The Wake

Photo by Ben Lansky

Nalgene water bottles are a fun, fashionable way to carry water and other potables, keeping students happy and hydrated. In the past few years, Nalgenes have become so popular that it is impossible to walk fifty feet across campus without seeing a plethora of shatter resistant plastic water bottles. Now, after this widespread distribution we are realizing that everyone and their brother drinking out of these things may not be such a great idea.

One of the key building blocks of Lexan, the rigid, clear, shatter-resistant polycarbonate plastic that Nalgene bottles are made of, is a compound called bisphenol-A. This compound mimics estrogen and is known as an endocrine disruptor, binding to estrogen receptors, causing alterations in hormone levels and interactions. It is also linked to miscarriage, altered mammary gland development, early onset of puberty, prostate cancer, breast cancer, altered brain development, reduced fertility, and insulin resistance leading to diabetes. Although they mostly become apparent in adulthood, these health affects have been traced back to exposure to bisphenol-A in the womb and during early childhood. Bisphenol-A is also a component of the resin used to line nearly all canned foods and drinks and some water supply pipes.

As the water bottles age and are repeatedly heated and put through the dishwasher, bisphenol-A has been shown to leach out into whatever is stored in the container, and has also been shown to migrate into canned foods. Exposure to bisphenol-A is so common that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 95 percent of Americans have it in their urine. It can be viewed as perfectly safe or as a serious health risk, depending on who you talk to.

“Most of what we’ve heard is that the human tolerance level is way high compared to what’s actually going to leach out,” says Will Rettig, who works in the water bottle section of Midwest Mountaineering on the West Bank. “The only way that it’s really going to leach out a lot is if you sick it in the microwave.”

The manufacturer of Nalgene water bottles and other members of the plastics industry maintain that the level of bisphenol-A people are exposed to is not high enough to produce adverse health effects. In August 2007, an expert panel published a consensus statement in the journal Reproductive Toxicology stating the levels of bisphenol-A exposure within the typical range for people living in developed countries have been shown to have adverse health effects on laboratory animals, indicating that similar effects are also occurring in humans. That same month, a panel of scientists from the US National Toxicology Program’s Center for Environmental Risks to Humans deemed their level of concern for reproductive effects of bisphenol-A in adults to be ‘negligible’ and exposure in the womb and during early childhood development only of ‘some concern.’

Like most chemicals that we consume daily, the problem with bisphenol-A is that we do not really know much about what happens when we put it into our bodies. The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, which put a system in place to regulate chemicals such as bisphenol-A, has never been updated. Under this law companies are not required to test chemicals for safety or track whether they end up in people’s bodies or the environment at unsafe levels. The Environmental Protection Agency set the safe exposure level for bisphenol-A in 1993 based on studies done in the 1980s. Additionally, the FDA has not performed a toxicology study to determine the Acceptable Daily Intake for bisphenol-A.

“Since World War Two they’ve developed 80,000 chemicals, and since World War Two they’ve banned five of them. In Europe they’ve banned 30,000. So we’re a little behind on the times,” says Maria Trafton, the head of Minnesota Public Interest Research Group’s Detox Minnesota Task Force. “People assume that the government is regulating their products and that what they’re putting into their bodies are safe. If America is going to trust our government to make sure that we’re safe, then we should be able to trust them. They’ve said that they need to test these chemicals, but they haven’t, and they’ve been lagging.”

With the federal government dragging its feet, MPIRG and similar groups throughout the country have taken the matter into their own hands. In cooperation with Steering Committee of the Healthy Legacy Coalition, MPIRG recently passed a resolution through the Minneapolis City Council agreeing to a phase out of products for children under three containing bisphenol-A. MPIRG is currently lobbying for a similar phase out which is being considered in the Minnesota Congress.

“That doesn’t mean from Nalgenes, that means from products that come in contact with children under three,” says Trafton. “We’re starting at a lower level just to get people aware of the issue because no one really knows about it. Obviously all of this takes forever, and there’s no way that we can ban 80,000 chemicals. So hopefully what this will do is raise awareness that there are these chemicals and we don’t know what they do and they’re untested.”

Bisphenol-A remains an FDA approved material for use in food containers. Ultimately, more research is needed to determine whether the level of bisphenol-A we are exposed to when we drink from Lexan water bottles and eat canned foods is enough to cause harm in adults. Until such a consensus is reached, cross your fingers and hope for the best because it’s probably already in your pee.