Are Nalgene Bottles Unsafe? Part 1 [Justin]
Part I: Is Bisphenol A going to kill us all?
BoingBoing asks:
Are reusable water bottles dangerous?
[quoting from this site]
I decided just to re-use the flimsy plastic water bottles for as long as I could. I was happy with this solution for quite some time, until I learned the horrible truth: HARMFUL BACTERIA! Yes, with each refreshing sip I was backwashing germs into my water and providing them with a warm, wet place to grow.So I did what any bacteria-fearing primate would do and bought a nice, reusable Nalgene bottle. Boy oh boy, nothing makes you look or feel more like a tree-hugging, mushroom hunting nature girl than one of those bright, hard plastic bottles! Until it comes out that Nalgene gives you BRAIN DAMAGE! Yes, Bisphenol A, used to make Nalgene bottles and other hard plastic projects, apparently seeps into the body and can, in certain doses, mess with the function of the brain. (I’m paraphrasing/exaggerating and not everybody agrees, so look it up.) I could almost dismiss the fear as environmentalist fear mongering, but it turns out that California legislators take the threat seriously enough to consider banning it in children’s products.
Wow, lots of big allegations there, and since BoingBoing is read by like 40,000 people a day, I thought I’d better chime in. “In certain doses” is an important phrase, but one that’s easy to gloss over.
First, I use a Nalgene bottle every day, and have since about 2000. I had my first bottle for about three years, but replaced it when a friend who is completing her Ph.D. in biology said that she attended a seminar on endocrine disruptors, and that an old Nalgene can leach chemicals that mess with hormones such as estrogen, and estrogen-like substances in the environment. She said that it’s especially important to not put a Nalgene bottle in the dishwasher, since the ultra-hot water can cause the polycarbonate to break down and leach Bisphenol A (if I remember correctly - this is the chemical the above links reference, so I’m assuming she was talking about the same chemical). Finally, she said you should replace your bottle around the time the print wears off the outside, which prompted me to adopt a new bottle, since mine had long since become bare.
So what’s the deal on Bisphenol A? This industry group says Bisphenol A leaches from polycarbonate, but at an absurdly low rate:
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a key building block of polycarbonate plastic. In recent years a number of researchers from government agencies, academia and industry worldwide have studied the potential for low levels of BPA to migrate from polycarbonate products into foods and beverages. These studies consistently show that the potential migration of BPA into food is extremely low, generally less than 5 parts per billion, under conditions typical for uses of polycarbonate products.Using these results, the estimated dietary intake of BPA from polycarbonate is less than 0.0000125 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day. This level is more than 4000 times lower than the maximum acceptable or “reference” dose for BPA of 0.05 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Stated another way, an average adult consumer would have to ingest more than 600 kilograms (about 1,300 pounds) of food and beverages in contact with polycarbonate every day for an entire lifetime to exceed the level of BPA that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set as safe. link
Numbers like that are subject to experimental dispute, and can sometimes be based on unrealistic extrapolation. The SF Gate article linked to above says:
But an author of one of the new studies, Thomas Zoeller, a thyroid endocrinologist and chairman of the University of Massachusetts’ biology department, said researchers had shown that humans were widely exposed to bisphenol A, a chemical that can disrupt animal hormone systems that affect the workings of the brain.Further, it appears to accumulate at higher concentrations around the fetus — in the umbilical cord and the amniotic fluid — than in the mother’s blood, said Zoeller, a leading authority on fetal thyroid development. While it’s not clear what the affects are on humans, Zoeller and his colleagues published a study in the journal Endocrinology in February showing that, in lab animals, bisphenol A altered the ability of thyroid hormone to correctly regulate brain development.
In another study, expected in an upcoming issue of the journal Neuroscience, a University of Tokyo group found that bisphenol A inhibited the positive role of estrogen in enhancing neural connections in a part of the brain involved in the formation and retention of memory, the hippocampus. link
So I believe my friend who says that if you wear out your Nalgene bottle or abuse it, it’s going to leach endocrine disruptors. Sure, don’t let your baby eat old CDs (which are also made of polycarbonate). But this stuff about it giving you brain damage is bogus fearmongering.
As an aside, I think we’ve come to fear way too much in the US. I still want to die, some day, of something related to old age. I will not spend my days (however many are left) worrying about whether my water bottle is going to kill me. Sure, protect your family and all that. Feed them organic foods if you want. But don’t try to make every chemical in the world illegal in the state of California. Water is a chemical, after all - the word shouldn’t automatically make people afraid.
Coming soon: Part II - The bacterial culture I took from my Nalgene bottle (to include photos!)
Update:
BoingBoing now also links to this UA article, which has more on the Bisphenol A issue:
Studies done last year found popular Nalgene water bottles to be potentially toxic, but new research, done in part by a UA professor, suggests the bottles do not pose a risk.A study done by the University of Missouri reported that a chemical called bisphenol-A seeps into water that is stored in polycarbonate plastic, the same kind used in Nalgene Lexan’s outdoor water bottles.
According to the study, published in the July 2003 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, detectable levels of BPA leaked into drinking water stored at room temperature.
Additional studies were conducted nationwide to find adverse effects of BPA, which is known to mimic the female hormone estrogen.
According to a Case Western Reserve University study, rats exposed to BPA developed aneuploidy, an abnormal loss or gain of chromosomes. The defect in humans can result in Down syndrome or cancer.
But Glenn Sipes, UA professor and department head of pharmacology, said the studies are misleading.
Sipes was a member of a research panel created by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis that studied how humans handle chemical compounds in comparison to the laboratory rats that are used for scientific research.
The purpose of the panel, which lasted two years, was to analyze recent scientific studies and find if humans handle compounds in a similar manner to rats, since rats are a common test species, Sipes said.
But Sipes said his research panel found the Nalgene studies should be interpreted with caution.
“Yes, you can report in literature that this happened or that happened,” said Sipes. “But these biological health effects did not translate into big issues of concern.”
Sipes said his panel found that humans metabolize the BPA more effectively than the rats that were used as test species. Humans also clear the chemical out of their bodies a few hours after ingestion, Sipes said.
So, basically, yes, there’s BPA in your water, but if you refill your bottle every day, there’s not much. “Detectable” doesn’t mean “a lot.” We can detect incredibly low concentrations of plenty of chemicals, and “chemical” is still not a bad word.
I’m doomed.
It would be interesting to know if the rate at which BPA migrates into food changes with dishwasher use. Polycarbonate is used a lot where things need to be put through a dishwasher due to its high temperature resistance and relatively low cost and the ability to mold it in clear. Not many other plastics combine all three of those properties. For example, crystal styrene (the ultra-cheap - and brittle - material CD cases are made of) can withstand a regular service temp of only 150 degrees, while PC can withstand 250.
My point is that if use in the dishwasher makes the problem worse, that’s abig deal because dishwasher use is one of the big selling points of PC.
Even if it is worse, I would doubt that it rises to level of ‘dangerous’, thoug.
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Two things to consider….
1) True, the levels of Bisphenol-A (BPA hereafter) that may leach from your Nalgene are low. However, that’s not a reason to discount BPA’s potential harm. The endocrine system is amazingly sensitive, with changes in gene expression resulting from the binding of only a few molecules to individual receptors. Because of this property of the system, many endocrine disruptors show non-monotonic dose response curves (basically a violation of the traditional view in toxicology that “increasing dose=increasing harm”…in this case, very low levels can cause more dramatic effects than higher doses). This fact concerns me, because most government regulations on chemical levels (in food, etc.) are firmly based on the traditional view.
2)Although I can’t make any judgments about the credentials and motivations of the quoted scientists who dismissed the potential dangers of BPA, I do know two of the leading people doing research on the endocrine-disrupting effects of BPA–Tom Zoeller (quoted in one of the articles) and Fred Vom Saal. Both of these men are scientists of the highest caliber, and wouldn’t be investigating BPA if they didn’t have adequate experimental evidence that there are negative effects. After all, their careers are at stake if they’re wrong.
3)Having said that, I do agree with Justin that worrying about killer water bottles is not the best way to spend your time. However, I think it’s important to recognize that some of the chemicals to which we’re exposed every day are affecting our bodies in ways that go largely undetected….sometimes because of outdated research methods in toxicology, sometimes because of active suppression of research by chemical manufacturers. Each person has to take the responsibility to educate him/herself and decide which dangers are worth worrying about.
Maybe if I tell Amy about the risks of face cancer from her CRT monitor, she’ll let me get a new desktop PC with a flatscreen :).
Thanks for chiming in, Ph.D. candidate.
Okay, so how many people went and washed their plastic water bottles right after reading this? Me! I just couldn’t help myself…
I actually felt by not washing the water bottle I was better off. I’d rather stick to my bacteria then this other chemical.
[...] Related: Can Nalgene bottles make you sick? Who cares, when they’re designed so beautifully? They’re like the Macs of water bottles. [...]
By the way glycerine and bleach both react with polycarbonate. Dish soap is made from glycerine and dishwasher soap contains some bleach. That being said I’m not sure what to use to clean my nagene bottle? I guess I’ll just ignore the fear hype and keep washing it with normal dish soap and water. Probably the fact that I drink a gallon of water a day is enough to flush out any harmful chemicals anyway…
Glycerin reacts with polycarbonate? Isn’t glycerine pretty tame?
If your concerned about slowly poisoning yourself with your nalgene or # 1 bottle, opt for a stainless steel bottle…http://www.kleankanteen.com/. There actually quite light, arent leaching harmful chemicals into your body, not supporting the bottled water industry, or the corporate giant nalgene. Pretty simple solution to all the hype.
Isn’t the question of importance whether Nalgene Lexan bottles are safer than their alternatives? If I didn’t have a Nalgene bottle, I would have a refillable plastic water bottle, from a corner store probably, that I refilled and used day after day.
So, for you science types, is the Nalgene bottle safer than the plastic water bottle from a germ-breeding perspective and from a break-down of Lexan material perspective?
Thanks.
Good question, CTG. My guess is that you’d be exposed to more chemicals if you drank from a new disposable water bottle every day, since plastic leaches chemicals over time, and you’re getting a new bottle, and thus a new supply of chemicals, every day. However, as you said, disposable bottles are made out of different plastics than Nalgene bottles, so who knows.
The problem with disposables, of course, is the ecological problem. If I were to drink bottled water instead of refilling my Nalgene, I’d have thrown away:
3 nalgenes (32oz)/day = 6 pop-machine Dasanis (16oz)
6 Dasanis x 365 days/year = 2,190 bottles going to the landfill each year
2,190 bottles/year x 6 years = 13,140 bottles
Instead, I’ve gone through three Nalgene bottles. No contest.
I would just like to add to this interesting blog. Very recently there has been a movment to get people to retutn to tap across the country. Most prominently in NYC where the tap water is among the best in the world in urban areas. I live in relatively conservative DC and the movement has started here. My law firm has begun to push tap, but because the water we extract from the Potomac is no where as clean as that from upstate NY we have installed filtration units in all of our pantries. I am off to buy my first Nalgene (or stainless steel bottle as suggested above) today!
Filters rock! Good move. You’ll save tons of money, and enjoy drinking tap water even if it’s not so great before you filter it.
I personally don’t like the taste of chlorine, so I never enjoy drinking unfiltered tap water. That’s not, however, a good reason to drink bottled water - filtering is several thousand times cheaper, and just as good.
I just started looking into polycarbonate plastic bottle / BPA issues, and while the debate’s still on, I think the science is raising a pretty clear warning.
One researcher (vom Saal) reviewed 115 separate BPA studies - 94 of them found effects or damage (some in humans) at doses far lower than the Fed limits. Curiously, 90% of government funded studies on BPA found harmful effects. Only 21 studies found no effects - all funded by the plastics industry. Go figure. By the way, the EPA safety standards for drinking BPA were set in 1985, before any of this research.
What really surprised me was that levels of BPA found to cause damage were measured in every human blood and urine sample the researchers took, as well as in drinking supplies (reservoirs, etc). I tend not to get worked up about such things, but how do you spell “guinea pig”?
I haven’t read any studies on Nalgene bottles, so can’t say if they test different than other polycarbonates.
If you’re not worried about harm to your fetus, lower sperm count, hyperactivity, enlarged prostate, brain and breast and other health issues measured in these studies, drink on, but I think I’ll track this and go wash out stainless til the dust clears.
[...] Radical Congruency: An old Nalgene can leach chemicals [BPA] that mess with hormones such as estrogen, and estrogen-like substances in the environment. Reputedly it’s important to not put a Nalgene bottle in the dishwasher, since the ultra-hot water can cause the polycarbonate to break down and leach Bisphenol A. Also, one should replace the bottle around the time the print wears off the outside. [...]
Bisphenol-A (BPA) by itself is estrogenic or hormone disrupting. Polycarbonate (PC) is made with BPA and another chemical, carbonyl chloride. PC is the plastic of choice in nearly all hard clear bottles like baby bottles and reusable drinking bottles. So, naturally, people have a right to know if use of PC bottles poses a risk.
Will BPA migrate from the bottle to the food inside? To answer that question the Dutch Government commissioned a study in 2005. That study found no detectable BPA migration in any new baby bottle and only a trace BPA migration in bottles used up to 3 years. The trace level of BPA found in testing was so small the test could not quantify the amount, less than 0.0050 mg/L. The German government also assessed the risk of BPA migration and found no BPA migration risk.
Both of these studies make sense as the goal of any manufacturer is make product as efficiently as possible. BPA is fully consumed in the creation of PC. If it isn’t then the resulting plastic will cost more to produce.
I believe the EU government studies. I’m a dad with 4 children 3 of whom were fed formula from PC bottles. One of those is on his school’s honor role. One other has a memory that surprises his teachers. The last, my baby, still drinking milk from PC bottles has been declared gifted.
[...] news, despite what many reporters may lead you to believe. Poking around on the Internet, I found this post written way back in April 2005. I’m sure that with a little more investigation, older [...]
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All Sig products made from steel are safe. You know you can return any Nalgene product you got from REI and get a full refund no matter how long ago it was… I’m returning all of my Nalgene stuff in the next few days after reading about this.
The controversial issue is regarding the hard lexan bottles only. Dr. Hulda Clark’s 2004 book “The Prevention of All Cancers” states that the only truly safe plastic for food/beverage use is HDPE; a recent look at Nalgene’s website shows the addition of an entire line of HDPE plastic products, so looks like they’re back in the good books (although they haven’t pulled their Lexan line off the market and still deny there’s a problem). Mountain Co-Op in Toronto doesn’t have the HDPE bottles in stock, only the LDPE plastic, which doesn’t get Dr. Clark’s approval in the above-mentioned book.
OH, GOD. Please don’t ever reference anything from Hulda Clark. This woman is the wackiest wacko alive. She believes that all disease is caused by “liver flukes” and that you can eliminate them with a “zapper”. She is not “right”, if you know what I mean.
Far too much paranoia about BPA, IMO. I highly doubt we will EVER see a case of anyone harmed by the negligible amounts that the average person is exposed to.
I too have been struggling with this PC/BPA leaching issue; just picked up those awesome Lock-N-Lock reusable containers (as a boxed set - MUCH cheaper), only to get home and find that these ones are made of PC, instead of the usual PP (polypropylene, number “5″ - the same as yogourt tubs).
I too detest this whole bottled water society of ours; we must realize a few things, which I’ll summarize in point form, to save everyone time:
- the 3 “R”s are in order of environmental impact - reducing waste is best, reusing containers isn’t as good but still better than . . . recycling. It’s only glass and aluminum that are infinitely recyclable - plastics, at best, can generally only be recycled once - recycling usually alters their structure so they can’t be made into the same product again (e.g., plastic bags, water bottles . . . so they become plastic lumber - consoling oneself with those thousands of water bottles/year (thanks, Justin!) by saying “it’s ok, they can be recycled” is nonsense - not only can HDPE (which I think they are) be recycled only once, there must also be a market for the plastic for it to be recycled, else off to the landfill it goes. Ok, enough of my rant . . .
- Justin et al. are right - using something even like a Brita filter (which I use) is drastically cheaper than many other at-home (and not at-home) alternatives
- bottled water is NOT state-/provincially- or federally regulated; tap water is. There are stringent standards to which tap/municipal water must adhere. Sure there are instances where a given municipality is out of compliance, and sometimes with drastic results (e.g., Walkerton, Ontario), but that was due to HUMAN error and can therefore be corrected/remedied. Plus, those instances are rare - and it wasn’t chemically related, it was bacteriological (those who died were immunocompromised, such as the elderly and very young - if you’re a healthy younger adult, you have much less to be concerned about re bacteria).
- studies have shown, definitively (sorry, no references/sources here, but I do my homework and do NOT fall victim to appealing to authority), that water stored at +4′C (sorry, I’m a Canuck) - the temperature of your fridge - is a surefire way to help stave off bacteriological growth than water stored at room temperature (with few exceptions, bacteria–esp. the pathogenic/disease-causing ones–grow best at body temperature (37′C), so a temperature closer to that (room) than farther (fridge) will be one more conducive to bacterial growth). TAKE-HOME MESSAGE: keep your water refrigerated, where and when possible.
- beware of Sigg water bottles; sure they are stylish (and priced accordingly), but I understand that all (or at least most) are made of aluminum (which has been correlated with Alzheimer’s) and NOT stainless steel. I have a Klean Kanteen (i.e., stainless steel water bottle) and I swear by it.
At the end of the day, it’s all caveat emptor (buyer beware). There is no perfect product that has no downsides. Pick your poison; I, however, opt when and wherever possible to make that “poison” non-chemical in nature. [wink]
Forgot to add: though made of aluminum, I understand that Sigg bottles are coated with a plastic (?) lining on the inside. Still don’t trust that, though . . .
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