Tag: bottled water

The REAL Reason Bottled Water Has An Expiration Date

3D render illustration of the row of plastic bottles with clear purified drink carbonated water isolated on white background with selective focus effect

(Ready Nutrition by Sara Tipton) Bottled water is a popular item to store in case of an emergency, and for good reason. It is normally readily available and water should be able to be stored forever, right?  So then why is there an expiration date on bottled water?

Of course, water doesn’t expire, but you should still check the expiration date on the bottle before you drink it. According to Live Science, there a few different reasons why water bottles come with expiration dates, and the first one, you shouldn’t worry too much about, but the second one should make you think twice.

Since water is a consumable product, regulations and laws require bottles to be stamped with an expiration date even though water doesn’t ever “expire.” Rational people understand this, but the government feels the need to step in and protect us from ourselves anyway. The only reason they were put there in the first place was that a 1987 New Jersey state law required all food products to display an expiration date, including water, according to Mental Floss. Since it wasn’t very cost effective for companies to label and ship batches of expiration-dated water to one state alone, most bottled water producers simply started giving every bottle a two-year sell-by date—no matter where it was going. Because the law is rather arbitrary, don’t worry too much about drinking expired water just because a law demands a company stamp the bottle. However, the expiration date serves more of a warning about the bottle itself than the water contained inside.

Unlike the water itself, which has existed on Earth for 4.5 billion years, that manufactured plastic bottle only has so much time before it “goes bad.” The plastic bottles that water comes packaged in (usually polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for retail bottles and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) for water cooler jugs). The bottle will eventually fail (expire) and begin to leach plastic chemicals into the water with an effect on the overall taste. So if you happen to find a water bottle well past its printed expiration date in your home, it’s probably safe to drink, if you don’t mind the chemical bits of bottle which have broken down and are now swirling around in it, but you should also be aware of the fact that it might not be super fresh tasting anymore either.  But in a life and death situation, you could drink well-expired bottled water and probably be alright. But there are many options for storing water that could help you avoid drinking the plastic.

PLASTIC CONTAINERS

That said, storing water for a disaster or emergency should be done in only food grade containers. You can avoid plastics such as HDPE and PET to prevent the leaching of chemicals, but those are, technically “food grade” plastics (according to the FDA – so take that with a grain of salt) and you may not have a way around it. Also, choosing BPA-free containers will be safer as well. If water is not stored correctly, it can (and will) become toxic.  You can minimize the chances of plastic chemicals leaching into your water if you store it in a cool dry place.  Direct sunlight will break down the plastic more quickly. But if there is any doubt in your mind at all about the integrity of your container, trust your gut over the labels and do not store water in that container even if the FDA says its safe to do so.  There are plenty of other options.

5 Short Term Methods to Store Water

One water storage suggestion is a 55-Gallon Rainwater Collection System. Some are made from FDA approved polyethylene resin (and are also BPA free). This particular one has a  plastic barrel and the capacity to hold enough water to supply a family of 4 with over 13 days worth of water, or 2 people nearly a 30 day supply of water. The dark blue color of this 55-gallon barrel restricts light and helps control the growth of harmful algae and bacteria.

You can also use glass containers to store water.  There is no chance that the container will leach and if you’ve got some extra mason jars laying around after canning, it may be a good way to put those to some good use.  Of course, the major disadvantage of glass is that it’s not only heavy, it is pretty easy to break. However, steps can be taken to minimize the chances of the glass breaking, such as wrapping the glass containers with newspaper or cardboard. Check out these highly-rated 18 oz leak-proof glass bottles for your water storage needs if you decide glass is right for you.

The best way to ensure you have enough water on hand and a replenishable supply of the water is to get a mechanized well.  This is my family’s method of “storing” water. We don’t actually have to store any at all, though, and can focus on building our supply of ammunition and non-perishable foods because of it.  Of course, we have the well on a pump that works with electricity, however, we also have devised a way to retrieve water from the well in the event of a crisis or disaster in which we have no power. It is important to keep in mind that this is more of a water generation system than “storage” system, but its the most effective for long-term disasters and therefore worth mentioning. Since wells both store and produce water, if you can build one on your property, you should have a good source of drinking water during an emergency. As the website, Skilled Survival put it: this is highly dependent on how much of your well is mechanized. But the fact remains: someone with a working water well is going to survive a disaster far easier than the rest.

Coca-Cola Admits Its Dasani Bottled Water May Be Contaminated With Plastic

This week, a study of eleven popular water bottle brands revealed microplastics are pervasive in packaging around the world. Though this may be unsurprising considering the widespread use of plastics, Coca-Cola admitted the possibility that their water products contain synthetic materials.

The research was commissioned by Orb Media, a non-profit journalistic organization, and conducted by researchers at the State University of New York. International brands tested included Nestlé Pure Life, Evian, San Pellegrino, Dasani (owned by Coca-Cola), and Aquafina (owned by Pepsi), and overall, the results indicated there were microplastics in 93 percent of the bottles tested.

Nestlé clocked the highest rate of microplastics per liter, with a high of 10,390 particles per liter (ppl). By comparison, the average for all brands tested was 325 ppl. Dasani aligned with the average, coming in at 335 ppl. Aquafina was at 1,295 while Evian and San Pellegrino had smaller amounts than the average (256 and 75, respectively). National brands had significant rates, including Aqua of Indonesia (4,713), Bisleri of India (5,230), and Epura of Mexico (2,267).

Related:  How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

Of the 259 bottles tested from 19 locations in nine countries, only 17 were entirely free of microplastics.

Though Nestlé had the highest rate of plastics, the company disputed the findings. In a statement to the BBC, they said “its own internal testing for microplastics began more than two years ago and had not detected any ‘above trace level,’” the outlet reported. “A spokesman added that Prof Mason’s study missed key steps to avoid ‘false positives’ but he invited Orb Media to compare methods.”

Despite Nestlé’s skepticism of the results and the valid caveat that the study has not been peer-reviewed, Andrew Mayes, a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of East Anglia — and the developer of the Nile Red method the researchers employed —  generally approved of the methods.“This is pretty substantial,” he said. “I’ve looked in some detail at the finer points of the way the work was done, and I’m satisfied that it has been applied carefully and appropriately, in a way that I would have done it in my lab.”

Related: Drinking Bottled Water Means Drinking Microplastics, According To Damning New Study

Coca-Cola seemed more willing to admit the possibility that microplastics are widespread in water — even in their own product. As the BBC noted, the company “said it had some of the most stringent quality standards in the industry and used a ‘multi-step filtration process.’” But it, too, acknowledged that microplastics “appear to be ubiquitous and therefore may be found at minute levels even in highly treated products.’”

Like Nestlé, Pepsi appeared to shirk the issue. They cited “rigorous quality control measures sanitary manufacturing practices, filtration and other food safety mechanisms which yield a reliably safe product.” They described the study of microplastics as  “an emerging field, in its infancy, which requires further scientific analysis, peer-reviewed research and greater collaboration across many stakeholders.”

This is true, at least to some extent. Experts are not sure that microplastics can cause harm to human health. According to Bruce Gordon, coordinator of the WHO’s global work on water and sanitation:

When we think about the composition of the plastic, whether there might be toxins in it, to what extent they might carry harmful constituents, what actually the particles might do in the body – there’s just not the research there to tell us.

The findings published by ORB have prompted a WHO investigation, though Gordon continued:

We normally have a ‘safe’ limit but to have a safe limit, to define that, we need to understand if these things are dangerous, and if they occur in water at concentrations that are dangerous.

According to Sherri Mason, who oversaw the research:

What we do know is that some of these particles are big enough that, once ingested, they are probably excreted but along the way they can release chemicals that cause known human health impacts.

Some of these particles are so incredibly small that they can actually make their way across the gastro-intestinal tract, across the lining and be carried throughout the body, and we don’t know the implications of what that means on our various organs and tissues.

Though the health consequences are still unclear, Orb’s findings further highlight the ramifications of unmitigated plastic use. As Mason said of the recent water bottle findings:

We found [plastic] in bottle after bottle and brand after brand.

It’s not about pointing fingers at particular brands; it’s really showing that this is everywhere, that plastic has become such a pervasive material in our society, and it’s pervading water – all of these products that we consume at a very basic level.

An analysis conducted last year, also commissioned by Orb, found microplastics are present in tap water from over a dozen countries. They are also widespread in oceans around the world.