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By Wendy Bumgardner, About.com Guide to Walking since 1996

Looking for a BPA-Free Water Bottle?

Thursday May 1, 2008
I volunteered at a large community walking event last weekend and a local medical center donated 3000 water bottles for the participants. I fielded several inquiries as to whether these bottles were "safe." The walkers had heard of the bisphenol-A (BPA) concerns in Plastic #7 polycarbonate water bottles. These bottles were of the opaque polyethylene, which isn't made with BPA. I also received advertising email from companies jumping on the BPA-free bandwagon. If people are concerned, they are happy to sell them new water bottles made of materials that never had BPA (including aluminum, stainless steel, polypropylene and polyethylene) or newly formulated BPA-free polycarbonate. You can check your current water bottle by looking on the bottom for the embossed triangle. If there is a 7 inside the triangle recycling symbol, it may be polycarbonate and may or may not be manufactured using BPA. In other words, if there is any number except 7 in the triangle, it is BPA-free. If there is a 7, you would have to check the labeling further to see whether it is BPA-free.

Reviews of BPA-Free Water Bottles

Comments

May 10, 2008 at 10:00 am
(1) Cecilia says:

this article is confusing…can you re-define what “is” safe? thanks

May 10, 2008 at 10:13 am
(2) Wendy B says:

If you are afraid of BPA, then look for either: 1. A bottle with a number other than 7 in the recycling triangle at the bottom of the bottle. Or 2. A bottle labeled BPA-free, which may or may not have a 7 in the triangle. If it isn’t labled BPA-free and it has a 7 in the triangle and the product insert says it is polycarbonate, then it might have been manufactured with BPA. This is especially true if you’ve had it a few years.

May 14, 2008 at 12:27 pm
(3) William a says:

I know there is now a BPA free Polycarbonate water Bottle offered in Nova Scotia Canada. Just a side note on the Aluminum Water bottle, most have a resin on the inside containing BPA. There are also Stainless steel water bottles that do not contain BPA

July 4, 2008 at 3:22 pm
(4) Billy says:

There is also the bpa free Titan Water Bottle, invented by a guy in Bozeman, MT. It uses the same tritan material Nalgene and Camelbak are starting to use for their bpa free water bottles.
You can check it out at
http://www.titanwaterbottle.com

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