Don’t get me wrong, I kept birds as well and I’m aware of the dangers of overheating Teflon pans around them – the same issues arise with 3D printers with PTFE-lined heatbreaks, by the by – but with some caution, in common cooking use those pans aren’t going to see the sorts of temperatures required to start decomposing the coating. Once it starts to wear out, certainly I’d say dump the Teflon cookware and get some stainless and/or cast-iron replacements, but a knee-jerk overreaction to throw out a sound pan is only going to make the plastic waste problem worse in the short term. Plastic the stuff may be, but (again, unless heated quite a bit) it’s one of the least chemically-reactive substances we know of.
Don’t get me wrong, I kept birds as well and I’m aware of the dangers of overheating Teflon pans around them – the same issues arise with 3D printers with PTFE-lined heatbreaks, by the by – but with some caution, in common cooking use those pans aren’t going to see the sorts of temperatures required to start decomposing the coating. Once it starts to wear out, certainly I’d say dump the Teflon cookware and get some stainless and/or cast-iron replacements, but a knee-jerk overreaction to throw out a sound pan is only going to make the plastic waste problem worse in the short term. Plastic the stuff may be, but (again, unless heated quite a bit) it’s one of the least chemically-reactive substances we know of.