From Ecopedia

Overview

In recent times, drinking water that is packaged in plastic bottles gained widespread popularity and usage across the entire world.

Most commonly, drinking water is packaged in bottles made of either Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic or polycarbonate plastic.

FDA Regulations

The use of either plastics or plastic additives is bound by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (U.S. FDA’s) review and regulations. In order to ensure health and environmental safety, the U.S. FDA does a careful review of plastic packaging material prior to the marketing of the bottles.

The U.S.FDA recommends the use of PET bottles for water storage, as the PET material is shatter resistant, extremely lightweight and labeled “safest” by testing experts.

FDA after examining the migration potential of plastics concluded that very minimal transfer occurs between a plastic bottle and water, with no apparent risk to the user’s health or the environment in general.

Environmental Effects

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), PET water bottles leach toxic antimony into the water, leading to water contamination. The agency, however, assures that the leaching levels are found to be at environmentally-safe levels.

At present, the major cause of concern for the environmentalists is the leaching of toxic DEHA into the water on reusing the bottles.

Bisphenol A (BPA)

Main Article: Bisphenol A

Polycarbonate Plastics contain the toxic chemical, Bisphenol A (BPA), which is shown to cause serious health problems, besides contaminating the environment by interfering with the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia (nitrogen fixation).

A National Toxicology Program reported that the BPA compound apart from contaminating the environment is found to cause indirect harm to the environment by degrading BPA-containing products such as the ocean-borne plastic waste.

An environmental group in Canada reported that initial studies on BPA showed that BPA at low levels causes harm to marine life, especially to the fish population.

In 2009, a study concluded that BPA is found to impair biological development of marine animals by inducing harmful genetic aberrations.

Improper Disposal

The disposal of plastic water bottles is posing a serious environmental threat, as the number of plastic bottles getting disposed each year is increasing enormously, while the recycling rates of used water bottles is below significant levels (around 30%).

In 2003, only 12% (an approximate estimate) of “custom” bottles made of plastic were recycled, leaving the rest of about 40 million bottles per day into waste dumps.

In the US, only three states, Hawaii, Maine and California included plastic water bottles in the bottle deposit law, which was created to offer several recycling incentives to the public. The move was initiated to promote the reduction of plastic ocean trash, which according to the United Nations is estimated to be around 46, 000 plastic trash per square mile of ocean.

Marine debris plastic, thus, is a matter of grave concern to the environmentalists.

References

http://www.plasticsinfo.org/s_plasticsinfo/sec_level2_faq.asp?CID=705&DID=2839 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse_of_water_bottles http://www.nrdc.org/thisgreenlife/0902.asp http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279230/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A#Environmental_risk