Unhealthy Plastic Water Bottles
When it comes to a healthy drink, nothing can compete with water. And in an effort to be more healthy, many of us make a point of carrying water bottles with us everywhere we go. But are our water bottles a health issue? Especially those made from plastic? Generally they are safe, says Michael Moore, Emeritus Professor of Toxicology at the University of Queensland, but it depends on the kind of plastic the bottle is made of.
Most plastics are made of long chains of hydrocarbon molecules, built from simpler building blocks called monomers. Proshow gold for mac. Some plastics then have chemicals added to give them a characteristic such as flexibility or colour.
Bottled water companies increasingly use BPA-free plastic, but laced into plastic bottles are other chemicals that can seep out if bottles are exposed to heat or sit around for a long time. Some of these chemicals are possible endocrine disruptors. Disposable water bottles are expensive. For the price of a fancy bottle of water (about $2), you can get roughly 1,000 gallons of tap water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Unhealthy To Reuse Plastic Water Bottles
Buying bottled water The 'single use' water bottles that you typically buy at milk bars, service stations and the like are usually made from polyethylene terephthalate (abbreviated to PET or PETE), an inexpensive and lightweight plastic. Its recycling code (the number in the centre of the triangle of arrows found on most plastics) is 1. 'PET is not one of the plastics that one would think has a propensity to cause a problem,' says Moore. Moore agrees with the US FDA, which says that PET bottles are safe for use and reuse so long as they are washed properly with detergent and water to remove bacteria. The safety of using PET bottles was questioned after a student research project hit the headlines.
BIOTA is the first (and as of now the only) bottled water to come packed in the environmentally friendly corn-based plastic bottle. The bottle does not leach chemicals into its contents, Zutler says. Steve jobs used the porsche 928 as inspiration for mac. Plastic water bottles have come under scrutiny in recent years for both their environmental and health effects, including those surrounding the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA). That BPA can leach out of plastic during everyday use, causing health problems, is hardly news.
The 2001 study found traces of a phthalate — a potentially harmful 'plasticiser' used to make some plastics more flexible — in water from PET bottles, but the research hadn't been verified. Moore says PET has never contained phthalates and the public's association between the two could be based on the plastic's name. And while some preliminary studies have suggested water from PET bottles can contain as-yet-unidentified substances with 'oestrogenic' properties (which disrupt the body's normal hormone regulation), Moore says no rigorous scientific review has backed these. A substance called antimony is used in PET production and it can leach into the water in PET bottles.
However, this doesn't pose much of a risk, says Moore. 'Antimony is not in the same league as lead or mercury toxicologically so the likelihood of harm is low,' says Moore.
Using your own bottle But what if you've decided not to buy bottled water, but to use a refillable water bottle to cut down on the plastic sent to landfill? Polycarbonate has been commonly used to make the sturdy reusable water bottles that many of us use.