SIGG Water bottle users...they DO contain BPA.

[dirtylicious]

exactly why I got a Kleen Kanteen bottle instead of Sigg.

[h2]The SIGG BPA Confession: You aren't going to like it any more than we do[/h2]
By Jeremiah | August 20, 2009 | 66 comments / Join the conversation!

Swiss sports and children's bottle maker SIGG has admitted what many consumer advocates have suspected for years, but never proven: That the epoxy lining used for years in SIGG bottles - which they secretly swapped out for a new liner last summer - contained the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A. There's more to the story than that, but the bottom line is that this company is in a very vulnerable position, and there are a couple of factors that will make it hard for them to claim the high road on this issue.

[h2]Which bottle do I have?[/h2]
Let's figure out what you have - if you have any SIGG water bottles, I'm guessing that's the first thing you want to know.

If you own SIGG bottles you purchased before August 2008, you definitely have one with the old liner. But even SIGG bottles that are less than a year old don't necessarily have the new liner. In fact, SIGG's announcement may be somewhat conveniently timed - it can take several months for products to move through the supply chain, and if I were a betting man I'd bet that many of the SIGG bottles with the BPA-containing liner were being sold as late as this spring.

But it's easy to compare them by sight alone. The old version of the liner is very brassy looking, like the inside of a can of tomatoes. The new liner is dull and beige.

As a case in point, a product sample SIGG sent us in the fall of 2008 actually has the old liner.

[h2]SIGG's slippery claims[/h2]
Consumer groups have been alleging since at least 2007 that SIGG bottles are lined with a BPA-containing epoxy, and on the face of it the claim makes sense - SIGG bottles are aluminum, after all, the same material used in canned foods, infant formula, and soda that have been second-class citizens in the debate over BPA exposure. SIGG, in turn, maintained that their bottles did not leach BPA, but that they could not disclose the formula for the liner because it was made by someone else. It is important to note here that they did not claim not to know what was in the formula, only that they could not or would not reveal it. As SIGG Switzerland CEO Steve Wasik explained it in April 2008:

SIGG has proprietary rights with a 3rd party producer of our liner formula. In other words, we do not produce it ourselves. This supplier is based in Switzerland and has an impeccable reputation for quality and safety. SIGG is the only water bottle on the market to use this special liner. As there are many copy-cat manufacturers in the market (most based in China) that would like to get their hands on this formula, our supplier has an agreement with SIGG to keep his formula confidential.

Because we know that this liner is the very best on the market and we have had a positive working relationship with this supplier, we have honored that agreement.


With that context in mind, let's jump back to early 2007, when the Environmental Working Group published a guide to BPA-free products that listed SIGG water bottles as containing BPA. SIGG responded by demanding that the organization either furnish proof that this was true or remove SIGG from its list. Listen to the very carefully crafted language of then-SIGG USA president Wasik:

On March 9th, it was brought to my attention that a website sponsored by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) made mention that SIGG bottles contain plastic liners with bisphenol A (BPA).

I can assure you that SIGG bottles are absolutely not made with a plastic liner and are in fact lined with a proprietary non-toxic, water-based resin which has been refined over decades of study and is extremely safe & stable.

Based on the confidence we have in our product backed by numerous laboratory studies, we questioned the EWG and requested that they provide us with the testing they have conducted on SIGG - or alternatively to remove the "SIGG" mention from their website if they have not tested SIGG. Within 24 hours of this request, the EWG removed SIGG's name from their report. [Via Eco Child's Play]


I encourage you to read those paragraphs again. There are great ravines of fact bridged by carefully chosen inference. And they helped ensure that SIGG benefited mightily from the rampant purchases of aluminum and stainless steel water bottles Americans made in 2007 and 2008 to replace their Nalgene and other polycarbonate sports bottles. Where would SIGG have been if they had admitted to having BPA in their product at the time, but assured consumers that it would not leach out?

Meanwhile, the Organic Consumers Association had picked up the SIGG contains BPA claim, and reported that consumers should avoid SIGG bottles along with many other known BPA-containing products. They published this in the March 8, 2007 issue of their newsletter, Organic Bytes.

But SIGG was edited out of that document, too - even the PDF version of the newsletter! - after an unspecified party alerted the OCA to SIGG's counter-claim. In the next issue of Organic Bytes, editors Craig Minowa and Ronnie Cummins wrote:

In Issue #104, we ran a piece with quick tips on how to avoid toxic BPA. One of our bullet points mentioned avoiding SIGG water bottles (among other brands). We acquired that information from the Environmental Working Group. Unfortunately, the data was slightly dated. SIGG has since gone BPA-free, so it is now safe to purchase SIGG water bottles.


SIGG began releasing independent testing showing that its bottles leached no BPA in tests that mimicked liquids like colas, fruit juices, and water. These tests don't appear to be any different from the kinds of tests Canada would do if SIGG wanted to import bottles with that liner into our BPA-banning neighbor's home turf - put the material up against a liquid, wait, and see what comes out. In other words, Health Canada and anyone else who regulates BPA will not test for the presence of BPA in the material itself; they will test to see if BPA comes out of the material. It is entirely conceivable that a material could be made using BPA but be so well-engineered and so carefully used that it does not leach BPA, and that appears to be what SIGG accomplished with its third-party provider.

Still, things seemed a little funny. As Amelia Royko Maurer of the green online shop Free Market Organics wrote in an undated page of notes and clippings on her website:

When I bought my first Sigg bottle, I called the company up and asked what the liner was all about. They said something like they were working on a patent and could not yet reveal what it was. So I waited and wrote again. Then I would just periodically check in at their website to see if they had given the answer yet. Finally one day it said the liner was a "water based epoxy resin". If you look today, they have removed the word epoxy, but the funny thing is, none of their other retailers have, which looks a little obvious, especially since their descriptions of it all match accept for the missing word "epoxy." They mention that it is not plastic - which is true, nonetheless, BPA is used to make most epoxy resins. [Link]


For much of this period, we assumed that SIGG was either bluffing about knowing whether the product was made using BPA (it wouldn't sound very good to admit you were using a coating but weren't entitled to the formula, would it?) or that there was some strange legal quandary that prevented them from coming out and explicitly saying their product was BPA-free. (Incidentally, many companies that have been selling products as BPA-free must now wrestle with some of those questions.) Because of these unanswered questions, we chose not to flag SIGG bottles with BPA as a "chemical of concern" in the ZRecs Guide, but flagged our level of confidence in the information provided by the company as "Low," because it was clear SIGG was failing to disclose something, although we couldn't be certain what.

We'll be changing it soon to reflect SIGG's new revelation, so this is for posterity:

 

[bkzkurse]

In all honesty - those bottles should have been disposed of as soon as any rumors of something that serious came out

are the bottles like really popular pr frequently used? I've never seen any

 

[ittakesalittlebitmore]

I have an old Patagonia x SIGG water bottle with the old lining....so now its worthless?? Cant I get my money back for it? Patagonia been duped too

 

[airmaxplus]

i bought mine pre 2008 so i guess i have the old liner but i've not used it for a while.

 

[downyboy]

At this point the safest way to drink water might be straight from a river.

 

[mangudai954]

Thanks for posting this.

 

[ittakesalittlebitmore]

Originally Posted by DownyBoy

At this point the safest way to drink water might be straight from a river.

If the river is truly clean that is

 

[dirtylicious]

[h1]Find a BPA Free Alternative To SIGG[/h1]

 

[ashleythetall]

crap. #%%!##$

 

[davidisgodly]

I bought a klean kanteen yesterday

.

 

[zk1mpls]

good thing I bought a Nalgene Everday over this.

 

[lazyj10]

Dirty should live in Berkley part time I feel...

a couple of the Partners here have the Sigg ones...I'm not going to take that bullet.

 

[il prescelto]

i have a kleen kanteen myself.

 

[dream5hift]

I have two kleen kanteen. No problems with these brands right?

 

[jpap348]

Kleen Kanteen

 

[dirtylicious]

[h1]SIGG Will Replace BPA-Containing Bottles For Free[/h1]
By Laura Northrup, 7:00 AM on Wed Aug 26 2009, 968 views

Last week, Swiss company SIGG splashed a bunch of ice water in the faces of consumers who go out of their way to avoid products containing bisphenol-A (BPA). The company announced that the linings formerly used in their aluminum bottles did, in fact, contain the controversial substance.

Now they plan to make up for the misunderstanding with an offer of free replacement bottles.

Reader Jason sent a letter to CEO State Wasik, and received the following response (which, somewhat inexplicably, came through Gmail in Comic Sans):

From: Wasik Steve
Date: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Subject: RE: My Sigg bottle.
To: Jason
Cc: [email protected]

Hi Jason,

First off, thank you for taking the time to write to me.

I understand your point and recognize that there is a lot of confusion about BPA out there right now. To my knowledge, we at SIGG have never advertised our old liner bottles as being BPA free. Sometimes SIGG retailers or journalists will hear the "no leaching of BPA" message and inadvertently shorten that in their communications to "no BPA".

We believe we have the best protective liners in the world and have been extremely transparent with the testing of our bottles which you may have seen in the info section on our site (www.MySIGG.com/bulletin). The controversy that has swirled around BPA in the past has involved the problems of plastic bottles leaching BPA into the water - and in my 4 years with the company, SIGG has never had a problem with leaching. For the record, my family and I are still drinking from SIGG bottles with the former non-leaching liner which I have complete confidence in.

I have passed your note to our Customer Service Department. They will contact you directly to help you to exchange your old SIGG bottles for new SIGG bottles with the BPA-free EcoCare liner. This is a voluntary exchange program (not a recall as the bottles you have are still safe). Therefore, we are asking people who wish to exchange the bottles to pay the postage for sending them in and we pay the postage for sending them to you. I think this is fair.

I hope that you will continue to have confidence in the quality and safety of SIGG products. Thanks again for your email.

Best regards,

Steve


For information on how to exchange your own bottle, send an e-mail to [email protected] - and to express your displeasure, send an email to [email protected]. If you're looking for a new water bottle, check out these recommendations from Z Recommends

 

[mangudai954]

Forgot to ask, what changed your mind about BPA?

 

[hovkid]

Here's what my wife used for our daughter when she was drinking from a bottle:

Website: http://www.newbornfree.com/

 

[supermanblue79]

People waste a lot of money on drinking water these days.
I'm in the wrong business.

 

[dirtylicious]

Originally Posted by Mangudai954

Forgot to ask, what changed your mind about BPA?

no particular one thing...
but better safe than sorry...
not saying it's linked...but there's gotta be a reason why developmental problems are on the rise with kids these days...something in the water...whatwe eat... etc

 

[itz rolli]

i've been using klean kanteens as well.

but i just bought a Polar bottle, so my drinks have insulation.

I hate riding with my klean kanteen in the summertime. An hour into the ride it turns cold into hot water.

 

[yan can cook]

I have three siggs and lost my klean kanteen

 

[marath0n]

Ionized Water FTW

 

[kash55]

Those jerks!

 

[apollo xxxiii]

I knew I should have copped a 1L Kleen Kanteen instead.

I've been using a SIGG the past year. Is something bad going to happen to me now?