Tech | April 28, 2009 | 49 comments

Surprise: Plastic is bad for you!

source: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/28/water-bottles-health.html

Image
DeliaTheArtist
"With all of the bad press swirling around certain types of plastic lately, regular old plastic water bottles have maintained a reputation as safe, at least as far as human health is concerned. New evidence, however, suggests that plastic water bottles may not be so benign after all.

Scientists in Germany have found that PET plastics -- the kind used to make water bottles, among many other common products -- may also harbor hormone-disrupting chemicals that leach into the water.

It's too soon to say whether drinking out of PET plastic bottles is harmful to human health, said lead researcher Martin Wagner, an ecotoxicologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt. But it now appears possible that some as-yet unidentified chemicals in these plastics have the potential to interfere with estrogen and other reproductive hormones, just as the infamous plasticizers BPA and phthalates do."
  1. groups:
    Tech,   Green,   Science,   Learn
  2. tags:
    Green,  Tech,  Science,  Plastic
  3.     
    |

49 comments // Surprise: Plastic is bad for you!

  • Booffason
  • MdrnHpp33
    • 0
      MdrnHpp33  
    • Image

    • Another article from the green social networking site Greenwala about why plastic bottles are harmful to our bodies and the environment.

    • 2 years ago
  • PrincessTiffany
  • s0und0FF
  • UBold
    • 0
      UBold  

    • But think, in the end how baaad it could be? We will still die... Please don't by extra stainless steel bottles because of this... Just limit ur usage with plastic bottles, use only when you have no other faster better choice.... Get a water purifier or smth,
      Chemicals mixing because of this moght be faar less dangerous than the mountain dews, and diet cokes u drink....

    • 2 years ago
  • Dersex
    • 0
      Dersex  

    • i bet it will also end up giving you cancer as well just like everthing else that is man made or modified.. the food, cars, cigarates.. when does it end?

    • 2 years ago
  • gentleman33
  • bombastinator
  • callenstewart
    • 0
      callenstewart  
    • gentleman33:

      Well, if you're going to buy into the whole "tap water is bad" mania, this is a lesser evil.

      But why still keep the plastic cap? My milk cartons as a kid did just fine when you had to open the carton.

    • 2 years ago
  • opit
    • 0
      opit  

    • Chemical reactions and leaching are increased by heat - which is just accelerated molecular movement. Microwave heating can destroy nutrients quickly because long chain molecules can't stand rough handling. Now you have another problem to add to wrecking food's nutritional value when nuking TV dinners on high.
      Do you think that sand and sawdust should be considered 'safe' foods if they didn't have harmful chemicals in them ? That's the way the law 'protecting us' from toxins runs : that and you have to prove something is toxic rather than prove it safe or nutritious.

    • 2 years ago
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  
    • opit:

      Ah... "nutrients" the "um.. they're good and they're in food, right?" word. We also have "toxins" here used as the "um... they're in food and they're bad, right?" word.

      Why is it that most of the time i hear these words they are semantically equal to "good food spirits" and bad food spirits"?

      That molecular breakup you're trying to mask with sciencey sounding stuff? That's called "cooking". The same thing will happen on your stove or anywhere else you cook something. Someone has been feeding you a line.

    • 2 years ago
  • opit
    • 0
      opit  
    • opit:

      I've been 'feeding me a line'. Reheat coffee on high. Now take another sample of the same batch and reheat it twice as long at half the power : you can taste the difference.
      Medical staff at the local hospital - my ex and daughter work there - were advised not to heat foods in plastic containers - just this past year.

    • 2 years ago
  • Dmitri_Molotov
    • 0
      Dmitri_Molotov  

    • I'll stick with my ABS standard issue canteen thank you. I picked it up at the army surplus place for about 3 bucks. Tastes a little funny, but it's durable and makes an awesome drum.

    • 2 years ago
  • onemalefla
  • callenstewart
  • jenniferlane
  • rockfrek3
    • 0
      rockfrek3  

    • I don't usually drink water from plastic bottles but this still sucks because sometimes I have track meets at places that don't even have a water fountain now how am I going to drink. So if those botlles are dangerous are the ones you buy and then fill up dangerous too!?!?!

    • 2 years ago
  • UrbanGypsy
  • kreddig
  • lucidstone
    • 0
      lucidstone  

    • I'm far from being an alarmist, but I would be cautious about making a habit of drinking bottled water that's been left in your car. Temperature extremes would most probably assist in the breaking down of chemicals in the plastic walls.

      So, if there's any minute levels of leaching going on in plastics, then going through cycles of being heated and cooled may very well elevate the ppm of any contaminates.

      Would I be overly concerned in drinking a bottle of water that's been sitting in a car for a week, not really . . . but I wouldn't make a habit out of it.

    • 2 years ago
  • kttyk713
    • 0
      kttyk713  

    • I, unfortunately, have to use bottled water. Tap water makes me sick because I grew up with an Artesian well. Everything gives everybody some sort of cancer nowadays anyway, so guess it doesn't really matter.

      We're all going to hell in a handbasket, come along for the ride!

    • 2 years ago
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  
    • kttyk713:

      I smell magical thinking here.

      That makes no logical sense. Artesian wells are just wells with a near surface aquifer. It's not a water type it's a pumping method. There's a whole lot of garbage around about the magical qualities of artesian wells but they mostly wind up dating back to an ad campaign for "Olympia" beer in the 1970's.

      There is no special water quality to artesian wells. Many cities use artesian wells for municipal water. If it was somehow the processing of the water (fluoridation, etc..) then the bottled water would make you sick too. Unless the problem is specific to say the water in your household tap alone, in which case one might suspect bad pipes inside your house. This can happen. I have seen one example where some genius attached a gas line to a water line and his household water had natural gas flavoring.

    • 2 years ago
  • kttyk713
    • 0
      kttyk713  
    • kttyk713:

      Well, not necessarily. I couldn't drink any tap water from the new town I moved to. If I drank it at school from the waterfountains, I'd throw it back up. If I drank it at home I'd throw it back up. This went on for about 2 years before the idiots at the hospital finally figured out it might be the tap water after my mom told them she suspected that might be what it was.

      Regardless, I do what I can to help reduce my carbon footprint BECAUSE I drink so much bottled water. I recycle everything (including the bottles of H2o I'm drinking,) and I try to keep appliances unplugged unless they are in use. Green is the way to go!

    • 2 years ago
  • nataraja
  • scabbio
  • libertyhemp
    • 0
      libertyhemp  

    • Remember Cellophane? A Non Toxic, Bio Degradable
      plastic made from plants by a science called,
      "Chemurgy". The petroleum companies make the toxic non biodegradable plastic we all use now. Petroleum products also include:( Medicine, fertilizer, paint, glue, rope, fabric, motor oil, petroleum jelly, etc etc. All petroleum products are very toxic and will not biodegrade. A free market would have at least chosen both kinds of plastic. Which plastic would you choose?

    • 2 years ago
  • MinneapolisMafia
  • Cheesus505
  • TabulaRasa
  • allIknowis
    • 0
      allIknowis  

    • WHAAT Plastic is bad for you? Did anyone tell Cher or Joan Rivers? Oh, not that kind of plastic.

      I gave up bottled water a few months ago, i use a filter pitcher and stainless bottles now.

    • 2 years ago
  • Numbz
  • TabulaRasa
    • 0
      TabulaRasa  

    • I believe bottled water only becomes harmful if it is left in the heat, then the harmful toxins are induced into the water. At least that's what I remember my brother telling me who, yes, did do some studying on this subject while going to school to become a Dr.

      So don't leave your bottle in your car directly in the sun [ever notice that weird taste water takes on after you leave it in heat?]

    • 2 years ago
  • kcfoxie
    • 0
      kcfoxie  
    • TabulaRasa:

      you mean left in a hot, un-air-conditioned semi trailer left on a shipping dock for up to two or three months before it's loaded on the back of a non-air-conditioned semi and trucked to your local store? :)

    • 2 years ago
  • TabulaRasa
  • Agent_Alpha
  • fun_size
    • 0
      fun_size  

    • Well that suks. I drink a lot of bottled water at college since the tap water here is disgusting. Hell like everything im drinking right now comes out of a plastic bottle >.

    • 2 years ago
  • MinneapolisMafia
  • liviu
    • 0
      liviu  
    • MinneapolisMafia:

      actually reverse osmosis is not really as good as you might think. the process strips the water of vital minerals.
      this means that it creates a mineral vacuum in the water and since water is such a good solvent, once you drink the mineral depleted water it will take all the minerals it can from your body as it goes through.

    • 2 years ago
  • MinneapolisMafia
  • vistapoint
  • DeliaTheArtist
  • slvrGelatin
  • Agent_Alpha
  • cztheday
    • 0
      cztheday  

    • Heh. Good point, NewAmerica, although if you have ever spent any time in Tacoma, Washington, while the paper mills are running full out, you might be willing to spring for a little of that bottled air. They don't call it the "Aroma of Tacoma" for nothing...

    • 2 years ago
  • newamerica2012
  • TabulaRasa
  • TheGecKOo
  • lucidstone
    • 0
      lucidstone  
    • newamerica2012:

      At my father's house they buy bottled water by the case load since the groundwater was contaminated with a local chemical spill nearby a decade or two ago making the well water just barely passable . . . which means the state of NJ doesn't have to clean it up.

      So sometimes the tap water isn't as healthy as bottled water. However, where I live now the tap water is beautiful and it's all that I drink.

    • 2 years ago
  • UBold
    • 0
      UBold  
    • newamerica2012:

      If every plastic is bad, then if you use water purifier it will also be bad wouldn't it? and it's suggesting that, sodas that come in cans are healthier??

      One question, how can of soda be cheaper than bottle of water? Doesn't the soda also use the same water but with just some extra ingredients?

    • 2 years ago
more from Tech:
from the community

top videos