Let's talk about BPA.

Ok...so I've spent the better part an afternoon last weekend learning everything there is to learn from the internet about polycarbonate plastic water bottles and the threat they pose to our health.

I was tipped off on this whole thing by Tracey, as she had heard that certain baby bottles should be avoided due to potential BPA exposure.

BPA is short for Bisphenol-A. It is a plasticizer used in hard polycarbonate bottles. Apparently, it is good at plasticizing polycarbonate, but it leaches out, particularly into hot liquids (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130092108.htm).

BPA is an estrogenic substance that has been shown to cause excessive reproductive organ growth in female mice and other hormonal problems in male mice. There is recent evidence that BPA exposure during pregnancy and infancy may increase obesity risk. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130092108.htm

Of course nothing goes down without a fight, and there are a number of studies that indicate that BPA is harmless. Here's an interesting article that discusses a strong correlation of the results of BPA research and the funding source. http://www.physorg.com/news96037050.html
Government sponsored studies say this stuff is bad, even at the leaching level that occurs at room temperature. Plastic industry sponsored studies say that everything is cool. Ambiguous research doesn't really surprise me, but corporate obfuscation of revenue reducing scientific data surprises me even less.

So of course I started reading up on all this stuff the day we bought two nice new polycarbonate water bottles and a dispenser. We had crunched some numbers and figured that we would save money over buying 1/2 liter bottles by the case and case. So today's afternoon was spent finding alternatives.

There's polyvinylchloride (PVC) bottles, but that stuff has an even longer history of exposing people to harmful chemicals...so that's a no. There's high density polyethylene bottles (HDPE), and these are cool (or at least I hope so) because this is what milk cartons are made from. There aren't many large bottles made from this stuff though, and I don't think it is intended for long term use.

The best stuff is polyethylene terephthalate, this is what soda other liquids are packaged in today, but they only recently started using this plastic for refillable water bottles. (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/11040/34835/01663843.pdf?tp=&isnumber=&arnumber=1663843)

One would think that,with the emergence of the BPA scare, (baby bottle manufacturers and other companies like Nalgene are pulling their BPA-containing products) that finding alternative bottles would be easy. Nope. I found all of two companies that make them. One of them makes bottles for bottled water companies (like Sparklets), but they aren't available for retail. In fact, for a long time, this was all I could find for PET water bottles. But as it has for many centuries and in countless situations there was a saving grace to be found in BEER!

It turns out that a company makes PET bottles to be used for homebrewing beer. These are an alternative to the heavy glass carboy bottles used in fermenting homebrew. Apparently, PET is inert enough and O2 impermeable enough to be used as an alternative to glass for fermenting beer and wine. We had a winner. And winners don't come cheap. A water bottle goes for about 10 bucks, but a beer bottle has to be worth at least twice that. We bought 3. They are called Better Bottle, and as far as I can tell are only available through home brewing and home winemaking retail stores. They come in 3,5,and 6 gallon sizes.

So after too many hours of computer time, and spending enough money to buy cases of water bottles for at least a year, we are now BPA free with our home water dispenser.

I guess we'll take comfort in the reduced waste, cause this cheaper water thing just cost us a bit of money.