My DW noticed I'm keeping a few bottles of water in my car. She told me I should be concerned about plasticisers leaching out of the plastic due to heat build-up in the car. Anyone know if this is a problem?

If your talking about the thin plastic bottles that store-purchased water comes in, then yes.. if you leave the water in your car for a week, under hot conditions, there will be trace evidence of that plastic breaking down into the water.

Those chemicals have been linked to a couple types of cancer, but primarily to breast cancer.

Now.. what they don't say, is that the concentrations of that chemical would need to be like 12,0000 times greater than what they found (in 1 week old water) to really hurt you.

To be honest, I keep some Datrex water (3 year lifespan I think?) in the car for emergency, and just carry a Nalgene bottle around with me every day that I empty out and re-use.

I think you should probably be much more concerned with the quality of the water, than the container in my opinion.

Rod

In the sort of emergency situation in which you would consume your stash of water, the potential aftereffects of plasticizers in the bottle are insignificant compared to the immediate consequences (up to and including death) of failing to drink. I have consumed some pretty nasty H2O,figuring the doctors can cure me of whatever is in the water,if I can just win my way back to town..

I think BLAST stated that you would have to EAT seven of the older Nalgene bottles a day for a year to reach the levels of BPA that was used in these studies.It is a shame that Nalgene and other companies were singled out on this.The older Nalgenes would bounce off rocks /pavement. The newer ones not so much.Frozen solid filled with water,older nalgenes were good to go.I have even used a Nalgene as a wheel chock on a hill for a full size truck.Hmmmm any one have the old style Nalgenes they want to get rid of......

BOATMAN
John

"Bottled water" bottles are typical made of polyethylene (does it have a #1 on the bottom of the bottle?). Polyethylene can leach phthalates, which are known hormone disruptors. Polyethylene does not contain bisphenol-A.

Or are you talking about "water bottles" like a Nalgene?

Honestly, that's exactly the kind of stress that caused the old polycarbonate Nalgene's to leach more and more BPA. Polycarbonate is simply made of long-chains of BPA molecules. It's not an ingredient of polycarbonate--it is polycarbonate. Any stress, like rough handling, stretching from expanding ice inside, etc., damages those chains and they start to unravel. That leads to rapid leaching of BPA into the contents.

I've made this point before but traditional toxicology testing does not seem appropriate to test substances that appear to have biological activity, like hormone disruptors. In traditional toxicology, you give mice more and more of a chemical until you start seeing negative effects. According to those traditional toxicology tests, yeah, there's no way you could ingest as much BPA as used in those tests. But this paradigm assumes BPA is a poison, like mercury or lead.

The other newer paradigm is that a substance can mimic hormonal messengers instead of directly poisoning the body. More recent research tests very, very low concentrations of BPA, levels that your average person has in their blood right now. Because of biological feedback mechanisms in the body, there's a sweet spot of effect--too little or too much and your body ignores it, but at the right dose, BPA can mimic hormones that naturally exist in your body. Hormones are messengers that ramp up or ramp down various functions, so having a fake signal in the body can cause a variety of problems.

For example, it's possible that BPA could be one of the reasons why our daughters are starting puberty at younger and younger ages than ever before, long before they are ready to actually bear children of their own.

I pulled this citation from the FDA website. A 2006 meeting of experts and academics said in their summary of the meeting:


From: vom Saal FS, Akingbemi BT, Belcher SM et al. Chapel Hill bisphenol A expert panel consensus statement: integration of mechanisms, effects in animals and potential to impact human health at current levels of exposure, Reproductive Toxicology 2007;24:131-8

Thank you, Arney - a most excellent and informative post!

The bottle is Sam's Choice bottled water. Bottom of the bottle has "1D" and "PETE" under the recycle logo. Appreciate all the responses.

Excuse me, it's a Ph.D. in Chemistry. I tap the fundamental units of creation and twist them to my will on a daily basis. Chemical engineers are just plumbers.

As for the water issue...death due to dehydration happens a lot faster than death by bad chemistry, especially when you'd have to drink more than your own weight for days on end to get a measurable increase in health issues.
-Blast

Ugh, so how do you store water in cars? I usually get a block of bottled water and leave it in the back seat. This serves as my water supply when my canteen runs out of water, when I neglect/forget to bring my canteen, or just when I get thirsty. This is convenient, because the bottles are moderately sized, and I can replenish easily at the local supermarket (one plastic-wrapped block for $3). Now I'm discovering that while I might not get breast cancer, I might get started with puberty early.

I know it is confusing but, most bottled water actually comes in PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles (marked with the number 1).

On my way out of the house, I grab a couple of liters of filtered tapwater in old nalgenes from the garage fridge, and drop them in a soft side cooler, and toss it in the car. Stored in the car are 5 liters in platypus bags. regarding plasticizer leaching, see Blast's wisdom. There is a lot of noisy bad science out there, cuz advancing a cause is of more newsworthiness than is the truth.

Thanks, Doctor! BTW how's work on the Flubber going?

Whether we're talking phthalates or BPA, so far the concern with human health is primarily restricted to exposure during certain critical times in life, such as infancy, childhood, pregnancy, and maybe adults who are trying to have children since exposure can affect fertility. Otherwise, knock yourself out.

How about unlined stainless steel water bottles?

snopes on bpa in soup cans

Lots of bpa in the world of processed food. It is water soluble so blood levels don't remain high very long, cuz the body excretes it. And nobody has demonstrated that it has any harmful effects. Conclusion: water bottles don't kill people, dehydration does.

BPA isn't a good thing, and nowadays it's very easy to avoid. IIRC all Nalgenes are BPA as are most other brands of water bottles. While I do have one or two plastic bottles I have a dozen stainless steel one. I much prefer the steel ones, if for not other reason than that I can boil in them.