By Jeremiah
Z Recommends | A week after Z Recommends published an exclusive report that provided extensive evidence that Gaiam water bottles previously marketed as "BPA-free" were likely to contain the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A, the company has quietly added information to its retail website which admits to independent lab test results showing leaching levels at 23.8 parts per billion. These findings are more than ten times the detection limit SIGG said revealed no leaching from their own bottles and over 18 times more than the leaching levels found in independent testing of SIGG bottles shared with ZRecs by an anonymous source.
SIGG's revelation of the use of BPA in their aluminum water bottles after years of obfuscation sent the company into a PR tailspin, despite their claims of no leaching, and their readiness with a new BPA-free alternative. In the case of Gaiam, the company itself has admitted to leaching at nearly twenty times that detected in SIGG bottles, in bottles currently being sold, after explicitly marketing them as BPA-free as recently as Spring 2009, claims Gaiam customer service representatives repeated to ZRecs less than a month ago.
Notes added to Gaiam's aluminum water bottle listings read, in part:
Single-use plastic water bottles and reusable plastic bottles made of certain types of hard polycarbonate plastic have been shown to leach toxins including BPA into the water inside the bottle under normal use and care conditions. ...
We also asked our water bottle manufacturer to comprehensively test our aluminum bottles for BPA, using industry-standard test methods. No detectable levels of BPA were found in the gasket, the cap or the coating material in testing under normal use and care conditions.
We also took additional steps to help ensure your safety via independent laboratory tests that go well beyond FDA requirements. An independent lab subjected our aluminum water bottles to continuous extreme heat - nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit - in an environmental chamber for three days while the bottles were filled with water. Under these extreme conditions, a trace amount of BPA (23.8 parts per billion) was detected in the water inside the bottle. This test was performed under conditions outside the normal use and care conditions we recommend on our product packaging and shopping website. For example, we explain that the bottle should not be washed in a dishwasher or filled with any hot liquids.
(You can find the above statement, and a few other notes, added to listings like the one for the "Gold Medallion" water bottle design, the contents of which we documented with screen captures in our September 30 report.)
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