Problems with generic water bottle products, problems with Nalgene

The Barcelona Debacle

After spending weeks chatting with my fellow intern Hannah about my plastic bottle toxin research, and after she promised to buy a safe bottle upon returning to the United States, she did me wrong this weekend.

She went to Barcelona and bought a generic aluminum bottle as a souvenir.

I was instantly appalled and spent the entire afternoon discussing her experiences with this bottle. We looked up the Spanish manufacturer of the bottle and we did taste test comparisons with my Sigg. Here is the discussion.

The water bottle industry does not usually concern itself with water safety

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry is not required to disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Instead, the industry hides behind the claim that bottled water is held to the same safety standards as tap water. But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,900 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.

Americans drink twice as much bottled water today as they did ten years ago, for an annual total of over nine billion gallons with producer revenues nearing twelve billions. Purity should be included in a price that, at a typical cost of $3.79 per gallon, is 1,900 times the cost of public tap water. But EWG’s tests indicate that in some cases the industry may be delivering a beverage little cleaner than tap water, sold at a premium price. The health consequences of exposures to these complex mixtures of contaminants like those found in bottled water have never been studied.

Unlike public water utilities, bottled water companies are not required to notify their customers of the occurrence of contaminants in the water, or, in most states, to tell their customers where the water comes from, how and if it is purified, and if it is merely bottled tap water. 

http://www. org/reports/bottledwater ewg.

We have heard reports in the popular media that the actual water in these bottled water products is not pure. This is not only due to the water source, but also the manufacturer and packaging. Large quantities of this water is never tested before packaging, but exponentially less so post-packaging stage.

That said, outdoors consumers should demand more testing by bottle manufacturers and a thorough explanation of any potential risks.

It should be made compulsory for bottle manufacturers to disclose to consumers the materials used and/or found in their products. We’re now more often informed about the BPA quantities in these products, but this isn’t the only harmful toxin in these products, after all.

(As Hannah agreed that she could sense a metallic taste in her mouth after she swigged from her Barcelona bottle, I let her know that she had probably just ingested a mouthful of aluminum.)

I use a Sigg aluminum bottle because its inside liner keeps it from leaching toxins including the aluminum itself into my water. The source below identifies this liner to be “made from a water-based resin that is baked into the bottles, according to a (Sigg) company representative who just emailed me.”

http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2008/03/17/choosing-a-safe-reusable-water-bottle/

I trust this Sigg liner, despite its “secret formula” I’ve before discussed. I can deal with a water-based resin protecting me from aluminum eroding into my water and polluting my system. Aluminum, of course, is highly dangerous to ingest.

Aluminum can inhibit the body's ability to digest and make use of calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus and fluoride. This can cause anemia, prevent bone growth, and reduce bone density. Aluminum can also cause conditions which actually force calcium out of the bones. Either of these situations can bring on weakness and deformation in the bone structure with crippling effects. Toxicity can also result in aching muscles, speech problems, digestive problems, lowered liver function, colic, and impaired kidney function.

http://www.scrink.com/blog/wellness/2009/01/cut-aluminium-out-of-your-routine.html

Do all metal bottles have a liner?

Some stainless steel bottles do not require a liner. In the past, there had been some low-priced, low-quality aluminum bottles manufactured in Asia and distributed in Europe and parts of the USA which did not use a quality liner.

To me, this seems to suggest that most manufacturers now of any decent (even Barcelona) quality would use a liner of some sort. Your inference?

http://www.mysigg.com/index.asp?ID=5&PageAction=Custom#Do%20all%20metal%20water%20bottles%20use%20a%20liner?

I’ve also looked at Sigg’s top competing bottles to find if they require linings:

• Enviro New Wave SS, an aluminum bottle, has a lining that is 100% leach-free, according to its manufacturer.
  
• Klean Kanteen, a stainless steele product, will not leach metal into your water and has no liner.

http://green.thefind.com/pets/detail-new-wave-enviro-1-liter-stainless-steel-water-bottle-ss-loop-cap

And remember,

Like any material, plastic does degrade over time; you can see this in polycarbonate bottles when they become cloudy or faded in appearance. If you notice any change to the material, or if a bottle gives off a distinct plastic taste, it should no longer be used.

http://www.seattlepi.com/getaways/222673_gearjunkie05.html

This would be an example of a plastic bottle degrading toxins even other than BPA into your water.

(Here’s an interest report proving that Sigg is the best for not leaching materials. Take this with a grain of salt, but do use this if you’re pushing others to buy Sigg bottles.) http://www.mysiggg.com/LeachingMetals.pdf

BPA-free Nalgene vs. Sigg

Why should I spend $15-$20 on a SIGG when I could buy a $10 Lexan plastic bottle?, asks the SIGG FAQ page. Obviously, it's your call. Many people are satisfied with a Lexan plastic bottle (like a Nalgene). We feel there are some distinct advantages to a SIGG, both in function and in fashion:

 Weight – typically, SIGG bottles are 10-20% lighter-weight than Lexan, allowing you to lighten that load a bit in your backpack.

 Great Taste – SIGGs are truly taste neutral. Lexan brands may claim this but go ahead and put them to the test. Leave your filled plastic bottle out in the sun for a couple hours and see how your water tastes the next day – a bit like plastic we've been told.

 Durability – Check out Backpacker magazine's June 2006 issue where SIGG was put to the test against all the leading water bottle brands. When the smoke from the 100 pound cannon cleared, Backpacker declared SIGG "The World's Toughest Water Bottle"

 Style – SIGG's have been described as "works of art". For the extra few dollars, why not express yourself?

Sigg website at http://www.mysigg.com/index.asp?ID=5&PageAction=Custom

Other Aluminum materials vs. Sigg

I still trust the liner of a Sigg aluminum bottle over the obviously dangerous lack of liners on some and perhaps still inadequate liners on other aluminum bottles. Such as in the example of Hannah’s off-brand aluminum container from Barcelona, the company provided no information about its bottles’ liner material. Though a liner could have existed in this bottle (as the SIGG excerpt above seemed to imply that generic-brand manufacturers usually will make liners these days) these plastic liners may contain BPA or be simply inadequate at keeping aluminum out of the water; Hannah could still taste it, after all. I vote for the liner that leaves no aftertaste of metal in my water. 

And hey, I'm biased against Nalgene. Don't support a company that still makes products containing BPA despite knowing the health risks they cause. Sure Nalgene now makes BPA-free products to sell... at a higher cost to those consumers making the educated choice to spend it. Damn the company's unethical capitalism and support companies that only promote their safe products. When we're talking about health issues, there isn't room for simply hoping people will educate themselves about safe products. We need to only support companies that only sell safe products.

Recycling: Make wastes and plastics biodegradable!

As I’ve been living in Dublin, Ireland this summer and ignoring my duties to blog, I’d like to still report how many Sigg (aluminum) bottles I’ve spotted across Europe. Downtown Dublin’s hip scene rocks the bottles, the tourists rock the bottles. I see a trend of universal environmentalism and health consciousness here; or of just saving money. 

The process of biodegradation

However. I’ve been working at University College Dublin, where Dr. Kevin O’Connor is leading a microbiology group’s study about bugs that can actually change toxic materials into biodegradable waste. The article, posted on the UCD website and lined with pictures of plastic water bottles, was too good for me to pass up. Here are some bits from the article:(http://www.ucd.ie/expertiseatucd/researchshowcase/2009/05MAY/plastic/index.html)

Dr O’Connor from the UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, and the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology, first studied biodegradation, or the use of micro-organisms to degrade toxic compounds for his doctorate. He then undertook postdoctoral research in the Netherlands and Switzerland where he worked on using micro-organisms to make valuable compounds, in a process known as biocatalysis.

His current research in the field of biocatalysis has received a lot of attention recently but he’s been working on it since 2000. Making biodegradable plastic using different organisms was already a well-known procedure, one that the microbiologist and his team planned to expand on.

“What we were trying to do was come up with a different approach. We were asking if pollutants could be converted into valuable products like biodegradable plastic?”

Imagine if biodegradation caught on with water beverage companies. Imagine if all plastics could be biodegradable, clearing us of our landfill issues in the United States.

The original compound that Dr O’Connor used in the process was styrene, the main ingredient of polystyrene. But the team realised that the conversion of polystyrene itself to biodegradable plastics would be of greater value.

However, their particular bacterium didn’t grow on polystyrene. So he contacted Professor Walter Kaminsky in the University of Hamburg, an expert in pyrolysis – a special technique that uses temperatures of up to 520 degrees to heat the plastic in a vacuum, producing a liquid form of the styrene.

This process, I’m sure, cannot be cheap.

Dr O’Connor had a fair idea that their bug would grow when fed this styrene oil, and indeed it did, producing the biodegradable plastic PHA (polyhydroxalkanoate).

Extracting this plastic from the bacteria is a very simple procedure that involves soaking the bugs in a mild detergent. “Basically the detergent rips the bugs open in order to extract the small granules of plastic from each cell,” explains Dr O’Connor. The plastic is cleaned and it is then ready to be used.

This extraction process might be simple to carry out, but imagine the cost of the equipment needed to soak grand colonies of these bugs in detergent. I’m skeptical about whether a large-scale version of this process would be financially, or even technologically, feasible.

At the industrial level, the two-step process is carried out on a large scale, producing up to 1,000 litres of plastic – that’s a lot of bugs. Dr O’Connor is now working on improving the efficiency of the technique, using a combination of feeding and molecular strategies. At present some 30-35% of each bacterium is plastic; his team are looking to increase this yield to as much as 80%.

One one hand, this 80% may seem incredible, but the ranges of goods that could be made from this form of plastic may not span everything we imagine. Polystyrene water bottles and tupperware might be feasible for the largest companies to make, but probably not for all other products. Maybe we shouldn’t suddenly get excited that we could recycle anything plastic.

Keep in mind, we haven't really been recycling:

On the other hand, remember that the Sierra Club has reported that Americans discard over 30 million plastic bottles every day. Over 40% of the beverages purchased each day are plastic water bottles. Switching these plastics over to be more recyclable materials would significantly decrease our waste that won’t be broken down efficiently.

And think: no, people are not recycling enough at all, and materials aren’t really recyclable. In 2005 the EPA reported that only 5.8% of the then-26 million tons of plastics manufactured in the U.S. are recycled. We need biodegradable plastics if we will continue to use plastic products.

“Polystyrene is a very recyclable plastic,” stresses Dr O’Connor. The problem is, once it’s recycled, people aren’t quite sure what to do with it. Recycled polystyrene produces a plastic of a lower grade and so it cannot be used in the food industry. It can be made into ‘timber look’ plastic for making picnic tables and chairs, for example, but O’Connor says the market for this is limited.

Create a market through rattling the media. Imagine that by creating a greater hype in the public about the multiple environmental and health dangers of plastic material use, there will be a company incentive in the market to please customers and create polystyrene products. Call your local newspapers. Write a blog post. Po-ly-sty-rene.

Currently, polystyrene for recycling is exported to China. But Dr O’Connor believes this is an inefficient practice, and proposes instead a municipal recycling scheme, where people deposit their waste plastic.

I think I’ll be emailing Dr. O’Connor about the United States’ Bottle Bills, being passed and amended rapidly throughout the United States. Under these state systems, you pay an extra couple cents when you purchase a plastic product. You get the return when you collect your bottles and deposit them. Get your money back. To reciprocate, the U.S. can take Ireland’s example of its grocery stores charging customers for plastic bags. I’ve been stuffing loaves of bread and hummus in my purse after my evening EuroSpar trips.

And this revolutionary method of recycling is not limited to polystyrene, or Dr O’Connor’s particular bug, for that matter. “We have used our technology for polystyrene but you can apply the same strategy to recycling any plastic. Also there are hundreds of different bacteria that will make different types of plastic so opportunities are huge,” he says.

Market for competition and innovation! Bank on this, struggling scientists of America and Ireland! Grab a science lab and go.

But what does it really mean to be a biodegradable plastic?

This means the plastic can break down chemically without any catalyst or outside chemical. A biodegradable plastic bag would decompose on the side of the road instead of tangling up small birds and crowding our landscapes (this was the case in Ireland before the switch to no-bag stores). Biodegragation uses microorganisms, or “bugs,” to break down these films on the plastics. The materials are enlarged in structure and “metabolized until remaining materials” are no longer harmful to the environment. Easy.

Yet a downside to this process is that the carbon inside biodegradable plastics will be released upon this metabolism process, producing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air, potentially in high amounts. If made from other materials, like animal products, methane could be released instead. Methane is, of course, another great greenhouse gas. (http://www.astm.org/Standards/D6400.htm).

Yet we could still weigh this: would we rather have greater greenhouse gas emissions or greater landfill buildup? Unfortunately, plastics producers are making this critical choice. We as consumers need to instead decide upon this and be lobbying for legislation or pressuring companies. Write to Glad. Write to Aquafina.

What is recyclable for now? Not everything:

 I’ve gotten many inquiries about which plastic materials are actually recyclable, so I’ll post a convenient guide I found online about what those little numbers on your plastic bottles mean. (http://www.ehow.com/how_2282329_determine-what-plastics-recyclable.html).

 Just because a product has a recycle symbol on it does not mean that it is recyclable. The following steps will help you determine which of your plastics are recyclable.

1) Look for the recycle symbol with letters and numbers on the bottom of the plastic item. Plastic numbers 1 through 7 are generally recyclable.The list in step 2 can help you determine which plastics to recycle.

2) No. 1 PET: Polyethylene terephthalate--Fizzy drink bottles and oven-ready meal trays.No. 2 HDPE: High-density polyethylene--Bottles for milk and washing-up liquids.No. 3 PVC: Polyvinyl chloride--Food trays, cling film, bottles for squash, mineral water and shampoo.No. 4 LDPE: Low density polyethylene--Carrier bags and bin liners.No. 5 PP: Polypropylene--Margarine tubs, microwaveable meal trays.No. 6 PS: Polystyrene--Yogurt pots, foam meat or fish trays, hamburger boxes and egg cartons, vending cups, plastic cutlery, protective packaging for electronic goods and toys.No. 7 Other: Any other plastics that do not fall into any of the above categories. An example is melamine, which is often used in plastic plates and cups.

3) Take your plastics numbers 1 through 7 to your local recycling center.

Remember, though, that I rarely rarely rarely advocate buying plastic bottle products, even if recyclable (and even if BPA-free, though BPA hasn’t been included in this discussion tonight). Remember that you’re an educated consumer and/or recycler, but those around you are not. When they see you buy a bottle you’ll recycle, they’ll follow your trend to buy, but not to recycle. When they see you buy a Nalgene bottle that is (only now, new and improved) BPA-free, they’ll follow your trend to buy a knockoff plastic container, but not to be sure it’s BPA-free. Think about your fellow citizens who aren’t informed. If you’re going to lead them, lead them to products that are always safe: buy an aluminum or stainless steel water bottle.