The Adventure Life With Steve Casimiro Special Report: Your Water Bottle IS Dangerous

Text by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

If your water bottle is made of polycarbonate plastic—and most Nalgene and Camelbak bottles sold over the last few years are—it’s probably unsafe for you to use.

Nalgene, the largest manufacturer of outdoor water bottles, announced today that it will stop selling bottles made of polycarbonate. Polycarbonate contains a manmade chemical called bisphenol A (BPA), which leaches from the plastic at levels dramatically higher than previously thought.

The chemical has been linked to breast and prostrate cancer, brain damage, and disruptions of the endocrine system. While there have been worries over BPA in water bottles for years, the evidence is now clear and compelling: You should ditch your polycarbonate bottles and use something free of BPA, such as stainless steel or a new, BPA-safe plastic called Tritan.

Nalgene’s decision to stop selling bottles with bisphenol A came after years of defending polycarbonate. “Based on all available scientific evidence,” said Nalgene’s general manager Steven Silverman, “we continue to believe that Nalgene products containing BPA are safe for their intended use. However, our customers indicated they preferred BPA-free alternatives, and we acted in response to those concerns.”

The Latest Developments
This morning, Health Canada, a cross between the Surgeon General and Food and Drug Administration, declared that BPA is dangerous to humans—and is the first government agency to do so. It’s also seeking to ban BPA in bottles for infants and toddlers. Here in the U.S., the National Institutes of Health said on Tuesday that BPA can be linked to breast cancer and the earlier onset of puberty in girls and that harm to people “cannot be dismissed.”

What’s more, a study from California published in April shows that BPA directly alters genes in breast cells so that they resemble cancer cells and, while couched in cautious scientific language, the study implies BPA can actually cause aggressive cancers. Earlier this year, in the first direct test for bisphenol A migration in water bottles, University of Cincinnati scientists found that BPA leaches from polycarbonate containers at room temperature whether the bottle is old or new. More alarming, when the bottle has hot water in it, the chemical is released up to 55 times faster.

BPA Is Everywhere
You know how it seems there are Starbuck’s everywhere? BPA is like that, but even more so. As one of the world’s most widely used chemicals, good luck avoiding it. It’s in baby bottles, the lining of aluminum cans, CDs and DVDs, dental sealants, sunglass lenses, water pipes, and, of course, outdoor water bottles. In 2004, the U.S. produced 2.2 billion pounds of the stuff. It’s so pervasive, 90 percent of Americans over age six have it in their bodies.

The Creepy History of BPA
BPA first landed in the headlines in 2003 when a genetics researcher found that chromosomal mutations in mice jumped from 1-2 percent to 40 percent when they were kept in cages made of polycarbonate. Dozens of studies have linked bisphenol A to health problems in animals, but the chemical industry has strongly fought attempts to label it a danger.

The FDA continues to list it as safe, but some of its rulings were based on studies financed by the American Plastics Council. BPA advocates argue that exposure to the chemical comes in such low doses that it’s harmless to humans. However, bisphenol A mimics estrogen, which is active in much smaller concentrations, so even low doses make animals sick.

“There is a large body of scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful effects of very small amounts of BPA in laboratory and animal studies,” said Scott Belcher, the University of Cincinnati pharmacologist who led the water bottle study, “but little clinical evidence related to humans. There is a very strong suspicion in the scientific community, however, that this chemical has harmful effects on humans.”

Taking Sides
Distrustful of corporate and government reassurances, consumers have been demanding alternatives from retailers and pressuring regulators—at least in Canada—to revisit the safety of BPA. Patagonia removed BPA products from its 40 stores in 2005. Back in December, Mountain Equipment Co-op (the “Canadian REI”) pulled all food containers containing bisphenol A after concerns from its customers.

On Tuesday, a leak to the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper on Health Canada’s upcoming ruling on BPA caused a stampede of retailers across Canada to remove BPA products from their shelves, including Wal-Mart and Forzani, Canada’s largest sporting goods chain. In the U.S., REI today told its stores to pull polycarbonate water bottles from shelves and the chain is ending online sales. Other retailers in the States have been  slower to move. Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores, for example, will remove bisphenol A products—but not until early 2009.

A BPA Case Study
The University of Cincinnati study was the first to look at water bottles directly in “real world use.” Belcher, a climber who recently returned from an expedition in Pakistan, was prompted in part by watching fellow expedition members carrying bottles of hot water into their sleeping bags to stay warm. When he returned, he gathered new and used Nalgene bottles from a local climbing gym and tested them hourly over the course of a week, with water both at room temperature and boiling.

The results showed BPA migrating into the water at a rate of 0.2 to 0.8 nanograms an hour at room temp and up to 32 nanograms an hour with hot water. Also, after the “boiled” bottles were cooled, emptied, cleaned, and filled with room temperature water, the BPA migration level was still elevated beyond what it had been before the hot water.

The media response has focused on the dramatically increased leaching in hot water, but, Belcher said, “One of the points that hasn’t come across is that even at room temperature, there is bisphenol coming out. It’s unequivocal.”

Asked if that means people should avoid ingesting BPA wherever possible, he said, “That would be a fair conclusion, especially knowing that everybody in Western nations already has levels of bisphenol in their bodies that are shown to be harmful in lab animals.”

A Titan Alternative?
Polycarbonate hasn’t been so easy to give up, though. It’s a remarkably resilient material, almost unbreakable, but like glass is clear and immune from taking on the taste of whatever’s in it. And you can’t make polycarbonate without bisphenol A, said Camelbak’s product manager for bottles, Dave Carr. “It would be like trying to make a steel bike without steel.”

Until just a few months ago, the main alternatives to polycarbonate water bottles were stainless steel or high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles, but a new co-polyester plastic from Eastman Chemical—Tritan—came on the market last fall. It was immediately adopted by Camelbak and today all the company’s bottles are BPA-free. When Nalgene offered non-BPA water bottles for the first time last week, they also were made of Tritan.

But given the developments with polycarbonate, what’s to say problems won’t pop up with Tritan?

Camelbak’s Carr said, “I asked the same question. We went through a series of different regulatory tests with this material. We didn’t just rely on the United States. Japan, Europe’s food safey agency…there are even more restrictive agencies in Germany and California than the FDA. There’s a laundry list of all known toxins and whatever you’re considering goes against all of them. Tritan passes all of those tests.”

For now, there’s an alternative. But given the success of the public in flushing out the dangers of BPA, let’s hope the same scrutiny is given to Tritan.

NEED TO KNOW
IS BPA SAFE?
Please. Let’s use some common sense here. With billions of dollars at stake, corporations, government, and scientists are wrangling over the definition of “safe.” And while human-bisphenol studies are few, this week’s NIH report noted that BPA shows “association” with “higher levels of testosterone in men and women, recurrent miscarriage, and chromosomal defects in fetuses”. Does that sound safe to you? Especially when the solution is a new BPA-free water bottle that costs less than 15 bucks? I don’t think so.

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY BOTTLE HAS BISPHENOL A IN IT?
Look on the bottom of the bottle for a number surrounded by three arrows. Polycarbonate bottles are categorized as number seven. Note that seven is the catchall “other” category for plastics—all polycarbonates are seven, not all sevens are polycarbonates.

WHERE DO I BUY A BPA-FREE BOTTLE?
REI has the new Tritan Camelbak bottles and BPA-free Nalgenes in all its stores. Elsewhere, stainless steel bottles from Guyot, Klean Kanteen, and Sigg are options, too.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER PLASTIC BOTTLES?
Nalgene’s old-school bottles, milky colored and soft sided, are made of high-density polyethylene and free of BPA. Thin-walled, soft plastic bottles like Evian uses are plain old polyethylene.

I’M A TOTAL GEEK. WHAT DO ALL THE NUMBERS MEAN?
1—polyethylene tetephtalate (PET)
2—high density polyethylene (HDPE)
3—polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
4—low density polyethylene (LDPE)
5—polypropylene (PP)
6—polystyrene (PS)
7—other (polycarbonate, fiberglass, nylon, more)

Comments

[Amelia Royko Maurer]

Actually - sounding an alarm on the use of petroleum-based plastics (ie, the chemical/petrol industry) is justifiable and the existence of all of the other dangers (peaches?) in our environment shouldn't deter us from making smart changes in one department. Thank heavens the organic farmers of the 80s and 90s didn't share the "everything can kill us so why bother" view.

I emailed Fred vom Saal* personally about what to do regarding petrol-based plastics and he advised that I avoid them when ever possible. It's true - we are surrounded by it so reading something like this can scare people so I say, be scared and than hop to. Just ditch the old habits.

It is so easy to live without a lot of the plastics we have in our lives and every bit we scale back, we are scaling back on our support of the production of the materials, and the production of petroleum as well as the space it is taking in our landfills and water supply.

The harm BPA can cause is no joke. Just because we cannot see it harm our bodies doesn't mean it cannot change our genetic material. It actually can.

Ditch the plastic people and look out for SIGG - they use BPA in their bottle liner, and fail to test properly for leaching. They say that they do - but they do not.

Best bet is high grade stainless or glass.

More about Fred vom Saal:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nature/interviews/vomsaal.html

-Amelia
http://www.freemarketorganics.com

[Nicole Carl]

Interesting article. Now if only Nalgene would team with retailers to offer consumers an opportunity to trade in their old BPA bottles for a reduced-price on the Titans. Otherwise it's going to take a while for me to invest in another $9 water bottle.

[Yeti]

Thanks for the great breakdown of information with out becoming an alarmist. I look forward to reading more about BPA as the research bears more fruit.

[Michelle]

As silly and politically absurd as it may seem, defining "safe" is something that should be done. When coke first started switching to aluminum cans, it was determined to be un-safe because the aluminum of the time had phermaldihyde in it.... sounds bad. Of course, any one who has ever eaten a single peach (as in the fruit) has absorbed 10 times more than if they had drank from 1000 aluminum cans. There does need to be a method to the madness. In reality, EVERYTHING around us, man-made or not, is probably deadly.... at some dosage level.

[Ed]

It seems like the intelligent thing for the average polycarbonate bottle user is to fill the bottles just before you plan to use them with cold liquid, and not to let them sit filled for more than a day. If this is done, they should be reasonably safe to use.

I'd like to know if the studies indicate that leaching rate of bisphenol gradually drops off as the bottle is used? It seems that it should, but there don't seem to have been any studies done on this.

Finally, it sounds like a good idea to eventually plan on replacing them, once we are sure the replacement doesn't have some new, presently unknown, hazard.

One final item. My wife has a vegetable steamer made of clear plastic. Is there any easy way to find out what plastic is used in this appliance?

[M S UPPIN]

dear humans we in our villages still use mud based water bottles but as we get civilised to urban culture start using unsafe and costly things which in turn are deadle and un natural.so big brother & europians is catalyser for all un natural things which are destroying nature.please don't blame undeveloped countries because they have not yet developed to be un natural.

[David Vanderveen]

Ummm, while it's good to be as healthy as possible, I don't see the actual science supporting the wild extrapolations above when I review the websites. Here is what is at http://www.factsonplastic.com about the actual Health Canada commentary:

HEALTH CANADA DRAFT ASSESSMENT SUPPORTS SAFETY OF BISPHENOL-A
ARLINGTON, VA — The American Chemistry Council (ACC) respects the jurisdiction of Health Canada to protect the health and safety of Canadians with respect to the use of consumer products. Canadian families should expect no less from their government.

Consistent with the safety evaluations conducted by many other scientific and government bodies, the draft assessment released today by Health Canada confirms that health risks to the general population in Canada from exposure to bisphenol A are negligible. The assessment also confirms that the Canadian population is exposed to only very low levels of bisphenol A from use of consumer products.

I don't represent or own any interests in plastics, but I also hate alarmist pseudo-science.

[Steve]

OK, the title is a bit alarmist. I'm a scientist (chemist) and I've been pretty skeptical up until I read the UC climber's findings. I've certainly put a lot of hot water in my Nalgenes. It seems giving up Lexan is a smart choice, except that BPA is everywhere else. The statistic I heard was 95% of Americans have detectable BPA in their bodies. That's certainly not all coming from Nalgenes. I opened a can of peaches yesterday - plastic lining. Pop cans and many other cans have plastic linings. I fill my Nalgene at work out of a water cooler - polycarbonate bottle.

So my bottom line is that I'll be using the old HDPE bottles for my kids and pregnant wife, although I doubt it'll make much difference until the industry as a whole decides to phase BPA out of everything else. I probably will keep using mine, but I won't be putting boiling water in it anymore. I think Nalgene will come out pretty well as everyone replaces the old indestructible bottles with new ones.

Bottom line is that life is proven to lead to sickness and death. How many other lifestyle choices make much more difference than a water bottle?