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Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

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Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#101

Post by armitron »

hourislate wrote: post #78

I was under the impression Gerolsteiner and San Pellegrino were from deep under ground springs where it took the water decades or more to filter down into the source where the bottler draws it from. Are the plastics somehow in the source or are they being introduced in another way, perhaps when the bottles are washed, handled, etc before filling?

The bottles themselves are suspicious and have been implicated [1]. All plastics have been found to leech chemicals, including PET [2] which is used for bottled water.

If you think that in a typical warehouse or storage facility (before it hits a supermarket or sales point), bottled water is never refrigerated and that the temperatures it is exposed to are very frequently 'extreme', it should come as no surprise that the plastic can break down and contaminate the water.

A most troubling observation is that even plastics labeled BPA-free or strongly marketed as baby-safe seem to make no difference, in many cases actually being orders of magnitude worse than the plastics they replaced [3].

The precautionary principle should strongly characterize -all- plastics as unsafe but in reality, governments are very slow to respond. Especially, in the US, regulatory capture has made the FDA ignore plenty of scientific evidence and basically treat all chemicals as safe unless proven otherwise. [3]

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/07/expos...

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/04/29/2555698.h...

[3] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certi...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#102

Post by wibble10 »

cerebellum42 wrote: post #79
throwaway66920 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Berlin (as opposed to other areas of Germany) culturally ok with drinking tap water?

I'd say all of Germany is culturally very much ok with drinking tap water, Berlin not much more or less than other regions. People who drink bottled water here don't usually do it because they think it's "better" than tap water, it's either because of convenience when you're not home or because they like carbonated water (which is very popular in Germany).

A lot of the buildings in Berlin have very old pipes and while the water to the building is alright, we (in Berlin) have to rely mainly on glass bottles of water (bismark) as if you don’t run the taps enough there’s a nice colour that comes out...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#103

Post by reroute1 »

notadoc wrote: post #50
40four wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm curious is some of the outliers at the high end were from older bottles that had been on the shelf longer.

Or perhaps if they were exposed to heat, oxidation, or physical stress even (dropped, squeezed, overly pressurized)

This was the story I had heard years ago, that they are left in the heat/sun and the plastic of the bottles can melt into the water.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#104

Post by AJ007 »

armitron wrote: post #98
dunham wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dig down to the results, San Pellegrino is one of the lowest: https://orbmedia.org/stories/plus-plastic/ About halfway down the page. The graphs make it look like they didn't take too many samples per brand though.

I'm wondering which version of San Pellegrino they tested, since it also comes in a glass bottle. It is probable that a significant contamination factor is the plastic bottle itself, which would explain why San Pellegrino is low on the list.

You have to look at the equipment used in the processing as well. Whats in your food? No idea. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/whats-in-your-chil...

On the other side of things, maybe your glass bottled water is microplastic free, but has other serious contaminants. The second largest arsenic bottled water was in glass containers: https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/arsenic-in-som...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#105

Post by Richard_East »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #7

I wonder if all the articles talking about the prevalence of microplastics, are in actuality demonstrating the safety of microplastics. If it is in 93% of bottled water, and bottled water is used by millions of people (according to https://www.consumerreports.org/bottled-water/should-we-brea... around 110 Million people in the US avoid drinking tap water), then there has been widespread exposure to microplastics. It…

"From 1973 to 2011, there was a decline of more than 50 percent in sperm counts among men living in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand."

"The researchers said that they cannot determine from their data what might have caused the decline, but it could be related to environmental or lifestyle factors."

https://www.livescience.com/59948-sperm-count-drop-western-m...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#106

Post by _0ffh »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #81
groby_b wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for microplastics. If you live e.g. in the Bay Area, your tap water instead has a good chance of having a good helping of hexavalent chromium[1], which... not too healthy. (Neither are arsenic, bromium, etc.) Pick your poison. Literally. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tap-water-Bay-Area-datab...

Is this something that would be removed with common cheap consumer filters? (such as Britta) I drink a lot of tap water, but always put it through a filter of some sort.

If you don't mind a bit of work (weekly rinsing) and discarding part of the water, I'd recommend a reverse osmosis filter. They're reasonably cheap and beat the crap out of all the alternatives for non-professional users. You'll essentially have to add back some salts after the filtration process to turn it into something that won't demineralise you.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#107

Post by mrob »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #77
vangourd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put salt in your water?

Wouldn't you taste that?

Yes, and it would improve the taste. If you like San Pellegrino, you can get a similar taste at much lower cost by adding "Burton Salts" (a blend of salts meant to imitate the water of Burton on Trent, which is famously well suited for making pale ales, widely available from brewing suppliers) to soft water.

And people have made spreadsheets to help with cloning specific mineral waters with the exact blend of salts, e.g.:

https://blog.khymos.org/2012/01/04/mineral-waters-a-la-carte...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#108

Post by jquery »

groby_b wrote: post #92
zaroth wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, just the vast majority of the US (geographically and population wise) has incredibly good tap water, with a long tail of famously bad exceptions to the rule.

63 million people is a really, really long tail.

How does this compare to the EU? It's one thing for tap water to not be perfect, it's quite another for it to be as bad as Flint, MI. What's the true distribution here?

Making people unreasonably afraid of tap water just seems irresponsible.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#110

Post by mdorazio »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #81
groby_b wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for microplastics. If you live e.g. in the Bay Area, your tap water instead has a good chance of having a good helping of hexavalent chromium[1], which... not too healthy. (Neither are arsenic, bromium, etc.) Pick your poison. Literally. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tap-water-Bay-Area-datab...

Is this something that would be removed with common cheap consumer filters? (such as Britta) I drink a lot of tap water, but always put it through a filter of some sort.

Took some poking around to piece together a real answer, but the ion exchange component in a standard Brita filter (or similar pour-through) isn't the right kind to trap chromium (mostly just zinc, copper, and cadmium). You either need a higher-grade ion exchange filter (you can search for "Chromium 6 Water Filter" on Amazon) or a reverse osmosis system.
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