Pthalates and Water Bottles, seperate hype from fact 2

[ornerynorsk]

Not sure if this is quite the correct forum, but here goes: Every so often, I see an article come up about the danger in re-using water bottles. I'm no chemist, but my immediate question (and common-sense reaction) would be - wouldn't the most chemical leach out in the initial bottling, with subsequent fillings seeing a downward curve in the potential concentration? Wouldn't time and temperature be factors? I remember the pictures of the water bottling plant my son sent to me from Iraq 5 years ago where pallets of bottled water were being stored right out in the sun, full exposure, with nothing but some clear shrink wrap to consolidate the bundles, in an environment that routinely hits 100+ degrees F.

Hopefully there is someone who can shed educated light on this.

http://www.restorsea.com/info/Plastic_Bottles?utm_source=outbrain&utm_campaign=Plastic Bottles

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[Compositepro]

This should answer your question.

http://www.petresin.org/science_behindpet.asp

 

[moltenmetal]

PET is quite thermally stable and photo stable, so as the site above says, there's no significant health concern in re-using water bottles. There's a significant environmental benefit if you re-use them often enough, avoiding both the disposal/recycling of the containers and the distribution/transport of water which already flows quite efficiently to your tap, at a quality frequently exceeding what is provided to you in the bottle anyway.

 

[bimr]

The Harvard School of Public Health recommends that the bottles not be reused.

"Refill Those Code 1 Bottles?
Do you refill and reuse those code 1 water bottles? Many people do, but experts recommend that you toss them after first use into the recycling bin. Bacteria can build up inside and the plastic can disintegrate, explains HSPH’s Russ Hauser: “The primary concern is with bacterial contamination. The other concern is if you’re washing it, you can release the chemicals in the plastic. Any kind of abrasion leads to leaching. Microscratches, heating, and acids help break down plastics. Plastic used for code 1 bottles also contains a metal called antimony, a possible carcinogen.”"

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/files/2012/12/bpa_and_phthalates_by_the_numbers.pdf

Polyethylene terephthalate (PETE) is the main substance used to package bottled water and many sodas. Products containing PETE are labeled "Type 1" (with a "1" in the recycle triangle) for recycling purposes. Although the word "phthalate" appears in the name, PETE does not use phthalates as plasticizers. The terephthalate polymer PETE and the phthalate ester plasticizers are chemically different substances.[52] Despite this, however, a number of studies have found phthalates such as DEHP in bottled water and soda. One hypothesis is that these may have been introduced during plastics recycling. Several studies tested the liquids before they were bottled, in order to make sure the phthalates came from the bottles rather than already being in the water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate

Typical report showing phthalates.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21804311

 

[ornerynorsk]

Yet Coca Cola, nearly a universal solvent, is bottled in those same containers with little to no health concern?

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[bimr]

Water is the universal solvent of life. Coca Cola is more or less the universal acid.

Would think that HSPH would say the same thing regarding reuse of coke pet bottles.

 

[moltenmetal]

The cap liners are not PET- they're soft and pliable.

The biggest source of phthalate contamination when I was in the water treatment business was Tygon tubing- that nice supple thoroughly plasticized clear PVC tubing ubiquitous in laboratories. The food grade PVC tubing was always a bear to get onto the hose barbs etc. Whenever a water came in for us to treat phthalates, we asked if the sample bottles had PVC cap liners or if they'd used Tygon tubing to take the sample. It is rather hard to treat an analytical artifact...