Safety of Plastic Water Bottles: Hydrate Healthy

What did you do yesterday? We spent Sunday after our Cinqo de Drinko celebrations laying around on our couches rehashing the night with our girlfriends on the phone, whining to our boyfriends/husbands to get us breakfast burritos and drinking lots and lots of water. The container we drank said water out of, was the difference between eco-chichood and eco-geekdom.

Disposable water bottles are bad for the environment... duh. We blame the water bottle frenzy on the 80's, all that working out and super models drinking water in the public eye made your trusty Evian the new must-have accessory. And then that bred a generation so dependent and accustomed to water bottles they are, literally scared to drink water from a tap (yes, this is us we know, we fess up.) But even if you think you get parasites from drinking tap water (okay, this really may be true in Los Angeles), there are some other options besides going through 50 plastic bottles a week...

According to Refill Not Landfill.org

The everyday convenience of bottled water is quickly becoming outweighed by its negative impact on the environment. 8 out of 10 plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or end up in a landfill. (Container Recycling Institute) The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes. But refilling your water bottle from the tap requires no expenditure of energy, and zero waste of resources. (PBS Point of View 2004) Making all of the bottles for the US requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually. That's enough to fuel 100,000 cars. (Earth Policy Institute)

What if I re-use my water bottle for a few days?
You can recycle water bottles but it's not good to reuse them because the low grade plastic they are made with (#1) cant be heated (if you put them under hot water or in the dishwasher, they melt) and therefore cant be properly cleaned between uses. The most dangerous part of reusing everyday water bottles is that they aren't often properly cleaned and dried before they are reused.

I need to have a water bottle with me during the day, what do i use?
Get a reusable aluminum or plastic bottle from a company like Sigg, Nalgene or New Wave Enviro. Now Nalgene water bottles may have been the one thing the Eagle Scouts and theater freaks at your high school had in common, but they have come up with some great new designs, check them out nalgene-outdoor.com. Just be sure to buy the grade #2 bottles not the grade #7 (http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200311/lol5.asp)

And if the thought of filling your bottle with tap water scares you, it's time to buy a water filter for your home! There are definitely lots of options out there, including some built in to your sink or refrigerator, but for less of a financial investment, we like the Brita water filter which has tons of options (attached to your sink, pitchers you can store in your fridge). Also Brita is pretty much available everywhere: Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Amazon, supermarkets, etc.

Get to know the Grades of Plastic!
Okay, so you're going to stop using your Evian bottles over and over again (not good for you because you can't actually clean them). Now, one thing to consider when you buy a REUSABLE plastic bottle is its grade (if you go with aluminum reusable bottles, you are cool, but if you do plastic, you need to make sure it's a decent grade for the sake of your health!). Look on the bottom of the bottle for a small plastic triangle with a number in the middle. If you see a number 2, 4 or 5, the bottle is safe. If it has some other number, don't use it as a water bottle. Those other plastics can make your water taste like plastic and leach harmful chemicals into your body.

Plastics to Avoid

#3 Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) commonly contains di-2-ehtylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), an endocrine disruptor and probable human carcinogen, as a softener.

#6 Polystyrene (PS) may leach styrene, a possible endocrine disruptor and human carcinogen, into water and food.

#7 Polycarbonate contains the hormone disruptor bisphenol-A, which can leach out as bottles age, are heated or exposed to acidic solutions. Unfortunately, #7 is used in most baby bottles and five-gallon water jugs and in many reusable sports bottles.

We leave the medical and health risk of the different plastics in your hands dear readers, but for the health of the environment, get a reusable plastic water bottle, an aluminum canteen or a Scottish lambskin pouch. Or consider this...drinking water the old fashioned way... out of a glass!

p.s. If you want to know the facts about the safety of heating and freezing plastic then read this article from John Hopkins University that answers some of our pressing plastic quandaries.