Bottled water and other drinks in plastic bottles may not be as safe as you think. According to Martin Wagner and Jörg Oehlmann from the Department of Aquatic Ecotoxicology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, plastic water bottles contaminate drinking water with estrogenic chemicals.
The researchers found evidence of estrogenic compounds which leach and come out of the plastic packaging into the water. These chemicals result in an increased development of embryos in the New Zealand mud snail.
The researchers analyzed 20 brands of mineral water available in Germany which included 9 bottled in glass, 9 bottled in plastic and 2 bottled in composite packaging. The researchers took water samples from the bottles and tested them for the presence of estrogenic chemicals. They then carried out a reproduction test with the New Zealand mud snail to determine the source and potency.
They detected estrogen contamination in 60% or out of 12 of the 20 brandsthat were analyzed. Water in glass bottles was found to be less estrogenic than in plastic bottles.
By breeding the New Zealand mud snail in both plastic and glass water bottles, the researchers found more than double the number of embryos in plastic bottles compared with glass bottles. Taken together, these results demonstrate widespread contamination of the water tested with potent man-made estrogens that leach out of the plastic packaging material.
The materials appeared in the journal article entitled “Endocrine disruptors in bottled mineral water: total estrogenic burden and migration from plastic bottles.” The journal article was writen by Wagner et al. and appeared in Environmental Science and Pollution Research by Springer.
If drinking bottles causes side effects, then why is there any action regarding it? They should do something, to protect the lives of many people drinking on a plastic bottle.