ExamineHealth

Americans drank 8.7 billion gallons of bottled water in 2008, totaling sales of $11.2 billion dollars...

(This is still only half the amount of carbonated soft drinks, and barely ahead of beer and milk.  However, that's a lot of water - and a lot of bottles.)

It takes 17 million barrels of oil (that's enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year) to produce a year's worth of water bottles...

Worse, 86% of those water bottles are thrown into landfills, not recycled... 

Is it not clear that we need to break ourselves of the bottled water habit?  In a previous article I discussed the quality of bottled water VS filtered tap water, so I am not getting into that here.  Today I'd like to talk about water bottles themselves.  Are they inherently bad?  Or is it just their disposable nature that makes them so damaging to the environment?  Can we reduce the carbon footprint of these bottles by reusing them?  And is that safe?

 

Until I discovered Camelbak's Better Bottle, I was a habitual water bottle refiller.  I would cycle through probably 10 or 15 disposable water bottles at a time.  This way I could always guarantee having a cold bottle of water to grab on the way out the door.  I would use each water bottle probably 7-8 times and then recycle them.  Obviously I've lived to tell about it.  Now I was very deliberate about letting each bottle dry out completely before refilling them.  Bacteria needs moisture to form and grow, so letting your bottles completely air dry, is going to kill most of the bacteria. 

There are other concerns with reusing standard disposable water bottles, however.  They are made with polyethylene terephthalate or PET, which is designed for single-use only.  This type of plastic is thin and can easily crack or bend.  This introduces additional places where bacteria can hide out and breed.  Additionally, these types of plastics are not tested for constant reuse and are not built for it.  Washing with detergent or hot water can break down these plastics and cause them to leach into your water.  You can identify this type of plastic with the #1 inside a triangle on the bottom of the bottle.  It is the most common type of plastic used in single-use bottles for water, juice, and soda.

Other types of plastics that run the risk of leaching toxins into your water are #3, Vinyl or PVC bottles.  These are often found in cooking oil bottles and clear food packaging.  Additionally, items labeled with #6, made with polystyrene or PS, are used for styrofoam-style cups and rigid foams.  These can leach styrene into your water or other liquids.  Heating can increase the amount of chemicals leached by 55 times, so be especially careful when microwaving things in plastic.

Safe plastics are #2 HDPE (high-density polyethylene), #4 LDPE (low-density polyethylene) and #5 PP (polypropylene).  There is also a variation of HDPE that is called UVPE which are designed to withstand UV radiation from sunlight.  These plastics are generally not completely transparent or rigid.  However we can add those properties using a chemical called Bisphenol A or BPA.

BPA is an endocrine disruptor that has been linked to cancer and reproductive damage.  It was declared toxic by the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in 2008.  In 2005, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences performed a study that concluded that 92% of Americans have measurable amounts of BPA in their bodies.  Granted, the levels are a 1000 times lower than risk levels, and our bodies flush out BPA on a regular basis, however we are definitely consuming it.  BPA was used heavily in baby bottles and sports bottles until recently.  Presently almost all of the major manufacturers of bottles have removed BPA from their bottles and their manufacturing process.

So how do you navigate all of these different types of plastics and the associated dangers?  How do you drink enough water to stay healthy without contributing to our growing landfill issues and the resources required for plastic recycling and production?  How can you ensure that you're not drinking down bacteria from constant reuse of your containers?

First, know your plastics.  Avoid plastics labeled #3, #6 and #1 (yes that is the disposable water bottles that are readily available everywhere).  Drink your water from a reusable water bottle that is made specifically for that purpose.  Which will likely be a plastic #7 (make sure it's BPA Free, which shouldn't be too hard), a stainless steel, or an aluminum bottle.

Second, make sure that you keep your bottles clean and sterilized.  For wide mouthed water bottles, this could simply mean running them through the dishwasher.

Other alternatives are washing with warm water and a mild detergent using a brush; or sterilizing with a bleach solution.  The proper mixture is 1 teaspoon of bleach, 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 quart of water.  Rinse your water bottles with this mixture and then rinse again with regular water to ensure no residue is left.  Perform this sanitation once a week to ensure that you're killing any bacteria that might be forming.  Bacteria takes 2 to 7 days to form, so this isn't a perfect solution, but if you have a normal immune system you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Which ultimately brings us to the lifestyle question that lies underneath this specific topic and others.  How safe is safe?  Is it necessary to eliminate every single instance of bacteria and toxin from our lives?  Or is it acceptable to simply know your tolerances and live within them?  What is best for your long-term health?  I'll be exploring these questions in a future article.  Stay tuned by subscribing to our RSS feed and get article updates as they're published.

 

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