Danger of plastics leeching from bottle into water...

[hutchibk]

In doing some research for a friend tonight about plastic water bottles, I found this. Thought it was important to share with everyone...

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater

"The identity of most brands in this study are anonymous. This is typical scientific practice for market-basket style testing programs. We consider these results to represent a snapshot of the market during the window of time in which we purchased samples. While our study findings show that consumers can't trust that bottled water is pure or cleaner than tap water, it was not designed to indicate pollutant profiles typical over time for particular brands. Walmart and Giant bottled water brands are named in this study because our first tests and numerous followup tests confirmed that these brands contained contaminants at levels that exceeded state standards or voluntary industry guidelines.


"The study also included assays for breast cancer cell proliferation, conducted at the University of Missouri. One bottled water brand spurred a 78% increase in the growth of the breast cancer cells compared to the control sample, with 1,200 initial breast cancer cells multiplying to 32,000 in 4 days, versus only 18,000 for the control sample, indicating that chemical contaminants in the bottled water sample stimulated accelerated division of cancer cells. When estrogen-blocking chemicals were added, the effect was inhibited, showing that the cancer-spurring chemicals mimic estrogen, a hormone linked to breast cancer. Though this result is considered a modest effect relative to the potency of some other industrial chemicals in spurring breast cancer cell growth, the sheer volume of bottled water people consume elevates the health significance of the finding. While the specific chemical(s) responsible for this cancer cell proliferation were not identified in this pilot study, ingestion of endocrine-disrupting and cancer-promoting chemicals from plastics is considered to be a potentially important health concern (Le 2008)."


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Personally, I don't buy bottled water anymore except on occasion, mostly when traveling because I don't have a choice. I prefer Fiji. Nestle brand waters tend to be pretty clean. I hate all the plastic, so I have a swiss made SIGG aluminum water bottle that I refill everytime I leave the house. I filter with solid core filters (Clear2O water filter pitcher) for now, and am planning on an Amway/Quixtar water treatment system on our kitchen sink as soon as we can afford it.