Over the weekend, a friend was telling me how regular water bottles can leach chemicals into your water, especially when in a hot environment like your car. Being the stingy tightwad I am, all the bottles I use are of the cheaply available kind that I get for free whenever water is given away at events, like Aquafina or Costco branded water. Naturally I was alarmed to hear this news. He recommended polycarbonate bottles instead, which is a stiffer plastic than that of standard water bottles.
Being the skeptic I often am, I rarely take someone's word for fact until I research it myself, so I did some reading. Apparently your standard plastic water bottle does indeed leach stuff called PBA (which is short for something, but I don't remember what. You probably don't care anyway.) which is a carcinogen and linked to breast cancer, among other things. Yikes!
I then found out that polycarbonate bottles aren't immune to this either, but they are at least resistant to it. They leach these chemicals into your water when they're new, then the levels decrease. Cleaning it with strong detergents releases even more of these chemicals from the plastic. So I guess polycarbonate bottles aren't the answer either.
The sites I read recommended either glass or stainless steel bottles instead, as these materials won't leak anything into your water. One that was mentioned was called Klean Kanteen. I hate it when they decide to replace C's with K's just to be cute, but that's beside the point. I'm going to have to shell out about $13 to get one, but I think that's much better considering the alternative. Hmm, $13 or cancer, gee I wonder which is worse?
5 comments:
I took an extremely warm sip from a bottle of water left in my car all day long. Now my left boob hurts. I thought it was coincidental until I read this.
If I knew then what I know now, I woulda coughed up the $13
I had no idea!
I keep 4 or 5 plastic bottles of water in the fridge at all times which I refil with water that's been through the filter jug.
Think I may have a read up on the subject and look into getting a few glass bottles instead.
Great. Another thing to worry about. Sigh. Guess I'll try to find a stainless steel bottle. That will keep it colder anyways.
I know, sucks doesn't it? I'll probably still use the regular bottles in the house, but I want to find a steel or glass one for the car.
Hey GDG,
Wow, I never knew this, although I had heard something like this, but never really believed it (like you, skeptical). But now I know!! Thank you for informing me of this. I will now put away the plastic water bottle I was drinking from...
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