Bring Your Own week: Bottle up

This week's eco-topic: Bring Your Own

I used to rinse out my to-go coffee mugs when I wanted water to-go, but I got a nice SIGG bottle for my birthday. Why tote a cheap and dingy plastic bottle around when you can tote a stylish reusable bottle?

Yes, plastic bottles are everywhere. As Fast Company observes, "A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health." Even some environmental events will oxymoronically have water sponsors.

So why not bottled? Well, I've written 10 reasons to ditch the bottled water habit. And as you can probably imagine, there are many enviro reasons for saying no to bottled water: production of plastic bottles, plastic waste, fossil fuels burned shipping water across the world, etc.

But beyond the enviro concerns, there are personal health concerns as well. Bottled water is not actually safer for you than tap water, and the plastic bottle encasing water could itself pose health risks. The Natural Resources Defense Council says, "Studies have shown that chemicals called phthalates, which are known to disrupt testosterone and other hormones, can leach into bottled water over time. One study found that water that had been stored for 10 weeks in plastic and in glass bottles contained phthalates, suggesting that the chemicals could be coming from the plastic cap or liner."

Which is also to say that a glass or aluminum water bottle is a better choice than, say, a plastic Nalgene bottle for toting your water.

So get a decent water filter for your home if necessary, and refill your reusable bottles. Drink happy.

Top photo by Siel; bottom photo by Jay Wilson via Flickr

Comments

[Carla]

I'm writing a quick paper for a media criticism class and I noticed that consumers are more apt to notice the effect of bottled water on their pocket rather than on their planet. And still, I think people are afraid to drink cheaper tap water because they think higher price = higher quality.

This is great information but think, are most of us willing to filter our own tap water and bottle it in re-usable containers? Would we rather spend on a 24-pack of bottles or in filtering systems?

[Amelia Royko Maurer]

It is rather ironic that this article was sent to my inbox. Three years ago I signed up to have google alert me anytime a news article on bad plastics and bisphenol-a was posted to the net. Around the same time I queried Sigg on the contents of their bottle liner. This article on Sigg came to me through that google alert. Since I made that inquiry and it was ignored, my Sigg bottles have become stylish vases in my home, feeding cut flowers rather then my daughter and myself. Why would I retire such expensive and supposedly safe bottles so early?

Sigg bottles are lined with water based epoxy in order to prevent the aluminum bottle from corroding. Almost all water-based epoxies are created using bisphenol-a. Sigg wlll not release the ingredients used in their lining BUT they test for leaching bisphenol-a which leads one to believe they have REASON to test for bisphenol-a. A company that uses undisclosed ingredients has no place in the "green" product market. A prolonged exposure to the smallest levels (parts per billion)of bisphenol-a can cause damage to our endocrine systems. Considering the fact that we are being "hit " by this chemical from so many different angles in our environment, every degree of elimination matters. There is no human tool that can test for the smallest harmful quantity of bisphenol-a so a long term independent peer reviewed study is needed for accurate claims to be made on whether or not a product is leaching a harmful amount. Sigg has not conducted a study of any kind and therefore they should not claim to be safe because they really have no idea whether they are or not. Being that they are European or Swiss makes no difference at all regarding their safety.

We in the green manufacturing and retail community NEED for those reporting on these issues to do their homework before endorsing products of any kind. If you want to endorse Sigg because it is a sexy product, great- it is. But it is not accurately guaranteed to be any safer then plastic bottles. Though your intentions may be good, if you do not do extensive research when reporting to the public, you are muddying the waters and exhausting consumers who want to buy safe goods but haven't the time to research products themselves.

For info on an ongoing discussion between legitimate "green" retailers regarding Sigg:

http://www.freemarketorganics.com/coabsi.html

Sincerely,

Amelia

Amelia Royko Maurer
Free Market Organics LLC
342 S. Madison St.
Evansville, WI
53536

ph: 608-332-5042
fax: 608-882-0397
e: amelia@freemarketorganics.com
http://www.freemarketorganics.com

[Siel]

Amelia -- While your comment is perhaps well-intentioned, your research -- and correspondingly, the info on the website you're shamelessly using your comment to promote -- is old. As Umbra at Grist wrote about roughly a year ago, Sigg changed the lining of their aluminum drinking bottles in response to BPA concerns.

[Siel]

Amelia -- I just read this about Sigg on Treehugger and thought you'd find it interesting. Basically, Sigg bottles don't leach BPA, though that's not a guarantee that it doesn't contain it. From a health standpoint, the Sigg shouldn't pose BPA concerns. But I'm guessing someone like you might prefer a Kleen Kanteen to-go bottle instead.

[tew]

Irony that one implies that toting around filtered tap water in a plastic lined bottle is "safer" than buying water in a plastic bottle.

Putting the energy use / climate change issue aside for a moment (only a moment), it's important to note that there are various types of plastics used for food and beverage service. The common plastic for bottled water, PET, is not implicated in BPA leaching nor is it related to phthalates leaching.

Why must "environmentalists" and their media kin insist on using FUD when the real facts would suffice? Using FUD to confuse in the name of some greater good may sound like a good idea, but it usually backfires - enough folks catch on and more people on the fence are converted to skeptics about anything coming from anyone sounding like an "environmentalist".

Just let folks know that there's a stylish way to conspicuously display their eco-fashion conformity. Let them know it probably saves resources, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and is probably as good for them as any bottled water. They'll understand they can save money and be trendy.

Here are some basic facts folks may find useful (no doubt concocted by evil corporations):
http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/bin.asp?CID=1102&DID=4645&DOC=FILE.PDF

http://www.plasticsmythbuster.org/phthalates.asp

[Siel]

tew -- Where've you been? PET bottles are v. much implicated in phthalate leaching. You might find Meghan O'Rourke's recent article in Slate interesting too: "The very thing that allowed the water market to expand—plastics—may be making the world vastly less healthy for all of us. In the first place, contaminants from plastics like PET leach into the ground and the water around us. And evidence is accumulating that the phthalates in flexible plastics such as PET can interfere with our endocrine system at high doses—disrupting the regulation of hormones and leading to imbalances that interfere with reproduction."

[Amelia Royko Maurer]

Siel.

FACT: BPA mimics estrodiol (an estrogen). One tenth of one trillionth of a gram of estrodiol can cause the prostate glands of a fetal mouse to grow an amount in 24 hours that is relative to the amount a grown man's prostate enlarges over a life time. We have the exact same endocrine system as mice.

FACT: For Sigg to test effectively for leaching, they must test on something with an endocrine system over a period of time, and they don't, so they can not be considered safe.

I am getting my information from the scientists who ten years ago, accidentally discovered the dangers of BPA and polyethylene, and then persisted to study how they work. The sources you list are sources who get their information from Steve Wasik, the president of Sigg, which seams rather biased don't you think?

I love TREEHUGGER, but I know more about this particular issue then they do and I don't advise waiting for a popular publication to print information before acting cautiously and living preventively using methods based on sound science. Using a bottle that poses no potential risk is pretty easy.

Sigg does offer a stainless steel bottle. If I were to support their company, and wanted to avoid an unnecessary risk, I would buy their stainless bottle.

Lastly, I don't care what kind of stainless bottle you use or who you get your glass baby bottles or food storage containers from. I work on a sliding scale for folks who cannot afford this stuff therefore, I am the last person anyone would accuse for shamelessly promoting myself. At the end of the day, I just want to help get the word out about unsafe cosmetics and petroleum based endocrine disruptors. With less the 50% of hormonal cancer being genetic, I think every degree of prevention matters. My goal is to offer an alternative and provide a place for people to get what they need knowing I am selling the safest goods today can offer or point them in a direction where they can find what they need.

-Amelia

[auspiciousbunny]

I don't think all consumers are just buying bottled water for reasons of vanity. People also buy water in plastic bottles because they know what is in their tap water and not what is in the bottled water. When they moved into a house they bought, their water report could have been truly frightening. The stuff that is allowed in tap water today is not funny. There are "acceptable" levels of all kinds of chemicals in city tap water where I live. And the city has in many years failed water tests because of high levels of water "processing" chemicals. I think people believe, perhaps naively, that poland spring must be cleaner than the city water. I think what we should do is test our favorite brand of bottled water and find out once and for all.