YIKES!
My mom called me this morning to alert me to an interesting story aired on the TODAY show this morning. The expose was about Nalgene bottles and their potential to leech a harmful chemical into the water inside.
My mom called me this morning to alert me to an interesting story aired on the TODAY show this morning. The expose was about Nalgene bottles and their potential to leech a harmful chemical into the water inside.
As I watched, I started feeling a little alarmed. They started talking about something right next to my computer monitor, my Nalgene.
This worried me.
The offensive bottle on my screen was the exact color of the vessel I held in my hand!
They told me to check for #7 plastic, so I turned my bottle over.
OH NO!
What do I do now? Throw them all out? Has anyone who has some bio-chemical knowledge heard of this and think it is actually worthy of my concern?
9 comments:
thanks for showing us that you have a photo of your awesome niece up just above your computer!
It is a carcinogen. I have an immediate family member with cancer and their oncologist was adamant about this. Throwing out some bottles is a lot cheapr than cancer treatment.
Sadly, so many things are carcinogens that we'd have to give up a lot of conveniences (don't ever microwave food in plastic or with saran wrap!!) on a daily basis. *Sigh*
all i ever drink out of is nalgenes! i rotate the 7 or so of them that i have. ack! what to do? i love them!
If you read the studies, the leaching of the chemicals out of the #7 comes after excessive treatments. Ie heating the bottle with water in it for long long periods of time. Allowing the water to remain in for months, not just hours. They also put solvents in them to test what leaches out...well while pop and crystal light may be slightly acidic, they come no where close to the conditions that are/were tested.
They are recommending that you use stainless steel bottles...well that scares me more than my nalgene (I am a camelbak lid lover for my nalgene)....with the cheap methods that they are using to plate the steel...and the huge environmental consequences associated with stainless steel...give me #7 anyday.
A couple of things you can do if you are worried:
Get rid of the naglene that you have had since junior high...my personal comfort with #7 is about 5 years
Don't put hot/boiling liquids in the nalgene repeatedly
If you put it in the dishwasher, take it out before the dry cycle starts.
Don't store liquid in it for a long period of time.
Get the original papers that the media is "quoting" from...ask yourself would your nalgene ever be exposed to such harsh treatments?? My feeling is no...I think the benefits of drinking lots of fluids that my camelbak nalgene provides outways the risks....
I also have a flexible nalgene that I sometimes use (it isn't #7)...but the camelbak leaks on it...
Hope this helps
K
I am slightly crazy about certain things... I would throw all of my bottles out, but once again, I remind you that I am slightly crazy about stuff like this... So... uh, yeah, I guess I'm saying I don't know what you should do.
Greetings from the Midwest...okay, right now I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Kate, I know a few things about the mysterious # 7 bottle. The bottle is actually made out of PET - the 7 should be in a little triangle. Most water bottles are made of PET because it is quite cheap. In most bottles that either contain, or will contain liquids, there is an oxygen barrier that is molded within the bottle. In most cases, the same chemicals that leach out of these bottles are found in your normal tap water - at higher concentrations. In a nut shell, if you are drinking water that has been in a water bottle for a few months,you have a risk of getting sick; not from the plastic in the bottle but from the stale water inside. PET bottles have been used for years - we can all thank the media for this one.
I haven't heard about this dealing with the Nalgene bottles, but there was recently a lot of hubbub about this same thing and baby bottles b/c they are heated and sterilized so often that babies are receiving a lot of these bad things through their milk. A lot of moms have gone to glass bottles.
If I were you I might throw them out, or I might just start washing them by hand and refilling every few hours.
I agree with most everyone. I have been studying this a lot lately, as I have known WAAAYY too many people getting diagnosed with cancer lately. I agree with anon in that the hot liqueds thing is a definate no no. REI does have what they call the Kleen Kanteen, no nasty plastic, just clean wonderful water.
It wasn't that hard of an adjustment, I clean it out at night, and put new water in the morning.
Of course it sounds like if you do that with your plastic bottle you still might be okay. But as was said new bottles MUCH cheaper and easier than cancer treatments
Drink Diet Coke in a can, save your health.
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