Plastic bottles poison pop and water

People chug bottled water as if it's healthier than what spills from a sink. But evidence is piling up that plastic bottles are not only bad for the environment, but they might also make you sick. Have you ever noticed an odd taste in, say, a water bottle left in the car on a hot day?

More than half of plastic bottles that hold water and soda pop are made from the polyester PET (polyethylene terephthalate). In heat, PET breaks down and gives off a slightly fruity flavor. It also leaches the toxic metal antimony, which poisons the body in similar ways to arsenic. An antimony overdose can be fatal; you certainly  won't die drinking from a PET-based bottle, but it might cause a headache, dizziness, or a foul mood.

Reports Ontario's London Free Press: a German study tested 15 types of bottles common in Canada, and 48 sold in Europe. At a German water bottling plant, researchers found merely trace amounts of antimony in the H20 before it was bottled. Once the water was inside a PET bottle, the amount of antimony multiplied by 90 times, and nearly double that amount was found in the same brand of water bought in a store.

Bottles made of heat-resistant vinyl polypropylene, common in flip-top packaging and microwaveable containers, had only trace amounts of antimony. Glass-bottled water was safer, and tap water was the best. You might want to check out Biota water, which comes in corn-based plastic, compostable bottles—but note that bioplastic can also slowly leak chemicals too. If you're bottle-feeding a baby, you should shun plastic for other reasons--here's more about the dangerous phthalates and Bisphenol-A that you might want to avoid. More on phthalates here.

Comments

[George A. Polisner]

A company I am very familiar with is BIOTA Springwater (biotaspringwater.com). They are using a technique that allows them to bottle their water in corn-plastic bottles. Apparently the process does not work yet for beverages that require a high-temperature filing, but is great for water.

Kind Regards (and thanks for a great blog!), George

[Maya]

Hi Elsa,
Thanks so much for detail info about cosmetic and body care products in EU. I wouldn't have known all that. Yeah, I've heard of the two names/brands you mentioned, Weleda and Dr. Hauschka because they're amongst the two brands I found in the two mini bio markets in Antibes where I live. I have their website addresses but haven't had a chance to sit down and read it thoroughly. It's true that pharmacies here have many choices on cosmetics and body care products, and a few brands I saw were homeophatic etc., but I'm still clueless about the rest. I live in a much smaller town, Antibes, so I do not notice many options for organic body care products. Maybe in Nice is more...been only twice to Paris for short visits, so I was not really shopping around there. Like I mentioned to you, I found a few organic body care products online and I'd like to check them out. Maybe it's easier for me to buy online than searching around not knowing where to go around here...

Many thanks again :-) Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting...I thought at first you were my sister commenting which would be a great surprise considering she's in Indonesia and clueless about internet. My younger sister's name is Elsa :-) Nice name, really.

[elsa]

Hi Maya--Thanks for writing! Nice to "meet" you, and fun reading your site.

I'm not sure how France regulates its cosmetics, but the EU is far ahead of the US. Still, the big European perfume and makeup companies use so many poisonous ingredients. Smaller companies like Weleda and Dr. Hauschka are a bright spot...like you say, City Hippy's got an amazing list of links. Plus, European corner pharmacies stock homeopathic remedies that only the alternative U.S. stores have.

EU rules are forcing businesses around the world to clean up their act--whether they want to or not. Their REACH rules, if finalized, will change the way all chemicals in the world are used--paint, makeup, drugs, everything.

Still, EU rules only go so far; for example, Europe banned phthalates in baby toys, but not in sex toys. When I spent a few months in Europe a couple of years ago, I found a lot of shops with organic body care products around Paris and Brussels...maybe not as many as in San Francisco, but more than Chicago had at the time. What do you notice?

[Maya]

Been your reader for a few months, just after I 'met' Siel, greenlagirl. I've been searching organic products in France...i'm pretty new to all this, and Al from city hippy helped me a lot with links he found with his search tool. So I found a few organic cosmetics available in France. Is it the same weak requirements/regulations in France like you mentioned about cosmetics in general here? Good blog and reviews, keep up the good work :-) cheers...