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Et tu, Sigg? Falling prey to BPA

Email|Link|Comments (17) Posted by Boston Globe Business Team September 4, 2009 01:58 PM

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

Even I, an environmental reporter who should know better, fell victim to the Hello Kitty Sigg bottle.

I’ve written a lot in the last two years on the growing concern over Bisphenol A used in baby bottles, sippy cups and canned goods that can leach and be ingested. Research on laboratory animals shows that low levels of BPA might cause developmental problems in fetuses and young children.

New BPA-free Sigg bottle with dull pale yellow coating (Sigg)

I tried to reduce my family’s use of canned foods, which uses BPA to prevent corrosion. I threw out the hand-me-down scratched sippy cups my friends bequeathed to me for my three-year-old.

And I bought an aluminum Sigg bottle for my daughter. I should have known better.

Old Sigg bottles with BPA with shiny copper coating (Sigg)

In April 2008 during an online Globe chat with a BPA expert, a reader asked if the Sigg bottles were safe. Mia Davis of Clean Water Action warned readers then she didn’t know. Because aluminum has been linked to health problems, she noted, aluminum cans are sometimes coated with a BPA resin. She said she had asked Sigg but all they told her was their resin did not leach BPA.

That didn’t answer her question. She asked again. They said it was proprietary information. (click here for one parent's exchange with Sigg about the issue.)

Now we know.

Sigg came out last month and acknowledged that its resin had “trace amounts” of BPA in bottles made before August 2008. An Associated Press story notes the company knew about it since 2006. Davis says she is sure BPA is leaching from Sigg bottles – it leaches from everything else.

I don’t think I, or my daughter, are going to be harmed by those Sigg bottles. But any parent – even those who work at Sigg - would want to know if a product they were drinking from contained such a controversial chemical. I have an email and call into the company for a response which I'll post.

If you are going to bill yourself as an eco-friendly company, be eco-friendly. And that includes being straightforward. Otherwise you’ll lose customers.

And you’ve lost this one.

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17 comments so far...

Beth, thanks for blogging on this and so sorry about your bum purchase of a SIGGs bottle. That's the sentiment we're hearing from our online community at EWG--no more SIGGs for them. As for this proprietary yarn, it's just that--SIGG is claiming they couldn't tell about the BPA because of their suppliers and I'd give that about as much credence as all their other claims at this point.

Ken Cook
President, EWG

Posted by Ken Cook September 4, 09 03:43 PM

It's interesting that the SIGG CEO is blaming this on a "misunderstanding". I've read they correspondence you posted related to this article and it's clearly not a "misunderstanding." It's clear deception. How much more direct can you be than asking "does your product contain BPA?" and getting a non-answer.

CEO's letter: http://www.mysigg.com/bulletin/

It's also interesting that at the bottom of that bulletin, there's a link to the "previous letter" that ends up with 404: Document not found

Posted by Nick Name September 4, 09 04:43 PM

CEO's letter: http://www.mysigg.com/bulletin/

It's also interesting that at the bottom of that bulletin, there's a link to the "previous letter" that ends up with 404: Document not found

Posted by Nick Name September 4, 09 04:45 PM

The reason I purchased a couple SIGG bottles was twofold: cut down on our plastic consumption and give my kids reusable cups that seemed "safer." And that's what makes me especially angry about this issue. It's hardly a shock that a company would mislead its customers; but SIGG bottles seemed to catch on specifically because parents were concerned about their kids' exposures to BPA. In my mind, that makes their business practices not only out-right deceptive, but right on par with some evil, mustache-twisting corporate villain you'd find in a movie.

Posted by Denise September 4, 09 05:05 PM

I remember when this scare came out, boston.com had a photo stream pushing the SIGG bottle among others as preferable to some. Well, now what? Can't trust the Globe, can't trust SIGG, can't trust anyone but your self. SIGG- "we care about kids"- HA HA.

Posted by hippydippy September 4, 09 05:33 PM

Boy is Denise right. So SIgg is lined with Plastic (still is) and had BPA. Even those #4 plastic squeezey bottles are safer than a SIGG. Since they continue to be lined with a plastic of unknown ingredients, they are no longer eco-friendly, pretty maybe, but not eco.

Posted by realgreengirl September 4, 09 05:59 PM

I had purchased SIGG bottles for my whole family when the BPA buzz hit the media. I brought them home and read the instructions. I don't have them in front of me now but it stated that the bottles were lined with a coating. Why a coating I wondered? Then, they instructed consumers not use the bottle for juices and to drink any contents within a certain amount of time, 12 hours or so. Mmmm...red flag for me. I called and they told me it was a "food grade coating" and they were not forthcoming about what ingredients were used in the production of the coating. My choice...I returned them for a true stainless steel water bottle.

A few months ago I asked P & G why they had to use sodium hydroxide (chemical used in oven cleaner and toilet bowl cleaner) in their tooth whitening strips and they sent me an email that bluntly stated to return the product to the store. I returned the product.

Bottom line, you are on your own. Do your research and hopefully companies will realize that consumers want safe, healthy, natural products for their family. If they don't disclose...don't buy. Read your ingredients in all products you use. You don't have to let it consume your life but check out a great website to learn about the everyday products you and your family use. You might be surprised and we are lucky to have this resource.

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

Posted by Grace September 4, 09 06:53 PM

So, can one of you eco-types and environmental reporters inform the rest of us how, without personal use of an mass spectrometer or atomic absorption spectrophotometer or other such laboratory equipment, we can determine the presence of BPA in products?

Posted by tahos September 4, 09 07:54 PM

Within years of hearing something is great for you it's inevitable that something bad is found in that very same thing. A voluntary recall on their part would ruin them but at this point aren't they already? I was at a grocery store where a woman was stocking a box of SIGG bottles for display. Really? I find that quite impudent. I realize that it's supposedly before August 2008 but I'm not sure exactly when I bought mine for myself and child and now I am very angry. What can we trust? Those who knew of the leaching should be very, very, very ashamed of themselves. Although I'm not surprised, after seeing "Fast Food Nation," even the marketing executive that knew about the contamination still ate the beef himself, and that's just SICK!

Posted by C YA September 4, 09 08:27 PM

People in half the world can't be sure their water is free from cholera, parasites and genuine toxins like mercury. Let's get a grip here. TRACE amounts of a compound used for decades without documented problems. So we'll tear down the $1Billion BPA plants out of speculation. That money could REALLY save the lives of hundreds of thousands in the 3rd world. Criminal.

Posted by Brian September 4, 09 08:59 PM

This is a good arguement for water fountains and glass cups.

Posted by Jean C September 4, 09 10:28 PM

Sorry, there's no such thing as an "eco-friendly company." There are, of course, scads of companies that are branded as such. (Corporations specialize in wetting a finger to determine the wind's direction.) If a company were to actually become "eco-friendly," it would cease business immediately due to its understanding of the systems of capitalism and industrialism. This is easy to figure out once you're willing to look from a systems perspective.

Posted by Henry Hughes September 5, 09 12:20 AM

kleen kanteen has no sprayed-on inner lining. food grade stainless steel only

Posted by paris September 5, 09 01:22 AM

Thanks to my friends (and Facebook friends) there has been a big buzz about this the last week.
Sigg IS offering replacements. Send yours back (pay for postage) and they will send you the new ones. http://www.mysigg.com/bulletin/ and http://mysigg.com/bulletin/exchange_program.html
But what if you really don't WANT siggs... zrecs mentioned a special offer of a company that will take back the Siggs and give you a discount on a different brand replacement bottle http://www.zrecommends.com/detail/how-to-return-your-old-sigg-bottle-for-40-off-a-non-sigg-replacement/
I think I may do that.
Zrecs also provided information that testing done shows very minimal leaching of BPA http://www.zrecommends.com/detail/vom-saal-claims-bpa-leaching-in-siggs-and-we-can-independently-confirm-it/
Info on BPA leaching from Sigg:
Shame on Sigg for being deceitful.
Jessica

Posted by Jessica September 5, 09 01:37 AM

Brian, the catch is your phrase about "without documented problems." There haven't been problems clearly documented as stemming from decades of ingestion of BPA and other petrochemicals -- because proving causation is notoriously difficult, and because no one has been interested in doing (or funding) good unbiased research. However, there are strong suggestions of links between these types of chemicals and all sorts of medical problems, from cancers to hormone disruption to immune disorders. I cringe at what I exposed my children to, without knowing better, that likely increased their already-high cancer risk.

The philosophical question is whether you allow anything that you can't absolutely prove is dangerous, or allow only chemicals that have been proven safe. Europe applies the "precautionary principle;" so far in the US, companies have been free to subject us to (and market heavily) anything they can invent, until decades down the road someone manages to demonstrate, for example, that smoking cigarettes causes a huge increase in lung cancer. I'd rather be cautious. And having a company market as "safe" something they knew was anything but is just old-fashioned consumer fraud.

Posted by Betsy September 5, 09 08:55 AM

The business practices of SIGG regarding what they didn't tell people about their BPA free bottles would make a nice case study for a college business ethics course. Businesses make decisions everyday about how much they can get away with by not revealing the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'm sure I've been exposed to vast amounts of chemicals over my lifetime. My liver blood tests still show normal. We'll eat a peck of dirt before we die. And die we will whether or not we've been exposed to chemicals.

Posted by Noname49 September 5, 09 10:14 AM

I was shocked to find out older SIGG bottle liners contained BPA. I thought your readers would like to know SIGG has an exchange program available until OCT 31, 2009. Check out the link:
http://mysigg.com/bulletin/exchange_program.html

Thanks for reporting this in today's paper - buried on page B6 I almost missed it!

Posted by Beth Gellene September 7, 09 09:00 AM