My Super-Duper New Water Bottle

After eagerly watcing the mail for a week, today I finally received my new, all-aluminum, earth friendly, BPA-free water bottle, made by the swiss-based company, Sigg! Groovy baby! I found this cute, black and neon-lettered bottle that bears the message "Make Love Not Landfill" on Amazon several months ago. I absolutely loved the hippie-style graphics and message, but I wondered why someone would drink water out of an aluminum bottle insteaed of the typical, plastic bottle. I did some research and became educated on something called Bisphenol-A, or BPA for short.

Bisphenol-A is, by definition, "a hormone-disrupting chemical considered to be potentially harmful to human health and the environment. It has been known that scratched and worn polycarbonate bottles (and even cans) will leach this chemical into liquids." Now I thought this sounded a little paranoid. After all, I was raised eating and drinking out of plastic bottles and containers, and lots of the food I eat came out of cans. Most of the general population does the same; BPA has been on the market in products for 50 years +. But the research I did told me that the chemical was indeed harmful to me. In lab experiments, it caused cancer in lab rats. But after all my digging, I concluded that we receive this chemical in such small amounts, that it doesn't have time to build up and become truly harmful during our relatively short human life. Many, many scientists say otherwise. They say that we don't see it add up - we aren't tested for it - but that sometimes cancer and birth defects may be attributed to it. I remain unworried. Sheesh, we're all going to die of something, right?.

Here's a little news story done on BPA if ya care to watch.



In the end, I think BPA DOES have an effect on us. But rather than become paranoid and throw out all my nice Rubbermaid storage containers and forever swear off Campbells soup, I chose instead to try and reduce my exposure by investing (and I do mean investing), in this non-plastic water bottle. I carry a water bottle with me pretty much everywhere, so I figure if it IS harmful stuff, a non-plastic bottle will be a major mitigator.

So back to my totally awesome new bottle. It's very strong and not heavy at all. Empty, its actually lighter than my plastic water bottles. It does feel a lot colder than the plastic bottle when it's got ice and water in it, I guess because metal is a better conducter. Come summer though, that will turn into a blessing.

All this for a silly water bottle? Lets just say I'm easily entertained :)