Nalgene, Baby Bottles, and Bisphenol-A: The Tough Case of Hard Plastics

Much has been made in recent months about the potential for reusable polycarbonate plastic bottles to leach bisphenol-A(BPA) into your water, baby formula, or any other libation you tote around in there. For those weekend warriors and everyday environmentalists who have been using the same hard plastic water bottles for the past 6 years, this polysyllabic news is alarming and disheartening. After all, we thought we were doing a good thing by foregoing the chic "one-timer" plastic water bottles in favor of reusable ones.And we were.

Unfortunately, the verdict is still out on the actual health effects of bisphenol-A, and depending on who you believe, the effects range from harmless (not surprisingly the plastics industry is in this camp), to serious health risk. Discover Magazine's recent article on BPA suggests that it may affect not only the children of mothers exposed to the compound during pregnancy, but their children as well. The article also explains why BPA does not act as a typical toxin, and has therefore been difficult to classify as dangerous. Nalgene has posted a page on their website detailing their stance that BPA is safe, but given Wal-Mart's decision to stop selling products containing BPA, arguments to the contrary have clearly gained traction. For more information on the debate, check out The Green Guide's article, "The Bisphenol-A Debate: A Suspect Chemical in Plastic Bottles and Cans."

My husband looking into the issue of BPA, personally. Perhaps it is already too late for him.

So now what? Well, most scientists agree that the biggest risk is to newborns and pregnant moms. Make sure your baby bottles are #4 or #5 plastic (check out the ones made by Adiri or Sassy), or try the glass ones made by Born Free.

Not a baby, but also not a fan of having his hormones tampered with - cried like a baby after drinking from his Nalgene while watching Moulin Rouge.

Consider replacing your plastic water bottles with those made by SIGG or Kleen Kanteen. I recently made the switch, and although my husband has been a little bit slow catching on to how it all works, we are both much happier with the way the water tastes from these aluminum and stainless steel containers.

His enthusiasm for hormone-free water matched only by his poor aim.

Of course, there is also the matter of what to do with your #7 bottles. The landfill is a bad option because these bottles will not biodegrade and may continue to leach chemicals there. They are also difficult to recycle, however I was able to find a recycling center that accepted #7 by using Earth 911's recycling locator, and you can probably do the same.

I was hoping some of the plastic bottle producers would take on the recycling conundrum themselves. A call to media relations at Nalgene was not returned; however, I spoke with a very nice woman in customer service who indicated that Nalgene was not issuing any sort of credit or exchange for their #7 water bottles. Unfortunate, since this is probably a bit of a public relations nightmare, and Nalgene does make water bottles out of the much less controversial #2 plastics. However, if you have your receipt, you can try to return your bottle to the store where you purchased it.

The bottom line in all of this is that it is important to know your plastic numbers. The code imprinted at the bottom of each plastic product will tell you whether or not it has the potential to leach harmful chemicals as well as where and how it can be recycled. Check out the previous Weekly Way blog, "Plastics By the Numbers," for a simple breakdown of the codes. When it comes to the issue of harmful plastics, an ounce of prevention while the debate resolves itself might well be worth the pounds of product you'll need to replace down the line.

Plastics By the Numbers

So our heart is definitely in the right place. We want to produce the least amount of waste possible, and we want to recycle anything we can. Agreed? Good.

However, being a responsible consumer goes hand in hand with being an educated one. As I began to investigate the whole #7 plastics debate, I realized two facts:

1. It was going to be very difficult to find a place to recycle my polycarbonate Nalgene water bottles because most curbside recycling programs don't take #7. This information led me to a second, more significant conclusion....

2. I didn't know enough about plastic products, their potential health hazards, or how to recycle them all properly.

So (and forgive me if I suggest that you are like me) I decided that my well-intentioned but semi-misguided self had a bit of reading to do. Here is what I discovered:

Each plastic product is assigned a recycling code, and this number is imprinted on the bottom of the product. These numbers represent the type of plastic used and where and how the product can be recycled - rules vary depending on where you live.

Check with your local recycling center or use Earth 911's recycling locator to see which codes are accepted for recycling in your area. If you find that you are purchasing products that can not be easily recycled or may be potentially hazardous, make the effort to purchase alternative products.

Here is a quick, easy guide to what each of those numbers actually means. Those in bold are potentially hazardous and should be avoided:

#1 & #2 - Most water, soda, juice, milk, and shampoo and soap bottles are made with PET or HDPE plastics. They are widely recyclable and safe as long as they are not reused.

#3 - Vinyl or PVC - Potentially hazardous - they can leach plasticizers and lead. They are also not recyclable.

#4 & #5 - Safe and recyclable - many food storage containers and plastic wraps are made from these two types of plastic.

#6 - Polystyrene - more commonly known by the brand name, Styrofoam. While polystyrene is technically recyclable, it is difficult to recycle and due to its light weight many curbside recycling programs do not accept it. Polystyrene is also potentially hazardous, as it can leach styrene, a known carcinogen.

#7 - PC/PA #7 is the catch-all for the types of plastic that do not fall into the previous 6 categories. Products in this category range from polycarbonate (PC), which is non-biodegradable and potentially hazardous, to the safe and compostable polylactide(PA), which is made from plant materials like corn, and used to produce products like plates, bags, and bottles.

Are We A Disposable Society?

Knowledge is power, right? After all, it gave us all of this useful technology like plastic wrap, Tupperware, drinking bottles, and bags of just about every size. However, when I started to do a little research about all of this plastic -and what happens to it once I am done using it- I found that it was time to take a hard look at our society's plastic consumption. Here are a few facts about plastic:

• According to the Container Recycling Institute, less than 30% of plastic bottles were recycled in 2006.
• Plastic does not biodegrade.
• Instead, it photodegrades from exposure to sunlight (not much of that in landfills) and becomes smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, which remain in the ecosystem.
• Disturbing amounts of plastic are now being found in the ocean. There is a section of the Pacific known as "Eastern Garbage Patch" because it contains so much plastic.
• The manufacturing and transportation process of one bottle of water uses ¼ gallon of fossil fuel and emits 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gases.
  
• Nearly seven times the amount of water that goes into a bottled product will be required to produce its plastic container.
  

Okay, I'm convinced. Plastic may be necessary, but certainly the less I consume each day, the better off we'll all be. In order to curb my plastic consumption, I decided to start with something easy - my bottled water and plastic bag use. Both of these products are consumed in the United States in the millions (bottled water) and billions (plastic bags) every year.

Fortunately, the solution to the bag quandary is easy:

Bring your own!

Reusablebags.com and envirosax.com both make bags that are fashionable and compact. Reusablebags even makes produce bags, which really come in handy when you are tempted to take a bag to hold that wet head of lettuce or four round (and rolling!) tomatoes.

Now on to plastic water bottles. In order to help illustrate my point about how our individual actions can make a difference (cliche but true), I will digress with a short (but true) story:

I was recently playing basketball with a bunch of my basketball buddies, and one of them brought out several bottles of designer bottled water - you know the type - square bottle, expensive, comes from a land far far away. I pointed out to him that the water he was drinking had to go a long way in order to wet his whistle in Bedford, NY. In an earnest effort to cut down on the travel time of his bottle of water, he showed up to the next game with a bottle of water from his home state. I pointed out that while he had dealt with the travel issue of the last bottle, he was still drinking water from a receptacle that took precious resources to produce - electricity, petroleum, water - and that he could have easily brought water from home (for free!). It turns out that the third time was the charm. At the third water/basketball summit meeting, my friend showed up with a big reusable bottle of water. His big complaint about his water from home was the taste, and I recommended that he purchase a filter. I also pointed out that many brands of bottled water are tap water. For more on the bottled water fiasco, check out this month's National Resources Defense Council online article, "The Future of Drinking Water."

So please, by all means, hydrate. For water on the go, buy a reusable water bottle or two and use that instead. If you live in a place with safe drinking water, and I bet most of you do, fill it with tap water (filtered as necessary) and enjoy.

So why this sudden obsession with plastic? Well, the bottom line is that we are running out of room and resources on this planet. The products we consume and then turn into garbage do not really just go away, but rather they continue to reside with us in this limited space we all share. Many of them will still reside here long after we are gone. In order to reduce our waste, we have to take a critical and honest look at our consumption.

Once you see how easy it is to curb your plastic bottle and bag consumption, you will probably want to figure out ways to put even less in the landfill. Check out this list from Coop America of the "21 Things You Didn't Know You Can Recycle."

Go ahead, consume less, reuse and recycle more, and dispose of as little as possible.