer" in Albany, N.Y. Reclaiming PET is grimey, grungy work. It begins by sorting through dirty bottles, by machine and by hand. It looks like garbage, but, Zordan says, "It's gonna be money to us if we can do our job right. It's garbage now, but it's going to turn into a usable resin to make something out of."

Hot Market in China

UltrePET cleans the bottles and then chops them into chips, each smaller than a cornflake. Zordan describes his work as mining. Indeed, the white flakes mined from the would-be trash sparkle like diamonds. Then, they're heated and turned into tiny white pellets of recycled PET, which competes on the marketplace with virgin PET. It's a hot market — so hot that the Chinese are coming to the U.S. to buy nearly 40 percent of the bottles Americans recycle.

"China is the No. 1 consumer of the material collected in this country," Zordan says. "So if they're taking the lion's share, then there's only so much available for people like us." While used bottles from the U.S. are going to China, reclaimers like Zordan are criss-crossing the U.S. and even going to Canada, Mexico and Latin America to find PET. In all, they imported nearly 300 million pounds of flakes and bottles in 2005.

A Bottle's Afterlife: Your Carpet?

Recycled PET can be made into fiber, and then purchased by companies such as Interface Fabrics in Guilford, Maine.

The company's industrial loom weaves a heathered grey-blue cloth, with a silky finish, that will eventually become the wall covering for office cubicles. Ben King oversees operations for Interface Fabrics.

"We got colors — all different kinds — all on recycled polyester, almost exclusively," he says. "We run a little bit of wool, but almost everything in here is recycled polyester."

Recycled PET is turning up in a lot of items: carpets, clothing, automotive parts and even new bottles. With so much demand for the empties — and so many bottles in the marketplace — the question pressing on recyclers and beverage companies alike is how to get more of them recycled.

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