What causes it? Do plastic molecules kinda leech off the bottle surface and mix in the water? Why do some bottles seem more predisposed to this?
I’ve got several regular-use water bottles, and the two worst culprits are sports/cycling type bottles (old soft drink and juice bottles seem to work best - once I get the sugar flavour rinsed out); is there any way to stop these 2 from imparting their crappy plasticness to my water?
and, uh, is drinking plastic in trace quantities like this bad for one? (well I don’t see how it could be good, so maybe I should ask how bad?)
I think the type of pottle you refer to is polypropylene. These have a whole bunch of additives to the plastic, such as plasticisers, dyes, heat stabilisers, UV stabilisers and lubricants.
These substances can oxidise, especially in UV (sunlight), into aldehydes and ketones. These oxygen containing degredation products have a very low odour threshhold (they are easy to smell).
The substances themselves are at such low conc’s that they are not a hazard. Just rinse out the container to get rid of the smell.
As far as removing the smell/taste (you know the link, dont you) altogether, you could use a different material for the container.
Sometimes I think it’s the water. There are several brands of water that I can’t stand - it can’t be that over the last 10 years, every bottle of brand X,Y, and Z has been at some point stored badly so that the plastic taste gets into the water while every bottle of brand A, B, and C has been pristine.
All plastic containers are rated for food use. Look on the bottom of your bottles for the recycle symbol. If there is a “1” inside the symbol, get rid of the bottle. These are one-time use bottles and should not be refilled. The aforementioned toxins can bleed into the water you are drinking. These are extremely bad for you. Seriously.
This worries me, because after reading this i had a look at the bottom of a plastic Coke bottle and it has a 1 in the triangle, as does a bottle of spring water! Is it only after you’ve re-filled them that they become dangerous? how were they not dangerous with the original liquid inside?
Yes, that’s correct: they are only considered dangerous when re-filled.
I no longer have a copy of her abstract, but one of my mother’s grad students did her master’s thesis about this issue last year.
(Note that the “1” in the triangle on the plastic does not specifically translate to “one use only” – and you can’t extrapolate from that that a container with a “2” can be used only twice, etc. The numbers are part of a sorting system designed to make recycling easier; recyclers often can’t make use of mixed plastics. Each number belongs to a discrete, chemically different type of plastic, and each has different appropriate uses.)
But #1 plastic bottles should indeed be used only once and should not be left in the sun. The chemicals in that plastic will leach into their contents under certain circumstances. Air and light are needed for the liquid and the plastic to react and cause leaching, IIRC, for this to happen; that’s why the initial filling isn’t considered dangerous, since comparatively little air or light is available during the bottling process (not enough to cause enough leaching to concern the concerned authorities, anyway).
THIS DOES MEAN YOU SHOULD NOT REFILL AND REUSE #1 PLASTIC BOTTLES. It’s very common for most people to buy a bottle of water when it’s the only easy way to get a clean drink, then refill the empty with tap water as needed. DON’T DO THIS. If you want a refillable water bottle, invest $2-5 bucks in a sport sipper or a Nalgene bottle, which won’t leach significant amounts of toxins into your water.
If you would, please provide a link to something that proves #1 bottles are poisionous after reuse.
One would think that if drinking out of these bottles twice can kill you, the companies bottling them would provide a little warning label to that effect, much like you see “Refrigerate After Opening” on jars of mayo and “Do Not Re-Freeze” on ice cream.
(By the way, I found the one Idaho study, which seems extremely incomplete and vague with a liberal usage of the word “may”, along with a statement from the Canadian Bottled Water Association, who, duh, say that you should buy new bottles every time.)
And what chemicals are they exactly? Pthalates? I’ve looked into those, and I’m not worried about them at all. Pthalates are used to make plastic “plastic,” which as an adjective means pliable. After the pthalates leach out, the plastic gets hard and brittle. But everything (believable) I’ve found tells me they’re not harmful.
This article has some information. “Drinking out of these bottles twice can kill you” is a bit simplistic. As with most toxins, accrual in your body over time is the danger.
The food industry fights tooth and nail to keep warnings from containers, so it’s not surprising to me that they would not voluntarily post a warning on the label without the government telling them they have to.
The August 2003 issue of “Better Homes and Gardens” pp 224 had an article about this topic, but I’ve already passed the issue along. Same warning. Don’t re-use single use bottles. Probably you can borrow the issue from someone?
First, as I said there, I no longer have the thesis abstract. (When I had it, I had it in printed, not electronic, form.) I believe the student filed her thesis in 2001 or early 2002 at the University of Idaho. She did not claim to have demonstrated “proof”. She didn’t have the time or the funding to do so. (Like many such theses and academic articles, she wrote that her research indicated more research is needed.) And, as chefguy says, “As with most toxins, accrual in your body over time is the danger.”
Second, I did not say I had proof that #1 bottles “can kill you”. I said:
As myriad historical events have demonstrated, toxins that accrue over time are the bastard children of US industries; they have rarely acknowledged that such things are harmful even when there IS a preponderance of evidence that they are.
I’m frankly surprised that you expect the plastics industry to point out the potential dangers of their products (especially when used in ways even they don’t recommend) and suggest that their silence is sufficient evidence that there is no risk at all.
Regarding CurtC’s links to Michael Fumento’s 1999 articles, I agree: the dangers of plastics in the applications mentioned in those pieces does seem to have been overstated. They did not, however, mention the reuse-of-single-use bottles scenario. They specifically discuss “plastic toys and medical devices”. Fumento complains about the unscientific alarmism of a few particular “advocacy” groups (grouped under Health Care Without Harm, which is apparently “an environmental coalition, comprising groups ranging from the Chemical Impact Project to Greenpeace”). I’m not citing any of those groups, so using the Fumento links as refutation for what I’ve said would be strawmannish (not that that’s what CurtC necessarily did).
I don’t want to suggest that those links don’t have useful information. As I said, I agree with Fumento; I do not believe that using PVC plastics is dangerous when they are used as intended – in fact, I agree that they save lives.
But reusing #1 plastic bottles as water bottles is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
actually, the number 1 on a container indicates that it is manufactured from PET (polyethylene terephthalate), an aromatic polyester. Variants are PETE and PETG. Typical concerns over packaging liquids/foods in this material include the presence of unreacted residual monomer and formaldehyde. The concerns are usually addressed by laboratory evaluations including elution test, which determines what the contents will draw out of the polymer. The test will normally use the relevant food/liquid so that one concern is that unapproved refilling may draw more out of the material than those which it was designed for.
If you are refilling a PET container with water this shouldn’t be a problem. The original contents can sit in the bottle for months, and closer in time to it’s most recent ‘thermal cycle’, i.e. melt processing which can generate/liberate some nasties. I refill a 1-litre PET bottle for the gym most days.
UV degradation is not a concern as it’s resistance is typically quite good. However stabilisers such as HALS (hindered amines) may be added to improve if exposure is predicted.
Incidentally, many large medical device companies incorporate what are nominally ‘bottle grade’ resins in their angioplasty balloons, for example Shell Cleartuf, DuPont Melinar. Although these are for short term exposures, the biocompatibility tested thoroughly for these applications.
Other plastic classifications are:
2: High density polyethylene
3: PVC
4: Low density polyethylene
5: Polyproplyene
6: Polystyrene
The phtalates mentioned previously are typically used in PVC to ‘plasticise’ the material; uPVC (unplasticised) is used in doors, window frames and siding; pPVC is used commonly in blood bags, medical tubing etc. Phthalates are reputed endocrine disruptors which are thought to contribute to testicular cancers and sex changes in fish.
As an aside, several years ago I performed a series of tests on elution of contaminants into milk from HPDE containers. The results showed that recycled HDPE was cleaner chemically than bottles made from virgin resin.
PET bottles are rarley recycled due to a phenomenon known as hydrolysis; presence of water during reproccessing causes a rapid drop in molecular weight rendering bottle blowing difficult. Mostly this stuff ends up being spun as fibres for insulation (‘puffa’ jackets’)
I tend to find a much stronger taste/odour from the townwater chlorine they use by me. As a previous poster said, some of these chemicals have a very low threshhold of detection. I wonder if what you’re detecting is what you assume to be a plasticky taste but is in fact the taste you get from bottling tapwater for a while? It would be interesting to blind taste test using a glass bottle as well.
The characteristic smell of PET that is actively evolving processing residuals is sickly sweet and very distincitive, esp. if higher than usual temperatures are used (>280 degC. PET imelts at about 250 degC). It tends to dissappear (or at least become undetectable to the nose) after a week or so.
Regards,