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    Debate Escalates Over Chemical in Plastic Bottles, Cans
    By Tim Christie
    The Register-Guard

    Thursday 20 December 2007

    Colorful, clear, hard plastic bottles are standard issue in Lane County among college students and outdoorsy types who want to stay hydrated while not destroying the planet.

    Environmental groups have long expressed concern about potential health risks posed by a chemical used to make the polycarbonate bottles, but recent separate decisions by two large Canadian retailers - one of them the Canadian equivalent of REI - to yank the bottles from their shelves have suddenly raised the stakes on the issue.

    Bottle-makers say their products are proven safe. But the scientific evidence is complex and unsettled.

    At issue is a chemical called bisphenol A, used in the production of polycarbonate plastics. BPA is everywhere: In addition to the popular water bottles made by Nalgene and other companies, it's found in plastic baby bottles and in the resins used to coat the inside of food cans, bottle tops and water supply pipes. BPA also is used in some dental sealants and tooth coatings.

    BPA has come under greater scrutiny in Canada than in the United States. Health Canada, the country's national health agency, announced earlier this month that it was conducting an assessment of BPA and intends to release a report on its safety next spring that could recommend that manufacturers phase out the use of the chemical.

    Mountain Equipment Cooperative, Canada's largest consumer cooperative with 2.7 million members, has been following the issue for years, spokesman Tim Southam said. On Dec. 7, the co-op said it would stop selling the bottles in its 11 destination stores.

    MEC decided to pull the bottles because of growing concern about BPA on the part of its customers and because of the government review, Southam said.

    "We felt it was a prudent measure to take at this time, given the regulatory uncertainty on the one hand and the increasing concerns we're hearing from customers about BPA," he said. "They were saying, 'How can you in good conscious, as a responsible retailer, continue to sell BPA given the potential health risks?'??"

    On Tuesday, Canadian fitness and yoga apparel retailer Lululemon Athletica followed suit, saying it would stop selling polycarbonate bottles at its 57 stores in North America, Australia and Japan.

    The bans were praised by Environmental Defence, a Canadian environmental group, which said MEC and Lululemon "are the retailers that get it," and predicted other large retailers would follow suit soon.

    Patagonia Inc., the outdoor clothing maker based in Ventura, Calif., was actually the first retailer to take action against polycarbonate bottles, quietly pulling them from its stores in December 2005.

    "We don't know" if the bottles pose a health risk, spokeswoman Jenn Rapp said. "There's just enough evidence out there to make us raise our eyebrows. We decided to err on the safe side and pull them."

    REI, the Seattle-based outdoor-gear retailer, has no plans to stop selling polycarbonate bottles, spokeswoman Megan Behrbaum said. But it has told its employees about MEC's decision so they can offer alternatives if customers express concerns, she said. REI, which has a store in Eugene, also sells stainless steel and aluminum bottles as well as those made from polyethylene, a softer, nonclear plastic.

    "We have chosen to continue to sell the bottles, but we encourage our customers to be informed," she said.

    Bottle-makers and the plastics industry vigorously defend the safety of their products. Government health agencies around the world have studied BPA and concluded polycarbonate containers pose no risk to human health, said Nalgene, a Rochester, N.Y., maker of water bottles and other plastic products.

    "Rarely has a chemical been the subject of such intense scientific testing and scrutiny, and still, important agencies across the globe agree that there is no danger posed to humans from polycarbonate bottles," Tom Cummins, director of research and development at Nalge Nunc, maker of Nalgene bottles, told The New York Times.

    The American Plastics Council said there is some potential for trace amounts of BPA to migrate from polycarbonate, but the level is below the safety-based standards set by government bodies.

    In addition, the council said, the human body metabolizes and excretes BPA.

    In fact, BPA is everywhere, and it's already made its way into virtually all of us: Scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this year that after testing the urine of 2,517 Americans, ages 6 and older, it found the chemical in 93 percent of the samples. Women had higher BPA levels than men. Children had the highest levels, followed by teens and adults.

    But whether the chemical poses a risk to human health effects is less clear.

    A group of 38 scientists published an article last summer in the journal Reproductive Toxicology that said, "The wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans."

    Last month, an 12-member panel of experts assembled by the National Toxicology Program and the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction issued a report examining the reproductive and developmental toxicity of BPA.

    After studying the scientific literature on BPA, the group expressed "some concern" that exposure to BPA could cause neural and behavioral effects for pregnant women and fetuses and for infants and children. It had "minimal" or "negligible" concern that exposure to BPA in utero could cause effects on the prostate, acceleration of puberty or birth defects and malformations for the same groups.

    For adults, the group expressed "negligible concern" for adverse reproductive effects.

    But the report didn't end the controversy surrounding BPA, said Michael Shelby, director of the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction in North Carolina.

    "There have been a lot of big, thorough studies conducted on it," Shelby said. "It has not been shown to cause cancer, not shown to cause birth defects, not shown to cause infertility. Those are the kinds of studies that risk assessors normally look at.

    "At the same time, there are a lot of smaller studies that report effects - small changes at the cellular or molecular level in animals exposed to BPA. Some scientists interpret those effects as being predictive of adverse effects - little preliminary changes that might, in the long run, result in adverse effects."

    On one point, scientists agree, he said: More study is needed.