I received this warning in an email (see below) and decided to do a google search to see what the science was behind the note.
RE: Bottled Water – don’t buy any bottled water which is piled up in the sun at grocery stores, such as Save-On-Foods who love to pile their bottled water up in front of the store where the sun beats on it all day long. The sun on the plastic causes the plastic to release dioxins into the water – that’s poison – (same stuff they use at pulp mills, etc.) Bottled water should be kept in a cool, shaded area at all times. So don’t buy bottled water that has been exposed to the sun or heat. Please pass this on.
Possible hoax
What I first found was a freezing bottle water hoax, and the following clear statement: “This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics.” If there are no dioxins in plastics there are no dioxins to be released by heat or other means.
Other problematic chemicals
However what can be released by heat are phthalates:
… there is another group of chemicals, (phthalates) that are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less brittle. These environmental contaminants can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals. If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of phthalates from the containers into water and food.
So the warning seems appropriate. However how much heat must be applied before this happens is not mentioned.
Searching a bit more I also found a recent study by William Shotyk, a Canadian scientist who warned that another chemical by the name of antimony (amongst others)is released in the water just by sitting in the bottle over time.
The research, by a Canadian scientist now working in Germany, involved 132 brands of bottled water from 28 countries produced in containers made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. About 20 brands came from Canada. In a paper to be published early next year, William Shotyk of the University of Heidelberg found that the concentration of certain chemicals, such as antimony, increases the longer the water sits in the plastic bottle. Shotyk’s study measured concentrations for a period of up to six months.
Moreover, it seems not only chemicals are problematic but microbial contamination:
Government studies versus industry studies
Further traces of plastic are reported by a Virginia Education Gastro-nutrition newsletter. They talk about BPAs or bisphenol A which that has been linked to chromosomal abnormalities in mice. Studies about the migration of BPA to food and drink show differences when contrasting industry and government studies. The latter show significant effects, while industry continue to report “trace amounts, not attributable to a health risk” therefore still inconclusive. Industry has much to lose when they have become a multibillion dollar industry:
Privatization of water resources
Another issue that is also directly linked to the bottled water phenomenon is how it is setting up a favourable situation for the privatization (make money!!!) of our water resources.
Plastic bottle pollution
Well, from incorrect information and what could have been a hoax or urban myth has led to finding a slew of problems related to bottled water, including and I leave you with the images of empty plastic bottles that are now visual and environmental pollutants lining every kilometre of our planet. Important and urgent changes are needed in our consumer habits.
Why is it that no one seems to care about the billions of tons of waste generated by the billion other beverages besides water packaged in the exact same materials and just as damaging of an effect and non of which are vital to human existence like water. Oh yeah by the way have you ever really researched what chemicals are actually regulated by the government and how the review process of new contaminants works, that even after something is known to cause cancer there is a grace period for municipalities to change there systems over, taking 15 years at times to enforce and regulate a new contaminant and trust me we are inventing them allot quicker than that. Did you know what’s “deemed safe” by our government is based on a 70 year life span drinking 2 liters a day, I don’t know about you but I drink 4-6 liters a day which actually means if I were to drink tap water I would be getting levels of pollutants known to cause cancer at an unsafe level. Water is the most basic and essential building block for your health, you can not go 3 days with out it there would be no life like other planets. The current generation is ridiculed with disease and getting cancer at younger and younger ages, but don’t worry out of the 400 cancer causing substances allowed at a safe level I’m sure it must be something else. Out of all the water processed by municipalities about 2% is used for human consumption, about 80% percent goes to our agricultural needs which happen to be covered with chemicals designed to kill living insects(hum wonder if that also kills humans at a much slower and less noticeable rate?). I could go all day considering I have dedicated my life’s work to researching water period. Consider one more thing why is it if you don’t treat your tap water before starting an aquarium your fish will die? Too many chemicals and contaminants right why do we as humans assume we are so immune to toxins unlike other animals? I mention all these things not to prove a point but to get people thinking for themselves using basic logic to be cautious about getting on to bottled water as a stereo type. There are many companies who care about people health not wealth (usually the small local mom and pop type businesses). There are always huge companies getting away with murder in every industry and if you focus only on them and not the whole you have a limited perspective and probably not a well rounded view. Please do your research toughly before condemning things vital to a humans well being, your making decisions a doctor would need years of education to make based on a few websites info.
RainFreshWater.com