Friday, April 11, 2008

The Danger of Plastic Bottled Water

There have been news recently on National TV warning about the danger of chemicals released from plastic bottles. As I stated in a previous post tap water is safe to drink and if we want it to be safer we can use a filter. The news are stating that "certain plastics used to make reusable water bottles leak a chemical into drinking water that may pose a risk, especially to children and pregnant women." It is already known that plastic baby bottles are releasing substances dangerous for babies health. Well, I would not be surprised if in one day they will find the same results with the plastic bottled juice.



I am always concerned for the health of my family so until it is decided that the chemicals released are bad or not for our health I took the approach "better safe than sorry" and eliminated plastic bottled water from our consumption. It was a little hard to get used to the heavier glass bottles, but only for a short time; now I fell like in the 90's. :)

Here are some tips I follow:
  • if you cannot avoid the plastic bottled water, do not reuse the plastic bottle; recycle it. In fact, do not reuse any plastic bottle.
  • use glass whenever possible.
  • just fill your glass bottle with tap water (filtered tap water) in your way out.
  • use glass bottles for babies and kids.

2 comments:

Heythere said...

Hi..is it really not right to reuse plastic bottles. I thought that till a practical alternative to plactic water bottles is found, we can use these bottles again to reduce use of plastic.?

Anonymous said...

Hi Pratima,
thanks for your comment!

You are right; not reusing the plastic bottle it is not very environmental friendly. If you are using plastic bottles you need to put in the balance the thing that is most important to you: your health or the environment. There are studies showing that the plastic bottles are leaching unwanted chemicals that we get in our body while drinking from those bottles. If you recycle the plastic bottles you do not need to feel that guilty; it is a bad thing to just throw them away with other things that are not recyclable. However, even if it is a little less practical but a healthier alternative - use glass bottles or stainless steel. What I do, is to fill some glass bottles with filtered water and take them with me or I buy water in glass bottles. However, buying water may become another controversial issue pretty soon. You can look at this article:
http://abunchofgreens.blogspot.com/
2008/10/38-pollutants-found-in-10-
brands-of-b.html

Best,
Lucia