Reusing Your Water Bottles

I was refilling my 1.5 L Fiji water bottle in the kitchen the other day when my roommate offered, with concern:

"You know, I heard that reusing water bottles is not a good idea. Supposedly, they aren't made to be reused and the plastic breaks down and carcinogens can leach into the water..."

Sounded suspiciously like an urban legend to me, so I did my due diligence (INTERNET!!!)... an excerpt from this article:

Back in November of 2003 there was a myth circulating that a graduate student's thesis at the University of Idaho showed that DEHA, a plastics additive, was a human carcinogen that could be released from a PET container. In fact, DEHA is not inherent in PET as a raw material, nor is it a decomposition product. Furthermore, DEHA has been cleared by the FDA for food contact applications and would not pose a health risk even if it were present. A review found that DEHA in the plastic items used in the laboratory was the likely source of the contamination in the study. The information about the dangers of water bottle reuse that was circulated back in 2003 was found to be baseless, but nevertheless continues to pop up from time to time.

MYTH BUSTED, suckaz!

Now, enjoy this Evian commercial from the 1980s:



And if you aren't entertained enough, THE ONION has an article that seems to be about my other roommate.