I recently received a question from one of my readers about
the safety of drinking water from clear plastic water
bottles. These bottles, made from Lexan polycarbonate resin
(a plastic polymer), are widely used for single-serving
sales to one-gallon of water in stores and home-delivery
bottles.
Theee bottles appear to be safe because they do not impart
any taste or odor to the water. Lexan polycarbonate is also
used to make compact discs and DVDs, bulletproof windows,
mobile phones, and computers.
The water delivery مياه نوفا company sent my reader a notice saying
that their Lexan polycarbonate bottles are perfectly safe to
use. They suggested their customers visit a website that was
designed to portray this plastic in a positive light.
But, actually, a toxic chemical is lurking in these bottles
that does end up in the water you drink. Lexan used to be
used to make baby bottles, but these are no longer sold.
Hmmmmm…
STAY AWAY FROM BPA
In 1998, Dr. Patricia Hunt of Case Western University in
Ohio discovered that one of the components of Lexan
polycarbonate resin–bisphenol-A (BPA)–can leach into water
from water bottles. BPA is a potent hormone disruptor. It
can impair the reproductive organs and have adverse effects
on breast tissue and prostate development.
Who do we believe? The water delivery company or Dr. Hunt?
I’m inclined to go with Dr. Hunt. I went to a website
maintained by the authors of Our Stolen Future: How We Are
Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival, who
are continuously searching the scientific literature for
information on endochrine disruptors. The Our Stolen Future
page on bisphenol-a henola/bpauses.htm#recentimportant)
gives a whole page of links to scientific studies that show
that BPA damages the endocrine system in a variety of ways.
BPA can leach from water bottles when exposed to heat and
cleaning agents, but detectable levels of BPA can also leach
into water from bottles just sitting at room temperature,
according to a 2003 study conducted by the University of
Missouri published in the journal Environmental Health
Perspectives.