BPA in the news again August 23, 2009

I just returned from vacation and was checking the zillions of emails in my inbox and discovered some discouraging news: BPA (bisphenol A)—a chemical used in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins that’s been linked to several severe health issues—is used in the liners of aluminum water bottles. There’s been plenty of news recently about BPA leaching from polycarbonate (#7) bottles, but this was the first I had heard about metal water bottles. I was especially interested because this past school year, our high school green team (of which I am a parent leader) chose to sell aluminum bottles to students in an effort to get rid of all of those single use plastic water bottles. It was an admirable project, but now I’m not so sure that we did the right thing. I had encouraged the kids to sell stainless steel bottles (I was always leery of the lining in the aluminum bottles, because I had noticed that it tends to flake and wear off around the mouth of older bottles), but the green team and some of the other parent leaders decided stainless steel was too expensive. To exacerbate the problem, they chose inexpensive bottles made in China. So getting back to the news, it turns out that SIGG, the Swiss company that sells its expensive bottles in Whole Foods and many other high-end stores, admitted recently that bottles made prior to August 2008 contained trace amounts of BPA. CEO Steve Wasik says the chemical never leached out in detectable amounts (when tested in parts per billion, that is). However, now there’s concern that even minute amounts are not healthy. Much worse are the cheap, Chinese aluminum water bottles sold online and at a variety of outlets, including some of the big chain stores. Tests show that their liners leach a significant amount of BPA—not as much as polycarbonate, but twice as much as one of those soft plastic water bottles often used when bicycling. So, what are the lessons here? Sometimes it’s best to trust your instincts; generally you get what you pay for; and when in doubt, go for stainless steel.