Canadian retail chain pulls plastic water bottles

holeymoley said:
I don't know that BPA has low water solubility:
Solubility in water is 120-300 ppm(at 21.5 °C).
Solubility increases with temperature so hot water would theoretically increase the molecules of BPA leaching into the solution. Rinses are definitely a good idea.

But this sentence from the Wiki should make you just a little cautious:
Bisphenol A is prepared by the reaction of four equivalents of phenol with one equivalent of acetone. This is done with hydrochloric acid (HCl) and sodium disulfide (Na2S2). The excess phenols are removed by dissolution in toluene.

I know you have worse problems if you lick the lead paint off a toy car made in China, but really, why bother when there are other alternatives.
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Okay true enough - but that is still a relatively low solubility. Plus BP is embedded within a plastic matrix. It has a much higher solubility in organic phases, about 1000 fold higher than in water (log Kow >3). So if you put water into your bottle at 21.5 oC, you will not get 100-300 mg/L of BP diffusing out. The actual amount that solubilizes off will depend on the difference in solubility of BP between the plastic and water and will be proportional to the mass of BP present within the plastic matrix. I'm not sure what kind of mass of BP is present in a typical lexan bottle - it would be an interesting calc to do.

You might not like any synthetic food additive if you followed its lifecycle through synthesis :)

I agree - it would be worse for you to lick lead paint from China.

Truth be told - the one food additive I really wonder about is sucralose. This is chlorinated sucrose under the auspus that chlorinating the sugar makes it non-bioavailable. This one sets a few ringers in my head, yet it is found in everything labelled low-cal these days.
 
Well, I'm not willing to ignore the possibility so...

I'm looking at the two stainless options mentioned here: Klean Kanteen and Guyot.

As usual though, considering the various permutations gives me a headache.

Can I ask users of these products to give me a steer on which version to get?

I'm leaning towards the Klean Kanteen as I prefer a narrow mouth bottle. Which cap works best? I'm leaning towards the one with the finger hole as that seems like a KISS design. I just want a cap I can unscrew and pour.

However, I like the narrow mouth cos if I want to drink straight from the bottle I can without taking an early bath.

Thanks guys!
 
Buffalohump,

Those Klean Kanteen look nice, albeit costly. I wasn't able to look at the Guyot design - just couldn't find it. One of the reasons that so many people have the wide mouth nalgene has to do with accessories that fit to it. For example, many water filters screw directly to the wide-mouth nalgene bottles forming a nice seal. This prevents indirect contamination or splashover into the clean filtered water when you are pumping away. If you aren't going with a water filter then I agree the narrow mouth is a bit more friendly to sip from.
 
Okay Chem Heads....just how much boiling water (stored in a lexan bottle) would I have to drink to notice any real side effects? How long does it take to leach out in the water?

The way I look at this is that pretty much anything, injected into mice in the "right" levels can cause cancer (ie mutated cells).....is this leaching really any more dangerous than pesticides on my apples, or food coloring dyes in my Coke, or my Coke for that matter?

Inquiring minds want to know.

D
 
8mmMauser said:
Do they really? I've never had one, so I wouldn't know. I though I was being helpful; I guess I was ill-informed. My bad. :o
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I bought one for fairly cheap recently. I've tried to use it twice. yuk. It's possible it the taste goes away after a while, but I don't know.
 
Dillignece, there is relatively little data on this dubject (a few mice in a lab) and what there is, is conflicting (other labs unable to reproduce the results). The best answer to your first question is you'd probably never notice until you had cancer. If it makes you feel any better, if you live long enough you WILL get cancer. Everyone will if they live long enough. This is a biological fact that stems from environmental mutagens (including sunlight), the intrinsic mutation rates of replicative DNA polymerases, spontaneous recombination, some viral infections, ever decreasing telomere length caused by cell division, and many other causes.

To your second question; that depends on the intrinsic rate of leaching (which may increase with age of the bottle); concentration of BPA in the bottle (which decreases due to leaching); age of the bottle (which may increase the rate of leaching due to degredation of the bottle); volume, composition, and temperature of the liquid inside the bottle (which effects partitioning of BPA between the bottle and the liquid).

The leaching is probably no worse than pesticides on your apples, and probalby no worse than your coke (tooth decay and diabetes haven't been linked to BPA... yet).
 
Bunch of BS and hype if you ask me. Sort of like the alar scare years back with apples. Turns out you had to eat something like 10,000 apples before it did anything to you.

So what now? A new miracle plastic to replace Lexan? Give me a break. If you want to live in fear over minute traces of chemicals, guess what, they are everywhere.

The sun can cause cancer for crying out loud. Your more likely to get hit by lightning than get cancer from a nalgene.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Yeah, it's a bit much IMHO to get all fussy about minute amounts of BPA leaching out of your lexan nalgenes. Modern civilization is a stew of toxic chemicals. There's mercury in the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. Why? Because you enjoy the benefits of electricity and in the US much of that electricity is produced by burning coal which dumps mercury into the atmosphere and dusts the crops, animals and water supply.

From wiki:
"A study commissioned by environmental groups claims that coal power plant emissions are responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths annually in the United States alone."

But did you think about the mercury you're going to be polluting yourself with when you fired up the computer and logged onto the internet? No, you're reading about BPA and getting worried. If you're worried about toxic chemicals, turn off your computer and save some electricity - that'll reduce your exposure to mercury.
 
For the price of a safe new bottle I fail to see why people have a problem.

Surely we cant be this cheap to take a risk like this, wrong, hype or not.

Skam
 
When I brought this to the attention of my wife and daughter, who has a set of twin 13 month old babies, their response was, what do we do to get it out of our lives? It goes much further than just a water bottle. Take a look at the grocery store shelves. A whole lot of food product is stored in plastic containers. Plastic is used in the mfg. process. Most of the packaging and containers, whether made from plastic or other material, are made in China, so can we really trust any of their product? I doubt it! One thing for sure, is that everything that comes from China must be held suspect and the only reason we don't see massive recalls on their entire range of products is that it would seriously hurt the economy to have to eat the losses on all of those products.

I guess the point that I'm trying to make is, if everything that we take for granded in our lives has the possibility of being toxic to us and our loved ones, why concentrate on just the plastic water bottles?
 
longbow50 said:
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is, if everything that we take for granded in our lives has the possibility of being toxic to us and our loved ones, why concentrate on just the plastic water bottles?
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We can only react to what we know. We know Nalgene "could" cause harm.

Enough for me. I will adjust the rest as more info comes out.

Skam
 
When you take into account all that you are consuming, the addition from a nalgene bottle is negligible. Ever heat up food in the microwave in a plastic container? Ever eat hot food from a plastic container? I'm not sure why I'm even in this debate, I don't own any nalgene. I guess I don't have to worry about cancer.

If it really makes you feel better, then switch to something that hasn't been shown to maybe cause cancer in a non-reproduceable laboratory trial invloving mice. We do a lot of things that make us feel better, but that do not confer an actual discernable benefit. What is one more?
 
hlee said:
If it really makes you feel better, then switch to something that hasn't been shown to maybe cause cancer in a non-reproduceable laboratory trial invloving mice. We do a lot of things that make us feel better, but that do not confer an actual discernable benefit. What is one more?
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Ya it makes me feel better. Will it make a difference? Who knows. The fact mice are immune in one study does not concern me.

Chucking out 2, 8 yr old nalgene bottles is easy, so was ditching teflon cookware for cast iron. Cancer rates are out of control maybe you are immune. Questioning science about a water bottle is for people beyond my pay scale.

Drink up.

Skam
 
As a biochemist, questioning non-reproduceable studies is right "in my wheel house."
 
By complete coincidence, the day before this thread started I bought these:

ssbottle.jpg
 
Buffalohump said:
Well, I'm not willing to ignore the possibility so...

I'm looking at the two stainless options mentioned here: Klean Kanteen and Guyot.

As usual though, considering the various permutations gives me a headache.

Can I ask users of these products to give me a steer on which version to get?

I'm leaning towards the Klean Kanteen as I prefer a narrow mouth bottle. Which cap works best? I'm leaning towards the one with the finger hole as that seems like a KISS design. I just want a cap I can unscrew and pour.

However, I like the narrow mouth cos if I want to drink straight from the bottle I can without taking an early bath.

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

I can only comment on the Klean Kanteen so:

I like that the walls are not so thin the the bottle is likely to dent (like Sigg). And I like that the mouth is narrow, it is definitely easier to drink from than a wide-mouth Nalgene. But, I only got that one because I found it cheaper than the Guyot.

One thing I don't like about it is that the threads on the cap are also stainless. This should cut down on fungus/bacteria growing on it, but it also means it doesn't close as tightly as plastic against metal like on the Guyot. I'm not saying it leaks, I have jostled it around enough on backpacking trips and rolling around in the car and it stays sealed fine so far. But it just doesn't feel as tight when closed all the way. Pretty subjective, I know.

I think both are very well made so it boils down to personal preference.
Hope this helps.
 
JackBauer24 said:
because they make your water taste like crap.
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That has not been my experience. Milk, OJ, grape juice, amongst other products, have been sold in HDPE containers for decades, and I have not noticed a "plastic taste." But maybe I'm an insensitive gobb. Remember "The Princess and the Pea." :D
 
hlee said:
When you take into account all that you are consuming, the addition from a nalgene bottle is negligible. Ever heat up food in the microwave in a plastic container? Ever eat hot food from a plastic container? I'm not sure why I'm even in this debate, I don't own any nalgene. I guess I don't have to worry about cancer.
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I try to never do this either, its definitely worse than drinking out of plastic bottles.

I don't know about everyone else here, but I drink from my water bottle all day every day. I fill it up in the cooler in our office and use it constantly. So getting small doses of BPA when hiking a few times a year is one thing but constant use is another.
Hype or not, I'd rather be on the safe side. Now if you are a wild-and-crazy, live life on the edge, extreme sports tough guy...by all means, try it and let us know.;)
 
hlee said:
As a biochemist, questioning non-reproduceable studies is right "in my wheel house."
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The results have been reproduced, just not reproduced by industry-financed studies. I'm tired of posting the links (This is at least the third thread on this topic.). Do a Google. Ignore the fringe types. You should be able to understand the reports better than lay persons.

I don't think the supposed leeching with just room-temp water have been reproduced.

The risk identified by CWRU and Missouri, among others, was not cancer. It was birth defects. (And, kgd, identifying me as "post reproductive" is a low blow [so to speak :D]. Not to mention inaccurate. :cool: Just post-opportunities. :o)
 
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