Tag: the movie

Interesting Information: BAG IT: Paper or Plastic?

Interesting Information:  April 7, 2013

BAG IT:  Paper or Plastic?

Assuming I’m not carrying my own bags, I’ve never been sure which bag to ask for–paper or plastic.  I’ve read arguments for both.

After watching the 2010 documentary BAG IT,  I’m now sure.  Ask for PAPER.

Why?  Paper degrades in landfills, can be recycled, is often recycled already, and gets recycled/reused ten times more than plastic bags.

BAG IT explores the above question by using an everyday, normal “everyman” who is seeking an answer to the paper/plastic question.

Here’s a synopsis from the web site:

Americans use 60,000 plastic bags every five minutes–single-use disposable bags that we mindlessly throw away. But where is “away?”   Where do the bags and other plastics end up, and at what cost to our environment, marine life and human health? Bag It follows   “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he navigates our plastic world. Jeb is not a radical environmentalist, but an average American who decides  to take a closer look at our cultural love affair with plastics.  Jeb’s journey in this documentary film starts with simple questions:   Are plastic bags really necessary? What are plastic bags made from? What happens to plastic bags after they are discarded? Jeb looks  beyond plastic bags and discovers that virtually everything in modern society–from baby bottles, to sports equipment, to dental sealants, to personal care products–is made with plastic or contains potentially harmful chemical additives used in the plastic-making process.   When Jeb’s journey takes a personal twist, we see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up with us and what we can do about it.   Today. Right now.

Here are some of the ideas I took away from the movie:

Plastic bags were created to be thrown away, but they don’t go away.  Plastic doesn’t break down in land fills.  Much of today’s plastic finds its way into our oceans, the life blood of this planet, where it is creating huge, floating toxic soups that ocean critters are eating, and, then, dying.  If we eat these fish, we are getting some of the chemicals they have ingested.  We are bombarded all day long with chemicals.  Tiny amounts of these chemicals can cause endocrine system disruptions that have radical repercussions for us, especially around reproduction and cancer formation.  Chemicals are changing how our children are constructed.  The sperm counts in males is dropping dramatically these days.

Plastic bags came about through the concept of “disposable living.”  They are meant to be used once and thrown away.

Plastic bags are being banned across the world.  But, the American plastic industry is suing towns that try to create laws that ban plastic the shopping bags.  The American Chemistry Council leads this effort.

Bottled water is one of the biggest plastic problems in the environment.

We are using enormous amounts of energy creating new goods that we are sending on a one-way trip to a landfill.  Landfills are contaminating our groundwater.  So simplify.  Try to recycle, reuse, repurpose, or do without.

One of the biggest scams in recycling plastic is that while some of us separate our trash by the numbers on the bottom of the plastic, only Numbers 1 & 2 get recycled routinely.  The rest of the numbers just make us think something is being done with the rest of the plastic trash.

Start checking labels on all kinds of products, especially body-care products.  Many are oil based.

Our grandparents didn’t have all these products.

The movie promotes some steps each of us can take:

Cut back on single-use disposable products.

Don’t drink bottled water.

Bring your own container.

Remove packaging in stores.

Choose products with less packaging.

Buy used.

Buy less “stuff.”

Simplify your life.

Remember that nature solves problems.  If we are a problem, nature is certainly going to solve us.

***

Where am I on this journey?

The two oil-based plastic products I have not been able to let go of are plastic wrap and plastic bags.  So that’s my new goal.  I can use glass containers, use plates on top of bowls in the refrigerator, use cheese cloth to wrap produce, and so forth.  I’ll start by not buying new bags or new rolls of plastic.

I don’t use oil-based cosmetics.  I use a waxy natural lipstick, coconut oil for moisture, and don’t do all the skin foundation cosmetic stuff.  (Healthy vibrant skin comes from eating healthy, nutrient dense foods.)  I have natural shampoos and conditioners.  I use baking soda and salt, flavored with an essential oil of peppermint or lemon, for toothpaste.

I’ve been successful at not using aluminum foil, which is terribly toxic.  Parchment paper works fine for baking or topping a dish I’m taking somewhere.

I hardly ever use paper napkins or paper towels.  But I do, some.  The napkins are mostly for guests since they seem to panic if we don’t have them.  Bacon grease in the cast-iron frying pan is where I’m likely to use paper towels.  I could use newspaper…  I’ll try that.  And newspaper could also clean glass…  The rest of the cleaning could be done with rags.

But, there’s still toilet paper…

Anyway, I invite you to join me on this journey.  Do it for the children you love.

Mainely Tipping Points 25: TAPPED: Bisphenol A

Mainely Tipping Points 25

This essay is the final essay in a series of three essays around the documentary TAPPED.

 

TAPPED:  Bisphenol A

 

In the documentary TAPPED, Dr. Frederick Vom Saal says Bisphenol A, or BPA, is “one of the most toxic chemicals known to man.”  BPA, explains Vom Saal, is “the poster child chemical that is going to dismantle the entire regulatory process and demand a re-analysis of all chemicals.”  “BPA,” says Vom Saal, is “frightening to the regulatory community because of the magnitude of the error they have made.”    

BPA leaches into water from water containers made of hard, polycarbonate plastic, stamped with #7 on the bottom of the product.  Examples of problem water containers are the five-gallon hard plastic water jugs used with water cooler systems, baby bottles, and sports bottles. 

Other examples in the general food system include containers for liquid baby formula and the linings of beverage and food cans.  Elaine Shannon of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that because plastics made with BPA “break down easily when heated, microwaved, washed with strong detergents, or wrapped around acidic foods like tomatoes, trace amounts of the potent hormone leach into food from epoxy lacquer can linings, polycarbonate bottles and other plastic food packaging” (Shannon, “What the Chemical Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know,” September 2008, http://www.ewg.org/report/what-chemical-industry-doesnt-want-you-know).  Wikipedia notes that as of April 2010, General Mills had developed a BPA-free alternative can liner that works even with tomatoes.  But, writes Wikipedia, General Mills is only planning on using this new liner with their organic food subsidiary, Muir Glen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bispjhenol_A).   

Polycarbonate plastics are ubiquitous today.  BPA, explains Wikipedia, is used in “sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental fillings and sealants, eyeglass lenses, CDs and DVDs, and household electronics”—like, notes, computers and cell phones.  BPA, details Wikipedia, is used to make other plastics; it’s a “precursor to the flame retardant tetrabromobisphenol A”; it was “formerly used as a fungicide”; it’s the “preferred developer in carbonless copy paper and thermal paper,” including sale receipt paper; it’s used in foundry castings and to line water pipes”   

BPA mimics estrogen in the body, which is something scientists have known since 1930.  Regulatory bodies have determined what they believe to be safe levels for humans by using an idea, explains Vom Saal, dating from the sixteenth century:  “the dose makes the poison.” 

However, Vom Saal says this premise is false for any hormone and explains that  recent studies are showing that even minute levels of BPA are unsafe. 

Vom Saal says in TAPPED that 700 peer-reviewed, published studies show BPA to be dangerous.  He explains that the 38 internationally recognized scientists who served on a 2006 National Institutes of Health panel (Chapel Hill) determined that current levels of BPA pose risks for humans.  Shannon notes in “What the Chemical Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know,” that The National Toxicology Program accepted much of the Chapel Hill panel’s thinking and wrote that low doses of BPA may affect development of the prostate gland and brain and may cause behavioral effects in fetuses, infants, and children.

Shannon notes that Vom Saal, working with Wade Welshons at the University of Missouri-Columbia, “turned up the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts” of BPA “caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice” in 1997, or 14 years ago.  By 2008, writes Shannon, the global chemical industry was producing 6 billion pounds of BPA annually, which generated “at least $6 billion in sales” 

In order to protect its BPA turf, the chemical industry has followed the very successful tobacco industry model, which Devra Davis details in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER (2007).  The tobacco industry spent astonishing amounts of money to advertise tobacco use, to delay negative decisions, to hide negative science, to craft favorable legal decisions, to obfuscate science with problematic studies from paycheck scientists, and to fire or discredit anyone saying tobacco use was unhealthy.  The chemical industry is currently running what Shannon calls a “scorched earth” campaign that includes such actions as an “industry email to food banks charging that a BPA ban would mean the end of distributions of canned goods for the poor.”  

Vom Saal describes in TAPPED how a representative from Dow Chemical Company showed up in his and Welshons’ Missouri lab to dispute the data and to declare “`we want you to know how distressed we are by your research.’”  Vom Saal revealed that Dow tried to stop papers critical of BPA from being published.  Shannon describes how the American Chemistry Council attempted to prevent Vom Saal from speaking at a convocation at Stanford University because his work was “`very controversial, and not everybody believes what he’s saying.’”  Shannon quotes Welshons as saying that chemical industry officials made “` blatantly false statements about our research’” and “`they were skilled at creating doubt when none existed.’ “

TAPPED shows footage from a Senate hearing investigating the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) use of biased studies produced by the chemical industry’s paycheck scientists.  Senator John Kerry castigates FDA’s Dr. Norris E. Alderson for not asking for independent studies.  Senator Kerry concludes that the FDA is not protecting citizens, and TAPPED concludes that industry has captured the FDA and other regulatory agencies. 

Lyndsey Layton of “The Washington Post” reported that as of 2009, 93 percent of the U.S. population had detectable levels of BPA in their urine (“High BPA levels linked to male sexual problems,” November 11, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111017411).  Layton’s article discusses a November 2009 study of 634 male workers from four factories in China showed that exposure to high levels of BPA caused erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems after a few months on the job. 

Vom Saal, in TAPPED, links the following health problems to BPA:  childhood diabetes, obesity, prostate and breast cancers, brain disorders like ADHD, liver disease, ovarian cancer, uterus disease, and low sperm count in men.  Layton lists infertility in general and early-onset puberty. 

Shannon discusses some of the dozens of other scientists who are also studying BPA and who concur with Vom Saal and Welshons.  Patricia Hunt, a reproductive scientist (molecular biologist) from Washington State University, was stunned by what she saw under her microscope after a caustic floor detergent used to clean her lab released BPA into her animals’ food and water.  Hunt said “`Like most Americans, I thought, my government protects me from this kind of stuff.”  She began studying BPA, and, after a decade, determined that “exposure to low levels of BPA—levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure—can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm.” 

A Yale University medical school research team led by Csaba Leranth discovered that BPA affects the neurological system in African green monkeys.  In humans, reported team member Tibor Hajszan, the devastating effect on synapses in the monkey brain could translate to memory and learning problems and depression.      

In September 2010, Canada banned BPA as a toxic substance.  Eight states have banned BPA in children’s’ products:  California, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.  In October 2010 the Maine Board of Environmental Protection held hearings on a ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.  The Board postponed any decision until it studied expanding the ban.

Here’s what you can do:  don’t wait for our government to protect you.  Don’t buy canned foods or beverages unless the container says “BPA free,” avoid the combination of plastic and foods, don’t heat plastic, and don’t reuse plastic containers.  Do buy, cook, and preserve locally grown, organic, nutrient-dense whole foods available in your region.

Mainely Tipping Points 24: Tapped: The 8 X 8 Glasses of Water Myth

Mainely Tipping Points 24

Note:  This essay is the second in a series of 3 essays on water, which started with viewing the documentary TAPPED and reading Elizabeth Royte’s BOTTLEMANIA.

 

TAPPED:  The 8 x 8 Glasses of Water Myth

The documentary TAPPED traces the history of how the bottled water industry successfully encouraged people to drink a whole lot of water every day, which translated into people buying easily transportable single-serve bottles of water.  The prevailing dictate insuring daily hydration for the average person is 64 ounces, or eight, eight-ounce glasses of water a day, or 8 X 8.    

But, this recommendation, which is repeated by even such an august mainstream medical organization as the Mayo Clinic, not only has no scientific backing whatsoever, it could be dangerous for some people (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283).  Mayo notes the lack of science, but includes the 8 X 8 recommendation without qualifying until near the end of its posting the fact that much of the 64 ounces can come from ingested food.  Other liquid sources, like coffee, tea, fruit drinks, and, even, soda, also contribute.   

Elizabeth Royte, in BOTTLEMANIA (2008), surfaces the work of Heinz Valtin, a retired professor of physiology from Dartmouth Medical School who specialized in kidney research (35).  Karen Bellenir discusses Valtin’s work also in a “Scientific American” article that appeared on 4 June 2009:  “Fact or Fiction?  You Must Drink 8 glasses of Water Daily” (www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eight-glasses-water-per-day.com).  Bellenir notes that Valtin “spent 45 years studying the biological system that keeps the water in our bodies in balance” and that Valtin can find “no scientific evidence supporting the notion that healthy individuals need to consume large quantities of water”—though Valtin acknowledges that for people with specific health concerns, like kidney stones or chronic urinary tract infections, drinking more “can be beneficial.”

Bellenir reports that in 2004 a panel of the Food and Nutrition Board “revisited the question of water consumption” and concluded that “ `the vast majority of healthy people adequately meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide.’ ”  In 2008, Bellenir writes, Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb reviewed the evidence about water intake for the “Journal of the American Society of Nephrology” and determined that there “ `is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water.’ ” 

Royte and Bellenir both write that the 8 X 8 myth likely started in 1945 with a recommendation from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, which now functions under the auspices of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine.  This board recommended about 64 ounces of water for the average person, but noted that much of the daily need for water is met with the water content in ingested food.  How did the back end of this statement get so thoroughly lost and how did the resulting unscientific and, even, dangerous, 8 X 8 get so thoroughly embedded in our culture? 

Royte notes that Valtin says he’s “tired of trying to prove a negative.”  He believes that the “burden of proof that everyone needs eight by eight should fall on those who persist in advocating the high fluid intake without, apparently, citing any scientific support” (35-36).  Royte notes also that Valtin analyzed “published surveys of healthy populations and found that most people weren’t drinking that much” (35).  Valtin, writes Royte, said “ `The body can’t store water.  If you have more than you need, you just pee it away.”

Drinking too much water leads to all sorts of problems, the most serious being death.  Drinking large amounts of water in a short period of time can lead to hyponatremia, or “water intoxication,” where the kidneys cannot excrete enough excess water and where the electrolyte (mineral) content of the blood is diluted, which results in low sodium levels in the blood (Royte, 36; Mayo Clinic).  Royte notes that hyponatremia can lead to “brain swelling, seizures, coma, and then death” (36).

Dr. Ben Kim, in “Why Drinking Too Much Water Is Dangerous,” notes that consistently imbibing too much water can damage the kidneys.  Further, excess water increases blood volume within a closed system, which places an unnecessary burden on your heart and blood vessels.  Kim is a chiropractor, but he has a wonderfully succinct analysis of this issue   (http://drbenkim.com/drink-too-much-water-dangerous.html). 

Dr. Thomas S. Cowan, an MD who is also a homeopath, in THE FOURFOLD PATH TO HEALING (2004), has an extended, excellent explanation of how the heart and the blood system interrelate (137-147).  Cowan, like Kim, writes that “increasing total volume in the system makes it harder to move the blood because the excess water volume makes it heavier.”  What you eat, combined with the presence of oxygen in the blood, helps the body release the water it needs.  Specifically, the metabolism of healthy fats, especially saturated fats, liberates more water than either protein or carbohydrates.  Thus, people who exercise and eat a diet “consisting plentifully of healthy fats and low in carbohydrates” have “the healthiest hearts and circulatory systems” (145).  Fat deficiency, writes Cowan, cannot be solved by drinking more water; this practice “only makes the circulation more sluggish” (146).    

Kathryne Pirtle, in “Acid Reflux:  A Red Flag,” “Wise Traditions,” Summer 2010, 35-43), writes that too much water dilutes stomach acid, which leads to acid reflux.  (Yes, low acid, not high acid causes problems, so, if needed, take hydrochloric acid with pepsin to increase acid in the stomach.)  Pirtle says that in addition to mineral depletion and imbalances, too much water intake “can contribute to digestive disorders, as well as kidney disease, degenerative bone disease, muscular disorders and even cardiac arrest from electrical dysfunction.”  She also notes, that “paradoxically, over-consumption of water may cause constipation” because “when too much water is added to a high-fiber diet, the fibrous foods swell and ferment in the intestinal track, leading to gas, bloating and other uncomfortable digestive symptoms” (39).

Pirtle notes that “traditional peoples did not drink large quantities of water.”  Rather, “they stayed hydrated with raw milk, fermented beverages and bone broth soups, which have incredible nutrient qualities and do not upset the body’s homeostasis.”  And, like Cowan, she notes that traditional people “also consumed plenty of traditional fats like butter, cream, lard and coconut oil” as “fats render much more water during metabolism than proteins or carbohydrates” (39). 

The efficacy of thirst with regard to adequate hydration is a hotly debated topic.  Both Royte and Bellenir note that some elderly have trouble experiencing thirst some time.  Bellenir notes that “some drugs can cause problems with thirst regulation.”  Processed foods, with their heavy loads of salt, sugar, bad fats, and chemical brews, create thirst.  And, thirst is the body’s way of  trying to cleanse itself.  But, such cleansing can form a vicious cycle if constantly repeated because nutrients are flushed out as well.

TAPPED and Royte both trace the growth of bottled water as an industry.  Real growth starts in the late 1970s when the French company Perrier began creating an American niche market for its distinctive dark green bottles of spring water.  Perrier’s $6 million advertising budget targeted urban professionals.  In 1978, sales were $20 million; in 1979, after an Orson Wells television ad, sales were $60 million (Royte 30).

In 1989, Coke and Pepsi got into the game.  They put water into lightweight, clear plastic bottles and spent, TAPPED reports, “hundreds of millions of dollars telling us to `drink more water.’ “  They associated bottled water with celebrities, told us drinking water would make us thinner, and told us bottled water is “purer” and, thus, “safer,” than tap water.  And, we did “drink it up.”  By 2007, bottled water was an $11.5 billion business.

Bellenir writes that Dr. Barbara Rolls, professor of nutrition sciences at Pennsylvania State Unversity, argues that “ `drinking water and waiting for pounds to melt away does not work.”  Further, “ `hunger and thirst are controlled by separate systems in the body.’ “  So, people do not confuse hunger for thirst. 

Barbara Lippert, an Adweek Media critic, observed in TAPPED:  “We’ve become like big toddlers.  We’ve got the nipple to our lips constantly.  We constantly need to know there’s something there just for us and that we can just throw away.  We want everything individualized, personalized.  We don’t want to wash it or take care of it.  And we want it immediately available.”  TAPPED punctuates Lippert’s comments with pictures of grown people walking with and regularly swigging from water bottles.  

 “Tapped” punctuates Lippert’s analysis with film of grown people on urban streets carrying and regularly swigging from water bottles.  These people are metaphors for how industry advertising reduces us to individualized infants—a reduction that reduces also the power of community.

Mainely Tipping Points 23: TAPPED: Bottled Water

Mainely Tipping Points 23

Note:  This essay is the first in a series of 3 essays on water, which started with viewing the documentary TAPPED and reading Elizabeth Royte’s BOTTLEMANIA.

TAPPED:  BOTTLED WATER

The movie TAPPED demonstrates that drinking water and bottled water are much more complex issues than I had realized.  I had been somewhat aware of industry’s ongoing attempts to commodify water.  I was aware that an argument was raging about whether access to drinking water is a human rights issue.  (Only one percent of available water worldwide is drinkable.)  Apparently the World Bank places the global water market’s value at $800 billion. 

I was beginning to hear more arguments about local watersheds being part of the public “commons.”  Indeed, TAPPED  begins with the history of Nestle massively pumping water from local springs in the Fryeburg, Maine, area, bottling it, and selling it under the Poland Springs label.  This pumping is draining the local watershed.  The Fryeburg municipal water system has experienced periods when its system goes dry suddenly.  And, the property values of local people living alongside a steadily diminishing lake have dropped.  Nor is Fryeburg benefiting financially as Nestle’s business is wholly private. 

Battles like the one between Nestle and the citizens of Fryeburg are happening in small communities all across the United States as industry tries to legally define its control of local water.  Nestle alone sells the following regional brands:  Ice Mountain, Zepher Hills, Deer Park, Ozarkia, and Arrowhead.  By 2007, bottled water in America had become a $11.5 billion business for, mostly, three big corporations:  Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi.    

Much bottled water is pumped from municipal tap water (40 percent) or its sources.  Industry then sells tap water back to consumers at 19 times the cost of their tap water.  Remember, those same consumers have already paid municipal water taxes. 

Sometimes, industry pumping of municipal water occurs nonstop during severe droughts where local people are living with necessarily stringent water mandates.  Pepsi pumped 400,000 gallons a day of municipal water in Raleigh, NC, during the 2007-2008 drought.  Coke, during Atlanta’s 2007-2008 Level IV drought, pumped 118 million gallons of water from a local lake source of Atlanta’s water.  The pictures in TAPPED of what’s left of this lake show the enormity of what has occurred. 

Industry employs both misleading bottle labels suggestive of pure water and expensive advertising campaigns to convince citizens that bottled water is cleaner than tap water.  Barbara Lippert, an Adweek Media critic, observed in TAPPED:  “Bottled water is the greatest advertising and marketing trick of all time.”  And Susan Wellington, president of Quaker’s U. S. beverage division, is quoted in TAPPED saying that “when we’re done, tap water will be relegated to showers and doing dishes.”        

But, is bottled water safe?  TAPPED covers the three major issues:  the nonexistent government regulation of bottled water, the water inside the bottle, and the bottle itself.  The latter two issues conflate since the bottle can and does taint the water it contains.

First, bottled water is largely unregulated.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no jurisdiction over bottled water produced and sold inside a single state.  It’s no accident that most bottled water is produced and sold within single states; that’s why there are so many local brands.  Further, the FDA has only one person overseeing all regulations over bottled water, and that person has other responsibilities as well.  Also, the bottled water industry is not required to submit reports to the FDA and is not required to report internal testing.   

Tap water, on the other hand, is highly regulated and is tested many times a day.  Yes, it may contain fluoride and chlorine mixtures, but those chemicals can and should be filtered out.  And, the practice of adding fluoride—a known toxin—could be stopped. 

Second, TAPPED reports that the National Resources Council tested the water in over 1,000 bottles of water and found bacteria and chemicals, including arsenic, in unsafe levels.  Another independent test of seven brands in two separate labs was analyzed by Dr. Stephen King, an epidemiologist and toxicologist at the University of Texas.  Dr. King found the results to be “horrifying.”  The labs found benzene, vinyl chloride, styrene, and toluene—all highly dangerous carcinogens which are also capable of adverse reproductive outcomes.  Toluene, used in gasoline and paint thinner, is a neurotoxin. 

The two labs found three different types of phthalates, all of which pose dangers to unborn babies and to both males and females.  Phthalates are endocrine disrupters.  Dr. King said bottled water was particularly risky for pregnant women and young children.  Plus, as TAPPED documents, there have been many bottle water recalls over the years.

The water bottles themselves have major issues.  Extreme health problems occur within people living near manufacturing plants, the toxicity of the bottles’ material components is not fully known, and the pollution caused by careless bottle disposal is colossal. 

Eighty percent of plastic water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate derived from crude oil.  Labeled PET or PETE on the bottom of the bottle, this chemical is in the benzene family.  Devra Davis, in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER (2007) devotes many pages to the terrible dangers for humans from the benzene family and from vinyl chloride.  So, when we buy a water bottle, we become partners with industry in harming people living near manufacturing plants or working within them.   

The 2007 work of William Shotyk, director of the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, shows that PET bottles leach a deadly toxin called antimony which has chemical properties similar to arsenic (Randy Richmond, “Toxin leaches into bottled water in PET containers,” http://medicine.org/toxin-leaches-into-bottled-water-in-pet-containers; Adam Voiland, “The Safety of PET Bottles, July 26, 2007, U.S. News and World Report News). 

Antimony can cause headache, dizziness, and depression in small doses.  In large doses, it is lethal in a few days.  PET bottles, Shotyk reveals, continuously shed antimony, so the longer water is in the bottle, the higher the levels of antimony. 

Critics pose that the levels of antimony are below accepted safety levels, but recent work on Bisphenol A (BPA) by University of Missouri-Columbia scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons shows that miniscule amounts of BPA are dangerous for humans.  BPA, note, is used to make hard plastics, like the 5-gallon water bottles used in water coolers and baby bottles. 

So, in short, we do not know exactly how dangerous antimony is or if other chemicals are being leached into bottled water on a regular basis.  Additionally, Wikipedia analysis poses that antimony might be an endocrine disrupter.   

Reusing plastic water bottles is not wise.  Water bottles with narrow necks makes washing difficult and can result in both the build-up of unsafe bacteria levels and in increased leaching of toxic chemical from the plastic.  

Third, Americans consume 80 million single-serving bottles of water daily, but only 30 million end up in landfills.  Once in landfills, municipalities and taxpayers—not industry–have to pay to process them.  The rest of the bottles—50 million of them daily–are massively polluting the environment, especially the oceans.  (

States with bottle deposits do get more returned bottles, but they still have to fund disposal.  This situation is a classic example of how industry externalizes its costs.  And, I’m beginning to understand that if a product is cheap, elsewhere, other people are paying personally the actual costs of production.  

I bought a stainless steel water bottle with a narrow neck a few years back.  But, it seems, some metal bottles have plastic coatings inside.  I’m going to replace this bottle with one of the glass water bottles that has a reinforced webbing on the outside that helps prevent shattering.

One thing is for sure:  I’m never buying bottled water again.