Avery Goes BPA-Free

I recently heard through the grapevine that Babies R Us was exchanging any and all bottles containing BPA for those without. I thought surely, this must be too good to be true. No receipt, used hundreds of times over the course of a few years and they would just hand over brand new bottles still in the package? If they were doing this, it seemed to me like an amazing act of positive corporate ethics. (For more information about BPA and baby bottles, please see my go-to blog for everything green - Wallet Mouth.)

So, I hunted through the house and found all my BPA laden bottles from both Avery and Luca. I had 3 Playtex Vent Aires, 7 Dr Brown's (4 oz), and 7 Dr Brown's (8 oz). I bagged them up and headed off to BRU with Avery.

We walked into the store and headed straight to the Customer Service desk. I asked the woman working behind the counter, "are you still exchanging BPA bottles?" She smiled and nodded her head down the counter. Lining every inch of the long customer service counter were BPA bottles. Rows and rows of Avents, Dr Brown's, Playtex, and many others. I laughed and said, "I guess that's a yes." The woman said she had already had 15 people come in to exchange their bottles today alone. I told her how much we all appreciated that they were doing this.

After adding up the worth of my bottles, she told me I had $73 in credit towards new bottles. All the bottles were exchanged at full retail price! Many of the bottles I saw on the counter were very old, had permanent ink or tacky residue from daycare labeling. Some were missing caps or nipples. And yet they were taking them all. As I stood in front of the feeding shelves, I was still in awe that I had $73 to spend on brand new bottles. I picked out 3 boxes (9 bottles total) of Dr Brown's new BPA free bottles, 4 sets of stage 2 and 3 nipples, 2 packages of pacifiers, and 4 boxes of liners for the Playtex drop ins we already have. I went back to Customer Service and she rang up my new purchases, gave me a receipt and said "thank you!"

No, thank you Babies R Us! (And as we walked out, I saw a woman with a bag full of bottles in hand ask her partner, "I wonder if they really are exchanging bottles?")



Dr Browns Polypropylene bottles (BPA free)