March 12, 2007 – Letter from Steve Wasik, President, SIGG USA:
On March 9th, it was brought to my attention that a website sponsored by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) made mention that SIGG bottles contain plastic liners with bisphenol A (BPA).
I can assure you that SIGG bottles are absolutely not made with a plastic liner and are in fact lined with a proprietary non-toxic, water-based resin which has been refined over decades of study and is extremely safe & stable.
Based on the confidence we have in our product backed by numerous laboratory studies, we questioned the EWG and requested that they provide us with the testing they have conducted on SIGG – or alternatively to remove the “SIGG” mention from their website if they have not tested SIGG. Within 24 hours of this request, the EWG removed SIGG’s name from their report.
Unfortunately, in the meantime this message was picked up by a few other websites, one of those being The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and their newsletter Organic Bytes. When we questioned the OCA on their mention of SIGG, this is the emailed response we received:
“We made a mistake. Sigg bottles do not contain BPAs… it was read wrong and there was confusion. Apologies about this.” – Member Services, OCA
As you may know, the BPA issues surrounding Lexan plastic bottles (polycarbonate #7) involve the migration of chemicals from the plastic into the contents of the bottles. On the other hand, SIGG bottles have been thoroughly tested in Europe to ensure 0% leaching of any substance – no trace of BPA, BPB or any phthalates.
“According to the results of our evaluation, use of a SIGG bottle does not add to the beverage any particles and/or components which are innocuous to human health.” – Dr. Ulrich Nehring, European Institute Nehring
We understand the controversy and concern surrounding BPA leaching from plastic water bottles and can assure you that SIGG bottles are leach-free and 100% safe. We are upset about the misinformation which has circulated and are working feverishly to clear the good name of SIGG.
Thank you for your continued support and trust in SIGG.
Steve Wasik
President
SIGG USA
Thanks for the update on Sigg bottles.
My confusion still rests with the quote on their website (and reposted here) which I’m hoping is just a grammatical error. Anyone else catch the “does not add any {particles} which are innocuous…” ?
To me, this means the bottles don’t add any ‘safe’ particles. I’m thinking they misspoke.
Thoughts?? Just an accident? Spin? Thanks again for the letter, seems like they have their heart in the right place and I’m hoping it’s just a grammatical error.
BTW, I did email them and got no response. Hmm.
Yes, the use of the term is confusing. It was actually picked up off my blog by a linguist listwserv. This is what they wrote:
Erik Hoover wrote:
> I think Dr. Nehring or may have confused/switched noxious and innocuous.
>
>
This was my reading too. That or a rephrasing error (“[SIGG bottles] …
are innocuous to human health”).
The phrasing (“does not add to the beverage any particles and/or
components”) sounds rather German-native-speaker to me.
Chris Waigl
so “injurious” >> “innocuous”. i’d guess this was a classical
>> malapropism — Nehring got the word he wanted, but it’s the wrong one
>> from other people’s perspective — but it could have been a Fay/
>> Cutler malaprop, an inadvertent error in word retrieval.
>>
>> arnold
The listserv is from the American Dialect Society.
I still trust my Klean Kanteens, and in fact, just bought another one.
I think at the end of the day you are still talking about an aluminum bottle, the very idea of which is suspect, to the point that it requires a lining to be considered safe (by some). Scratch or otherwise compromise this lining and you have what everyone would agree is an unsafe container. Sigg sells some kind of special brush to clean their bottles, but I have never actually seen one in a store nor do I know anyone who has one . . . this also speaks indirectly to the problem.
Glass or stainless bottles are both inherently “food grade” without any special treatment. Nalgene and Sigg are both introducing stainless bottles, which tells a fuller story, no matter what their respective Presidents have to say on the record.
There is a bit of scientific double speak in the Sigg statement.
I think they actually say there is 0.0% leaching.
So if I were to pour 0.4ml of pure BPA straight into my 1L bottle I would have a concentration of 0.04%. That would round up to 0.0% that Sigg claims.
By the way the levels of BPA considered dangerous are measured in the parts per billion. aka 0.0000001%
The real question which the folks at Sigg refuse to answer is “Is BPA used in the manufacture of your liner? – Yes or No.”
Since they refuse to answer that I think we all know the answer.
Sigg now admits they were using BPA in the manufacture of there bottles all along.
http://mysigg.com/bulletin/