The dangers of bottled water left in your car
Posted November 28th, 2008 by admin
Urban myth or wise warning? I received an email from my friend Amanda warning of the dangers of using plastic containers and plastic wrap in microwaves which can be highly toxic and lead to cancer. Also, there were warnings about drinking from plastic bottles of water left in the car over night. Now these ‘Erumours’ have been around for a while and are fairly difficult to get to the bottom of but my question is this - should we just ignore them just because we can’t prove them?
I’m not a fan of the microwave anyway and probably use it once a year to reheat something but for a lot of people, it’s a really convenient machine that saves them time. Should they be ditching their plastic containers which are said to release harmful dioxins into their food and switch to glass Pyrex dishes?
I do however always have a bottle of lukewarm water in the car that I drink from before I replace it with another one. Since reading the email, I have to say I’ve stopped doing it. I’m not a likely candidate for breast cancer anyway but I’m not convinced that plastics when heated don’t react with the water.
So is this all nonsense and scare mongering or is there a grain of truth in it? That’s for each of you to decide!!!
3 Responses to “The dangers of bottled water left in your car”
November 29th, 2008 at 4:05 am
One of the fantastic things about plastic is that it doesn’t dissolve in water. Plastic does slowly expel minute amounts various chemicals over time, what those chemicals are actually depend on how it was manufactured. But that release takes a very long time.
I don’t think levels released would be high enough over such a short period. Properties of plastic kind of evaporate over a very long time, similar in process to stainless steal. (not that the two materials are anything alike.)
November 29th, 2008 at 10:00 am
The problem isn’t just the possibility of chemicals leaching into the water when a bottle is left to heat up in a car. The real problem is the quality of the water before it is injected into the bottle at the plant.
Bottled water is, in many cases, merely municipal tap water, and so has some significant drawbacks, the least of which is that it is unregulated for quality by the FDA and EPA in interstate commerce. Next, of course, is the wasted plastic not to mention the carbon emissions generated to make the bottles, fill the bottles and transport the bottles to market. Then there is the fact that approximately 15% or so of the bottles are actually recycled. This is an environmental nightmare.
One of the solutions to the water problem is our DewPointe™ atmospheric water system. The remarkable DewPointe™ makes water from the air, about 2-3 gallons a day or more in more humid climates. The water is 99.99% pure. It is completely free from all manmade and natural contaminants including petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, heavy metals, etc. It is “just pure water”.
November 29th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Why take the water out of the air? Why not just distill it? Wouldn’t the effect be the same? We use distilled water for laboratory use because of its purity.
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