SIGGnificant scandal: BPA bust!
Published 10:55 am Monday, September 14, 2009
If you haven’t heard: Swiss-made SIGG bottles have been busted.
According to Salon.com:
”SIGG Switzerland, the makers of popular aluminum reusable water bottles — a must-have accessory for the fashionably eco-friendly set — admitted that prior to August 2008, their bottles contained the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA). …
Thus, it’s ironic that many eco-conscious consumers switched to SIGG bottles when they found out that Nalgene’s old bottles contained BPA. While SIGG never said their bottles were BPA-free, they also did not correct the misconception that their bottles didn’t contain the chemical.”
How embarrassing for SIGG, deemed guilty of greenwashing by omission.
It is, however, embarrassing for me, too.
Not only did I switch to SIGGs, I also wholeheartedly recommended them and their spiffy designs (among others) on this blog in search of alternatives to BPA-containing polycarbonate bottles such as old-school Nalgenes.
I even quoted SIGG’s marketing literature, which talked of a “ground-breaking interior lining that is 100 percent effective against leaching and combats residue build-up so that that all you taste is the water, juice or energy drink that you just poured in the bottle, even after its been sitting in the sun.”
SIGG fans are outraged.
Can’t we trust Europe anymore? Whole Foods? What will we find out next?
Perhaps it’s a reminder that one should never assume anything, especially when “green” is on the line.
As one Salon commenter put it, regarding one outraged eco-writer who made the same mistake: “I just have to ask: Did she ask the company directly? She was talking to these people over a course of years, and she never asked the direct question? Some journalist.”
Touche.
What do you think of all this? What is your water vessel of choice?
