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Claim: Plastic water bottles have been proved to break down into carcinogenic compounds when reused or frozen.
Examples:
Origins: The first bit of plastic bottle scarelore quoted above was based upon a master's thesis from a University of Idaho graduate student, one which was unfortunately reported upon by the media despite its lack of peer review. According to The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA):
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water as a packaged food product and, for bottled water and all other foods and their packaging, FDA has determined that PET meets standards for food contact materials.
(Note that the The basis for [the e-mail was] a college student's masters thesis that was not subject to peer review and did not reflect a level of scientific rigor that would provide accurate and reliable information about the safety of these products. Fortunately, FDA requires a much higher standard to make decisions about food contact packaging. DEHA, as mentioned in the email is neither regulated nor classified as a human carcinogen. Further, DEHA is not inherent in PET plastic as raw material, byproduct or decomposition product. DEHA has been cleared by FDA for food contact applications and would not pose a health risk even if present. DEHA is a common plasticizer used in many plastic items, many of which are found in the lab setting. For this reason, the student's detection (see comment above) is likely to have been the result of inadvertent lab contamination. Also note that PET plastics used for bottled water containers are not unique to this product type and is the same as PET plastics used to package other common foods and beverages. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at one time included DEHA on the list of toxic chemicals maintained under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), but they have since removed it from the list because DEHA "cannot reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer, teratogenic effects, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, gene mutations, liver, kidney, reproductive, or developmental toxicity or other serious or irreversible chronic health effects." And, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), diethylhexyl adipate "is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans." More recent studies have claimed that some plastic products (including plastic baby bottles) leach miniscule amounts of
[Environment California's] report is the latest rebuttal in the debate between environmental researchers and government bodies who disagree on the health risks of
Some cities, such as San Francisco, have enacted bans on toys and other plastic products containing "I think that some of the things (Environment California) say are based somewhat on their political views," said David Weiss, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who reviewed the report and other studies on the topic. He said the concentrations of the chemical are so low that they are below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "levels of concern." The acceptable intake established by the EPA is .05 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day. The study's findings are noted in "parts per billion," making a comparison difficult, though the study notes that the amount of As for the claim that freezing plastic bottles releases dioxins into the water they contain, Johns Hopkins researcher
Q: What do you make of this recent email warning that claims dioxins can be released by freezing water in plastic bottles?
Additional information:
A: This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics. In addition, freezing actually works against the release of chemicals. Chemicals do not diffuse as readily in cold temperatures, which would limit chemical release if there were dioxins in plastic, and we don't think there are.
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