Bottled water is a big no, no!

So I stumbled across a couple of articles this week that caught my attention. As an avid drinker of bottled water, I was surprised to see a headline telling me to stop if I don't want to get sick! Water? Sick?! What?! Here's the low down...

Chemicals used in producing these bottles and aluminum cans, known as bisphenol A (BPA) have been studied, with the results suggesting that this chemical contributes to health problems such as heart disease and cancer. The test took place in the US, where half the test subjects were asked to drink soy milk from a can, lined with BPA, and the other half from a glass bottle. Soy milk was chosen because it is known to not have any effects on blood pressure. They took urine samples before and after drinking, and found that within a few hours, those who drank from a can as opposed to a glass bottle, had levels of BPA that rose 16 times higher. Blood pressure also increased; they took a systolic blood pressure reading (the top number from a blood pressure reading), which revealed that the mercury in the blood increased on average by 5 mm. It is known that every 20 mm increase can double the risk of cardiovascular disease. This is because BPA can block estrogen receptors whose sole purpose is to repair blood vessels and control blood pressure. Although these effects weren't long lasting, it doesn't take a genius to understand that constant consumption from cans and bottles allows the level of BPA to increase overtime, leading to long term health problems, like hypertension (high blood pressure) (New York Times 2014).

It's interesting to note that in 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby products such as bottles and cups, due to “some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children”. In 2010, Canada branded the chemical as a toxic substance, also banned in child and infant products.

Why have they not introduced this as a law for it to be banned in general? Maybe it's because some scientists have said they have found no concrete evidence that BPA is the cause for heart conditions, there's just a correlation between the two. I think it's probably down to the usual, money and business side of things.

Some companies are labeling their plastics and cans as 'BPA free' to encourage consumers, but don't be fooled! When a chemical is taken away, it's normally replaced with something else... in this case it's most likely bisphenol S, or BPS. This chemical hasn't been studied as much, but the University of Calgary tested both the chemicals on zebrafish, because they share around 80% of the same genes as humans. They found ''abnormal growth surges in neurons, which resulted in hyperactivity'', but the American Chemistry Council released this statement soon after those results were published, "The relevance of this limited study on zebrafish, as asserted by the authors, is not at all clear, and it would not be scientifically appropriate to draw any conclusions about human health based on this limited experiment.", and also went on to say that the levels of BPS that the fish were exposed to were a lot higher than any human would be ingesting. There's yet to be a response from the FDA, but give it a few more years for scientists to gather conclusive evidence, and hopefully some laws will be put in place regarding this chemical.

Of course it's not just your health it can hurt, the environment gets a bashing! All that plastic produced and left to do it's own harmful thing (my previous blog touches on the affects of plastic in the oceans), and all the energy used to produce these bottles, leaves it's mark. According to the United Nations Environmental program, 22-43% of plastic worldwide is dumped in a landfill site; 10-20 million tons of plastic ends up in the oceans annually. This plastic pollution is estimated to cost $13 billion annually, due to the damage caused on the marine ecosystem, as well as the cost of the clean up. Tourism and local water-based businesses such as fish farms are also included in this estimation of money loss, due to the impacts it has on the marine life, and the collection of mass plastics at certain sites.

So what can you do?

Try and stay away from packaged food and drinks contained in cans/tins/plastic. As a rule of thumb, if the plastic bottle has the number 7 in a triangle, stay away from it! It means that it's made of a 'miscellaneous' plastic that doesn't fit into other categories, with BPA being one of these. Also stay away from 3 and 6, as these contain polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene, respectively. These are known to be harmful too.

What you're looking for on a plastic container SOURCE