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I have been seeing more and more stainless steel water bottles around the county. Why the switch from plastic to steel?
Jen Schenk, Frisco
Well, I can't speak as to why everybody that has made the change has done so, perhaps they like the feel of cold, hard steel in their hands. Perhaps they like the sound it makes when being opened, which is somewhat reminiscent of the old steel thermos many of us grew up with. Maybe the fresh clean taste of the water held in it encouraged them to switch. Or perhaps they just like the shiny, clean look (stainless steel is so chic these days, you know).
But chic-ness aside, I can tell you that there are also environmental and health reasons for switching to the stainless steel bottles. Many of the bottles that you buy your water in at the store are made from Lexan polycarbonate. In addition, the ever popular water bottles (we won't name names here) that you see hanging from backpacks, stashed in messenger bags and on many a Summit County car floor are made from Lexan. If you look to the bottom of your water bottle and see the #7, you've got a handful of nastiness before you.
So do you want the bad or the really bad news first? Oh heck, let's ease into this and run through the list of why plastic is oh-so-bad and stainless steel oh-so-good by starting with the environmental reasons. We will cover the list of health reasons in a moment.
All right, folks, all plastic is made from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are in short supply. Fossil fuels are nonrenewable. Therefore we need to use less plastic, just as we need to use less gas and oil.
Hold on, hold on. Nasty Plastics 101 is not yet dismissed, because plastic is also energy-intensive, resource-intensive and toxic to manufacture. And it doesn't biodegrade. Ever.
Although recycling plastic is much less toxic than making it from new material, the plastic recycling process itself is still quite toxic. And plastic, unlike metal or glass, can only be recycled a few times before it must go to the landfill.
OK, now for the health reasons for choosing glass or stainless steel over plastic. The building block of polycarbonate plastics (such as Lexan) is Bisphenol-A (BPA). It is also used in polystyrene and a few other plastics. BPA is known to be unstable and therefore leaches from the plastic quite readily into items it comes in contact with (for instance your water, or baby formula/breastmilk if you are using a #7 baby bottle, etc).
So what is BPA? Well it was invented in the 1930s, but not for use in plastics. Actually it was created to be a synthetic estrogen.
Yummy. Come on boys, you don't want estrogen in your water?
But ladies, what is wrong with a little extra estrogen, right? Wrong. It is a concern to women of childbearing age and children and adolescents, because exposure to it can cause increased risk of breast, prostate and testicular cancer down the road. And it has been found in umbilical cord blood and placental tissue more than a few times.
As if that weren't enough, BPA has also been implicated in Down's syndrome, miscarriage, decreased sperm production, early puberty and obesity.
Granted the most common cause of the BPA leaching is by heating it (ah, ah, ah, don't ever leave your water bottle in the hot car again and you can just cross your fingers that your bottled water didn't get hot at some point before it reached you) and cleaning it (who wanted bacteria-free water anyway?). But aging Lexan also leaches. Basically, at some point, no matter what you do the BPA in the plastic will end up in your water.
So yes, you can just avoid plastics marked with a #7 and shoot for safer plastics numbered 2, 4 or 5, but these still carry many (if not all) of the problems mentioned in the discussion on environmental problems above.
Your best choice is to use glass or stainless steel. And as the company Klean Kanteen has begun making fabulous little, and not-so-little bottles, it has made the option of drinking water out of steel very, very easy. Look for stainless steel water bottles at the Dillon Farmer's Market and at sporting goods stores around the county.
Eartha Steward is written by Carly Wier, Holly Loff, and Beth Orstad, consultants on all things eco and chic at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation in our mountain community. Eartha believes that you can walk gently on our planet, even if you're wearing stylie shoes.
Submit questions to Eartha to recycle@colorado.net with Ask Eartha as the subject or to High Country Conservation Center, PO Box 4506, Frisco, CO 80443.
Jen Schenk, Frisco
Well, I can't speak as to why everybody that has made the change has done so, perhaps they like the feel of cold, hard steel in their hands. Perhaps they like the sound it makes when being opened, which is somewhat reminiscent of the old steel thermos many of us grew up with. Maybe the fresh clean taste of the water held in it encouraged them to switch. Or perhaps they just like the shiny, clean look (stainless steel is so chic these days, you know).
But chic-ness aside, I can tell you that there are also environmental and health reasons for switching to the stainless steel bottles. Many of the bottles that you buy your water in at the store are made from Lexan polycarbonate. In addition, the ever popular water bottles (we won't name names here) that you see hanging from backpacks, stashed in messenger bags and on many a Summit County car floor are made from Lexan. If you look to the bottom of your water bottle and see the #7, you've got a handful of nastiness before you.
So do you want the bad or the really bad news first? Oh heck, let's ease into this and run through the list of why plastic is oh-so-bad and stainless steel oh-so-good by starting with the environmental reasons. We will cover the list of health reasons in a moment.
All right, folks, all plastic is made from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are in short supply. Fossil fuels are nonrenewable. Therefore we need to use less plastic, just as we need to use less gas and oil.
Hold on, hold on. Nasty Plastics 101 is not yet dismissed, because plastic is also energy-intensive, resource-intensive and toxic to manufacture. And it doesn't biodegrade. Ever.
Although recycling plastic is much less toxic than making it from new material, the plastic recycling process itself is still quite toxic. And plastic, unlike metal or glass, can only be recycled a few times before it must go to the landfill.
OK, now for the health reasons for choosing glass or stainless steel over plastic. The building block of polycarbonate plastics (such as Lexan) is Bisphenol-A (BPA). It is also used in polystyrene and a few other plastics. BPA is known to be unstable and therefore leaches from the plastic quite readily into items it comes in contact with (for instance your water, or baby formula/breastmilk if you are using a #7 baby bottle, etc).
So what is BPA? Well it was invented in the 1930s, but not for use in plastics. Actually it was created to be a synthetic estrogen.
Yummy. Come on boys, you don't want estrogen in your water?
But ladies, what is wrong with a little extra estrogen, right? Wrong. It is a concern to women of childbearing age and children and adolescents, because exposure to it can cause increased risk of breast, prostate and testicular cancer down the road. And it has been found in umbilical cord blood and placental tissue more than a few times.
As if that weren't enough, BPA has also been implicated in Down's syndrome, miscarriage, decreased sperm production, early puberty and obesity.
Granted the most common cause of the BPA leaching is by heating it (ah, ah, ah, don't ever leave your water bottle in the hot car again and you can just cross your fingers that your bottled water didn't get hot at some point before it reached you) and cleaning it (who wanted bacteria-free water anyway?). But aging Lexan also leaches. Basically, at some point, no matter what you do the BPA in the plastic will end up in your water.
So yes, you can just avoid plastics marked with a #7 and shoot for safer plastics numbered 2, 4 or 5, but these still carry many (if not all) of the problems mentioned in the discussion on environmental problems above.
Your best choice is to use glass or stainless steel. And as the company Klean Kanteen has begun making fabulous little, and not-so-little bottles, it has made the option of drinking water out of steel very, very easy. Look for stainless steel water bottles at the Dillon Farmer's Market and at sporting goods stores around the county.
Eartha Steward is written by Carly Wier, Holly Loff, and Beth Orstad, consultants on all things eco and chic at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation in our mountain community. Eartha believes that you can walk gently on our planet, even if you're wearing stylie shoes.
Submit questions to Eartha to recycle@colorado.net with Ask Eartha as the subject or to High Country Conservation Center, PO Box 4506, Frisco, CO 80443.
