The Motley Fool investment Web site is giving Metabolix Inc. some unwanted attention today, with contributor Rich Duprey featuring the company on a list of "5 Deathbed Stocks."

The item starts: "It's a story stock that appeals to many investors' green sensibilities, but with a resin that's more expensive than traditional plastic, and construction delays at its manufacturing facility, analysts aren't expecting it to turn out anything until at least next year."

Still, it's not all bad news. Duprey notes that Metabolix has disappointed short sellers before, and adds:

"With Metabolix's losses narrower than analyst expectations last quarter, this could be one of those stories that has a happy ending. The question is, though, how many people will be willing to pay more for its Mirel biodegradable plastic, which is being marketed as a "feel good" product?"

Interesting question. Some of the readers of this blog will likely be the potential customers who will make or break Metabolix. What do you think?

Waste-to-energy incineration is a potential solution to plastic waste problems, but one that always brings up some contentious related issues. Biomass magazine has a feature on the topic in its April issue, headlined "What to do with the Remnants of a Plastic Culture."

It begins: "The invention of these useful polymers derived largely from crude oil has been of great use to society but concerns over environmental damages exacted by the proliferation of industrial plastics' production and disposal are not without their merits."

The article quotes Penn State University researcher James Garthe, who has studied solid waste management and recycling, noting that he has "been working to develop positive, creative uses for the abundance of waste plastics produced by our convenience-oriented society."

Garthe outlines what he calls the Plastofuel concept: "Simply put, his concept was to push waste plastics through a heated die, melting the outer layer and producing plastic nuggets for cofiring."

It goes on: "While Garthe doesn't have all of the answers with respect to the dangers of heavy metals and dioxins from combusting plastic, he says, “I'd be less concerned about [industrial incineration of plastic] because of the watchful eyes of the regulators out there looking after public health. Much more concerning is Joe Schmo who's out there burning this stuff in a burning barrel."

Interesting point of view, although I don't think the general public shares his trust in public health regulators. Finding communities willing to host waste-to-energy incinerators is difficult -- often the public rallies around recycling instead, even when the economics aren't as favorable.

A developer has purchased the building that once housed North America's oldest injection molder, according to this story from The Republican newspaper in Springfield, Mass.

Matthew J. McDonough is the new owner of the former Prophylactic Brush Co. building at 296 Nonotuck St. in Northampton, Mass., according to the story. He paid $950,000 for the building.

"I'm very excited," McDonough told the newspaper. "This is a great piece of real estate, and we're psyched to get going on leasing."

The building was home to Pro Corp., a company that was founded in 1847 by Alfred Critchlow, a manufacturer of horn buttons. He later experimented with shellac and was among the earliest to use injection molding, according to this story from our archives.

In its early days, the company was known by different names such as Pro Molding Co., Pro-phy-lac-tic Brush Co. and later Pro Bush. It made buttons and toothbrushes. In 1964, it was among the first custom molders to concentrate on the business equipment market.

The building could still have a future in plastics manufacturing. According to The Republican's story, the property is zoned General Industrial, and McDonough is looking for commercial tenants.

"The city had proposed changing the zoning to Special Industrial, which would have allowed some residential use, such as artists' lofts, but that proposal never panned out," according to the report.

Pro Corp. moved out of the building last year.

The Erie, Pa., Times-News is reporting that a volunteer firefighter was killed today in a blaze at Port Erie Plastics Inc., an injection molder in Harborcreek, Pa.

The fire started in wood and plastic pallets stacked outside the building -- not in the plant -- according to the report. The fire started about 4 p.m.

I'll be blogging from the Plastimagen trade show in Mexico City this week. The first day just wrapped up, and it seemed like a busy show. The aisles were certainly bustling, although they weren't quite as crowded as the city streets. It's my first time in Mexico, and I'm enjoying the trip. If my Internet connection holds up, I'll have more to say about the show later tonight.

Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. President Bill Carteaux hosted a news conference at Plastimagen today aimed at boosting Latin American participation at NPE, the big triennial trade show scheduled for June 22-26, 2009, in Chicago.

In 2006, NPE attracted 4,307 visitor registrants from Latin America, with about half (2,162) from Mexico. Carteaux predicted the number of Latin American visitors will grow in 2009, perhaps to about 6,500.

Some highlights for Latin American visitors: SPI will sponsor an "extensive education program," including some sessions in Spanish. He also expects the emphasis on new technologies and specialized industry sectors will be a draw.

Plus, the exchange rate that makes it so expensive for U.S. residents to travel abroad should make attending NPE a relative bargain for people coming from outside the United States.

In other SPI-related news, Carteaux revealed that he has just signed a 2-year contract extension -- he just finished his third year as SPI's president and CEO. He also noted that he expects more materials suppliers to sign up to exhibit at NPE -- some are "on the fence" now. Finally, he said we can expect some other trade shows and conferences to collocate with NPE next year, but it's too early to give details. The Society of Plastics Engineers has already announced that Antec will collocate with NPE in 2009.

The Today show tackled the bisphenol A safety issue this morning with a report that encouraged viewers to avoid polycarbonate bottles.

What was really surprising, though, is that after the news portion of the report, which was balanced, Matt Lauer interviewed Dr. Leo Trasande from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Center for Children's Health and the Environment, who urged viewers to not to use PVC, polystyrene or polycarbonate containers. The message was very clear when the show posted a big graphic that said "Do not use" with the recycling symbols for those resins.

What PS and PVC have to do with BPA (basically nothing) was not explained.

The BPA safety issue continues to generate headlines, which must mean consumer awareness is growing. I think it's only a matter of weeks before we start seeing more cities and states try to ban polycarbonate water containers.

Remember how photography used to be absolutely forbidden at trade shows? Cell phone cameras have left those days in the dust.

While I was walking the show floor at Plastimagen this afternoon, I noticed lots of attendees taking photos and video with their phones. The most popular subjects were the booths with operating machinery -- injection machines were the stars of the show.

But plenty of folks also seem to like to take pictures of the booth "models" (I'm not going to call them "booth bimbos"), who are plentiful at Plastimagen. (I wouldn't be surprised if there's another blog or Web site somewhere with pictures).

Today was "student day" at the show, and the aisles were crowded with young visitors who were willing to stand in line for free stuff. I noticed that many of them enjoyed posing and taking pictures with a character at one booth who was dressed up like a Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper. What does that tell you about the future of the plastics industry?

The Today show this morning did an update on its report on plastic container safety. Primarily the report reinforced the message that it delivered yesterday -- that consumers should avoid PVC, polystyrene and polycarbonate containers.

NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman did clarify that PVC and PS do not contain bisphenol A. But she added that PVC and PS contain "other chemicals like polyvinyl chloride that we know in rat studies can be linked to cancers and other problems." (I think she meant to say vinyl chloride, not polyvinyl chloride, but at this point who really knows.)

Host Matt Lauer asked if her advice was "to err on the side of caution, or to throw caution to the wind?" The question gave Synderman the opportunity to reinforce her view, that consumers should be cautious.

Finally, she suggested that consumers with questions about plastic safety check www.iatp.org, which she described as an "independent organization." The Web site has been down all morning -- no doubt thanks to the Today show plug -- so I haven't been able to check out exactly what it says about various plastics. But I can tell you that the site is the work of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-governmental organization based in Minneapolis. For more information about IATP, check out this link, which says the group "uses its activist network to strong-arm American corporations into endorsing its politically-correct trading model, which includes importing more food from “sustainable” growers in other countries. The group’s most successful push has been in the area of so-called “fair-trade” coffee, which is more expensive to buy because its growers claim to pay their workers drastically above-market wages."

Best wishes today to Harshad Shah, president and chief executive officer of Hamilton Plastics Inc., a blown film extruder in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Shah was named Chattanooga Area Manager of the Year by local business and professional groups, according to this column by Mike Pare of the Chatttanooga Times Free Press.

The column gives a nice brief biography for Shah and a history of the company he founded 21 years ago:

The native of India is a long way from the person who immigrated to the United States in 1974 with little money in his pocket.

After arriving in the United States, he maintained 18-hour work and study days until earning a second degree. Upon graduation, he worked in the technical departments of several large corporations in the Chicago area, including Union Carbide.

“Union Carbide was working on a trash bag. They didn’t want to do it. I said I wanted to do it,” Mr. Shah said.

He and his wife moved to Chattanooga and he worked for a privately owned plastic film manufacturer in Dalton, Ga.

“I came here and loved it,” he said, eventually starting Hamilton Plastics over two decades ago in the Orchard Knob area and later moving it to Centre South Riverport.

His company has grown from a one-person operation to a 130-employee supplier of packaging for the food, industrial and medical markets.

Hamilton Plastics has invested about $30 million in expansions and equipment purchases since landing at the Riverport.

Shah is active in the local business community, but he hasn't forgetten his roots. According to the story, he recently built a school for science in his hometown in India, giving up to 45 students each year the opportunity to get a college-level education.

Hamilton Plastics is listed in our Top 100 ranking of North American film & sheet manufacturers, with sales of $45 million.

The safety of bisphenol A moved to the front burner again today, as the National Toxicology Program released its draft report on potential BPA toxicity.

NTP concludes there is “some concern for neural and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children at current human exposures,” which it notes "is of special concern because BPA is found in many plastic baby bottles and in the linings of some cans of formula."

For a Web page with links to NTP's BPA studies, click here. For a copy of the most recent report, in PDF format, click here.

It is a counterattack one might have expected from plastics bag manufacturers themselves. But it is not the plastics industry that has asked the Federal Trade Commission to stop Whole Foods Market Inc. from making false claims regarding the environmental superiority of paper bags to plastic bags, but an environmental group based in Sacramento, Calif.

In a letter to FTC dated April 9, Steve Hamilton, president of the Environmental Affairs Council, argues that Whole Food "lacks credible and objective scientific evidence demonstrating that . . . plastic bags are more harmful to the environment than the use of paper bags."

Whole Food has said that it will stop distributing plastic carryout bags April 22 in favor of paper bags to "help protect the environment and conserve resources,"-- an assertion that Hamilton calls "feel good environmentalism at its worst."

"This paper vs. plastics debate is a serious, complicated and unsettled scientific issue undeserving of such simple and deceptive treatment," said the letter, written by Hamilton, who formerly worked for several environmental and energy organizations including the South Coast Air Quality Management District Office.

"Whole Foods' false and unsubstantiated anti-plastics publicity stunt is yet another example of a purportedly environmentally friendly corporation greenwashing the general public," said the letter. "Contrary to the message behind Whole Foods' marketing scheme, credible and objective scientific evidence establishes that plastic bags generally cause less adverse environmental impact than paper bags," said the letter.

EAC pointed to an Environmental Protection Agency report, often cited by industry, which says that 40 per cent less energy is needed to produce plastic grocery bags and that their production generates 80 percent less solid waste. The letter also cited additional data in that same study that production of paper bags produce 70 percent more air and 50 times more water pollutants that the manufacture of plastic bags and that it takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.

The letter also cited data from other scientific studies that show plastic bags produce less greenhouse gas and consumer far less water in manufacturing.

In addition, because paper bags are ten times heavier than a plastic bag of equivalent size, EAC said that that means the use of "more packaging, which leads to less efficient transport and greater energy costs and emissions. Such secondary environmental impact cannot be discounted in determining whether Whole Foods has misled consumers."

The letter to EAC also said that Whole Foods' falsely asserts that its paper grocery bags are made from 100 recycled paper and contains 100 percent recycled fiber from post-consumer and post-industrial waste.

Only 40 percent of the content of the paper bags comes from post-consumer fibers, according to Duro Bag Manufacturing Co., which makes the paper bags for Whole Foods. The rest comes from post-industrial fibers, according to the EAC letter.

Neither Duro not Whole Foods has not responded to the charges in EAC's letter to FTC.

EAC has asked FTC to order Whole Foods to detract its unsubstantiated and derogatory statements regarding plastic bags, to stop falsely representing the recycled content of its paper bags and to prohibit the grocery chain from providing misleading information regarding the environmental benefit of its shopping bags.

We don't know if FTC will take up EAC's complaint. But its very existence seems to open up the door for similar counterattacks in other cities when anti plastic bag legislation or initiatives based on environmental claims arise.

The American Chemistry Council is planning a conference call with journalists on Thursday to address "Recent media reports have raised unfounded issues and concerns about the safety of plastic bottles."

Specifically, on April 9 and 10 the Today Show aired a "consumer alert" story about the alleged dangers of plastics, plastic bottles and, in particular, Bisphenol-A, which is used to make polycarbonate containers. The reports were full of inaccuracies which have unnecessarily alarmed the public. In addition, Health Canada is expected to soon release a draft risk assessment about Bisphenol-A which may further confuse and unnecessarily alarm the public. Also this week the National Toxicology Program's (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction released a draft report providing reassurance that consumers can continue to use products made from bisphenol A. Importantly, this conclusion has been affirmed by scientific and government bodies worldwide.

It will be interesting to see how many reporters participate in the call, and (assuming ACC takes questions), what sort of comments they'll get.

Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health, has an amusing op-ed column in the New York Post about an unexpected consequence of Whole Foods Market dropping plastic bags: Cockroaches prefer paper bags, which Stier said would contribute to the city's "asthma epidemic."

Entymologists, including Coby Schal of North Carolina State University, have observed that cockroaches prefer paper to plastic. "They really like to live in the creases found in paper bags," said Schal, the nation's top expert on cockroaches. Many cockroach species chew into paper bags to lay their eggs - something they don't do with plastic.

This is a problem beyond just the yuck factor. Darryl Zeldin, a senior scientist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, says: "Cockroaches significantly increase asthma symptoms in allergic individuals. And while a third of inner-city residents are cockroach-sensitive, sensitivity to cockroach exposure is widespread in our nation - not just in the inner cities."

If Whole Foods' "green" move starts a trend among food stores, it may contribute to New York's asthma epidemic.

It gets worse. The move flies in the face of the enviro mantra to "reduce, reuse and recycle" - in that order. Almost everyone keeps a stash of plastic bags. We reuse them to line garbage cans, bring lunch to work and clean up after the dog - try doing that with paper. Plastic bags are easier to reuse and more efficient to recycle than paper. In fact, starting this summer, New York City will require large stores to offer shoppers recycling bins. (Maybe the city's overbearing emphasis on public health resulted in something positive, this time.)

That makes a lot more environmental sense than San Francisco's governmental greenwash: an outright plastic-bag ban. If you are worried about the environment, reusing plastic bags is a better choice than paper bags, which rarely get reused.

Stier goes on to say that too many people "mindlessly follow green initiatives and bask in how good it feels -- without recognizing the unintended consequences." He gave the example of the Penn and Teller video in which hundreds of people sign a petition to ban water -- they call it dihydrogen monoxide -- because it is a "chemical found in reservoirs and lakes" and used in pesticides and nuclear energy that is finding its way into grocery stores and baby food.

Plastic bag makers were granted an injunction on Thursday putting a halt to a proposed ban on bags in Oakland, Calif., according to this story from the San Francisco Chronicle.

"We feel vindicated," Michael Mills, attorney for the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling, told the newspaper.

The next step? The city will decide whether to challenge the ruling, to drop the ban, or whether to go ahead with an environmental impact study of the proposal.

Watch Plastics News' Web site for more information on the ruling, and reaction from all sides, later in the week.

Here are a couple of fresh videos that folks in the plastics industry should watch today.

The first is from NBC's Today show, which yet again tackled the issue of BPA safety. This time Matt Lauer interviewed Sharon Kneiss of the American Chemistry Council and Frederick vom Saal, the University of Missouri professor who has taken a leading role in efforts to restrict BPA.

Watch the video and judge for yourself how they did. Neither is really a TV personality (but I'm not pretending that I could do better). They both had a lot to say and little time to make their points.

I don't think Kneiss helped her case near the end of the interview, where she tried to squeeze in some information that didn't really fit in with the topic.

"Let's look at the benefits that BPA-containing products afford. ... Safety in bicycle helmets, children's seats for the back of your car. There are a lot of good, important benefits that BPA affords," Kneiss said.

Yes, that's true -- but this debate is about the safety of polycarbonate water and baby bottles, not durable goods.

Perhaps this will be Today's final word on BPA. I wonder how much typical viewers have been paying attention, and what impression they've come away with of BPA, polycarbonate, and plastics packaging in general.

The second video is from the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., and the topic is related (although it doesn't directly come out and say so). The video is narrated by Bill Carteaux, SPI's president and chief executive officer, and it explains the "chasing arrows" resin identification symbols on plastic containers.

SPI released the video "to clarify the intended purpose of the resin identification codes."

"The resin codes do not signify whether or not our local towns will recycle those containers. They do not indicate the safe or intended use of a bottle or container, and they should not be used for that purpose," Carteaux says. "Furthermore, the resin codes do not provide guidance on the safe or intended use of a product inside the container."

He also clarifies that the No. 7 recycling code applies to all non-PET, HDPE, LDPE, PVC, PS and PP containers -- not just polycarbonate, as many recent news reports have implied.

Congratulations to Robert Cervenka, founder, chairman and CEO of injection molder Phillips Plastics Corp., for being inducted into the Wisconsin Business Hall of Fame today.

This Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story describes Cervenka's success: "Cervenka founded the Phillips-based plastic molding company in 1964 with an initial investment of $52,000. Today, the company employs 1,600 people and tallied sales of more than $250 million in 2007."

He is joined by Don Davis, former chairman and chief executive of Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation Inc., and the late Leonard Gentine, founder of Plymouth, Wis.-based Sargento Foods Inc.

The event benefits Junior Achievement of Wisconsin.

Kansas City's The Pitch newspaper has a very interesting story about the bisphenol A controversy. The story is told primarily from the perspective of University of Missouri Professor Frederick vom Saal and his team, although it includes reaction from a variety of industry sources.

Vom Saal is the researcher who managed to keep a spotlight on BPA safety for the past decade. It would not be an exaggeration to say that his efforts are responsible for the what we called "the beginning of the end for polycarbonate bottles that contain bisphenol-A in North America" in our April 21 issue.

Here's an excerpt from The Pitch's story:

Vom Saal is a controversial figure in his area of expertise — at least where the manufacturers of bisphenol A are concerned. His willingness to speak frankly about his findings is alarming to the top five makers of bisphenol A: Dow Chemical, Bayer Material Science, Sunoco Chemicals, SABIC Innovative Plastics and Hexion Specialty Chemicals.

More than 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A are produced every year.

"If I were to say to you, 'Oh, here's a pack of birth control pills. I'm going to extract out the hormone and make plastic out of them,' you'd think I was crazy," vom Saal says. "And indeed, the idea that you're using sex hormones to make plastic is just totally insane."

For a decade, vom Saal has seen the chemical industry distort his research and government regulators ignore it.

But after years of quietly publishing studies in scientific journals and presenting papers at toxicological conventions, vom Saal is starting to be heard. Since the first study of bisphenol A came out of vom Saal's lab in 1997, he has been interviewed about the chemical for PBS' Frontline series and by ABC's 20/20. For Fox News, he has measured the amounts of bisphenol A that leach out of plastic baby bottles, and he has even been quoted in subculture-celebrating Vice magazine regarding the Texas-sized island of discarded plastic floating in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. Recently, he has flown around the country to testify in front of state legislators writing measures against the use of bisphenol A.

The story details some serious allegations against the chemical industry. For example, it describes a 1997 meeting with Dow Chemical Co.'s John Waechter, who offered to replicate vom Saal's research in a larger, industry-funded study.

Vom Saal says he'll never forget Waechter's words: "Can we arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome where you withhold publishing this paper until authorized to do so by the Chemical Manufacturers Association?"

The scientists felt they were being offered a bribe.

Mark Walton, the lead spokesman for Dow Chemical, has been asked about Waechter's visit by media outlets before — Frontline, specifically. He tells The Pitch that what felt to the scientists like bribery was "simply an enormous misunderstanding between what Dr. Waechter attempted to communicate and what was heard by Dr. vom Saal. And there was no intent or effort in any way, shape or form to do anything that would cause Dr. vom Saal to do anything other than to publish science that was accurate."

Vom Saal says that he told Waechter, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his offer.

It was the MU scientists' first glimpse of industry backlash.

Some of the mistakes in the story jumped out as I read them. For example, trying to make a connection between vom Saal's research and the American Plastics Council's "Take another look at Plastic" ad campaign was a ridiculous stretch. And calling the Society of the Plastics Industry a subsidiary of American Chemistry Council is a sloppy mistake.

Still, this is an interesting story, worth reading for anyone involved in BPA- or polycarbonate-related issues.

Vom Saal seems destined to be an individual who will make a major impact on the future of the plastics industry. It's obvious from his comments that his interactions with industry people to date has not impressed him.

"Honesty in industry is not a requirement," vom Saal said. "As a matter of fact, the willingness to be dishonest seems to be the criterion for these people being hired and representing the chemical industry. We're playing on a very uneven playing field when we talk to them."

Men.style.com, the online home of GQ and Details magazines, has a short blurb and photograph today about a plastics-related environmental project that I had not seen before.

David de Rothschild, described as a "banking heir and Global Warming Survival Handbook author,", plans to set sail in December on an 8,000-mile journey from San Francisco to Australia, on a boat named The Plastiki, made from post-consumer plastic bottles.

The trip will take him through the Eastern Garbage Patch, the area in the Pacific Ocean where floating plastic is said to vastly outnumber marine plankton.

It will be interesting to see what approach the Plastiki voyagers take to encouraging solutions to the marine debris problem.

Don't throw away your old turntable. Vinyl records are making a mini-comeback, according to the latest data from the Recording Industry Association of America.

In 2007, RIAA estimates that 1.3 million vinyl LPs and EPs were shipped in the United States. That's up for the first time since 2004, when shipments were at 1.36 million (in 2006 they fell to 900,000).

Recording artists like Elvis Costello prefer vinyl for the superior sound -- and perhaps the harder-to-steal format has some appeal, too.

Wired music critic Eliot Van Buskirk noticed the trend back in October when he wrote this column, which explained the phenomena:

Golden-eared audiophiles have long testified to vinyl's warmer, richer sound. And now demand for vinyl is on the rise. Pressing plants that were already at capacity are staying there, while others are cranking out more records than they did last year in order to keep pace with demand.

Don MacInnis, owner of Record Technology in Camarillo, California, predicts production will be up 25 percent over last year by the end of 2007. And he's not talking about small runs of dance music for DJs, but the whole gamut of music: "new albums, reissues, majors and indies ... jazz, blues, classical, pop and a lot of (classic) rock."

The UK national daily newspaper The Guardian made a splash over the weekend with a story headlined: 'Sustainable' bio-plastic can damage the environment: Corn-based material emits climate change gas in landfill and adds to food crisis.

Concern is mounting because the new generation of biodegradable plastics ends up on landfill sites, where they degrade without oxygen, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. This week the US national oceanic and atmospheric administration reported a sharp increase in global methane emissions last year.

"It is just not possible to capture all the methane from landfill sites," said Michael Warhurt, resources campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "A significant percentage leaks to the atmosphere."

"Just because it's biodegradable does not mean it's good. If it goes to landfill it breaks down to methane. Only a percentage is captured," said Peter Skelton of Wrap, the UK government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme. "In theory bioplastics are good. But in practice there are lots of barriers."

Recycling companies said they would have to invest in expensive new equipment to extract bioplastic from waste for recycling. "If we could identify them the only option would be to landfill them," said one recycler who asked to remain anonymous. "They are not wanted by UK recycling companies or local authorities who refuse to handle them. Councils are saying they do not want plastics near food collection. If these biodegradable [products] get into the recycling stream they contaminate it.

Our sister publications in Europe, Plastics & Rubber Weekly and European Plastics News, noted today that The Guardian's report didn't really break new ground.

"This and the other issues covered about bioplastics, recycling and oxy-degradables have all been covered over the past few years by PRW and EPN," online editor Katie Coyne wrote. "These include concerns over contamination by bioplastic into oil-based plastics recycling streams."

So far coverage of bioplastics in the United States has been largely uncriticial. It will be interesting to see if the popular press here picks up on The Guardian's lead.

(One notable exception came up on April 16, with this curious story, "Questioning how Biota sprung a leak," from the Telluride, Colo., Daily Planet, which quoted two former employees of a Colorado bottler who alleged that water containers blow molded by a now-defunct company company using corn-based plastic leaked on store shelves.)

The Diane Rehm radio show today (Tuesday, April 29) features a discussion on the bisphenol A safety issue. The show, hosted by WAMU in Washington and nationally broadcast on many National Public Radio stations, is scheduled for 10 a.m. (if you miss it live, you can check the Web site for a recording and a transcript later today).

Scheduled guests are:

Steven Hentges, American Chemistry Council, PhD, Senior Director Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group

Frederick vom Saal, reproductive scientist and professor, Division of Biological Sciences, College of Arts & Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia

Warren Foster, director, center for reproductive care and reproductive biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario

John Bucher, associate director, National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Tony Clement, Health Minister, Canada.

Sounds like a heavyweight lineup.