The story has been developing all week, but once Wal-Mart decided to stop carrying bottles that use Bisphenol A — a chemical which may or may not induce hormonal changes, especially in children — bottle-maker Nalgene has announced they’ll ditch the chemical in their manufacturing process.
Reports the Times:
Nalgene’s decision to drop the plastic that transformed it from an obscure maker of laboratory equipment into a consumer brand does not mean the company is leaving the drinking bottle business. It has long made bottles from other plastics that lack the glasslike transparency and rigidity that made polycarbonate popular.Last month, Nalgene introduced a line of bottles made from a relatively new plastic from the Eastman Chemical Company, Tritan copolyester, that shares most of polycarbonate’s properties, including shatter-resistance, but is made without the chemical
Bottle Maker to Stop Using Plastic Linked to Health Concerns [NYTimes via Treehugger]
Sure glad their HDPE bottles aren’t changing. http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=38
Anyone notice how good the water tastes out of take-away plastic beer cups from baseball games? Whenever i’m dehydrated, i go straight for one of these…weird!
Pants
http://www.eastman.com/Company/Corporate_Citizenship/Responsible_Care/Resp_Care.htm
“In the mid-1980s, the chemical industry realized that its success would be greatly enhanced by gaining the public’s trust….”
What do you suppose broght this on?
AND –> Where can we take the polycarbonate for recycling, so the bisphenol doesn’t just leach out into the environment from the landfills?
What’s Eastman’s address for delivery of returns?
Has anyone realized the “recipe” under scrutiny is, to the best of my knowledge, Lexan, the polycarbonate whose patent is owned by GE?
The Times article (or maybe Trailspace.com) also refers to outdoor company GSI working hard to rid its plastics of BPA. GSI uses Lexan.
Looks like everyone’s making the switch. A couple of weeks ago.. probably the same time, CamelBak switched their bottles away from BPA and over to Tritan too.
Well, this sucks. I have maybe a half-dozen nalgene bottles. I use them for carrying water on hikes and in the car.
What I might do is save them for storing emergency wash and flush water.
Awww man! Now where am I gonna get my daily dose of Bisphenol A? I find the synthetic chemical hormone impersonators (including the other, less-well-known bisphenols) to be very refreshing in the morning. There’s nothing quite like the rapturous chills of a body battling to incorporate man-made uber compounds into its delicately balanced chemistry!
Seriously though, I’m a biker and I must’ve drank a few million liters of water out of janky giveaway plastic water bottles. Cheers! Here’s looking to a bright future full of extra limbs and horrible growths!
Now I try to get bottles without the nasty bits in them (although who knows what else lurks in the milky white plastic) or just use stainless steel. Glass is the best, of course, but a bit hazardous on a bike. It’s great for baby bottles though, my wife and I just ordered some of them for our little one and he’ll be able to pass them down to his little one! Hooray for reuse!
Uh oh. Lexan is polycarbonate. I have inhaled vaporized Lexan for hours while bandsawing it for industrial machines. I’m afraid to go and look up just how many ways I’m screwed by this Bisphenol A stuff.
Ho hum. How long until the chemical they switched to becomes linked to some new crazy syndrome?
@6 – HDPE is considered safe so far; it’s not known to leach chemicals in any significant amounts.