Researcher Dispels Myth of Dioxins and Plastic Water Bottles

[Guest guest]

Researcher Dispels Myth of Dioxins and Plastic Water Bottles

JoAnn Guest

Aug 30, 2006 13:46 PDT

 

Rolf Halden, PhD, PE

 

The Internet has been flooded with email warnings to avoid freezing

water in plastic bottles so as not to get exposed to carcinogenic

dioxins. One hoax email has been erroneously attributed to Johns

Hopkins

University since the spring of 2004. The Office of Communications

and

Public Affairs discussed the issue with Rolf Halden, PhD, PE,

assistant

professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the

Center for Water and Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of

Public Health. Dr. Halden received his masters and doctoral degrees

researching dioxin contamination in the environment. We sat down

with

him to set the record straight on dioxins in the food supply and the

risks associated with drinking water from plastic bottles and

cooking

with plastics.

 

Office of Communications and Public Affairs: What are dioxins?

 

Rolf Halden: Dioxins are organic environmental pollutants sometimes

referred to as the most toxic compounds made by mankind. They are a

group of chemicals, which include 75 different chlorinated molecules

of

dibenzo-p-dioxin and 135 chlorinated dibenzofurans.

Some polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) also are referred to as

dioxin-like compounds. Exposure to dioxins can cause chloracne, a

severe

form of skin disease, as well as reproductive and developmental

effects,

and more importantly, liver damage and cancer.

 

OC & PA: Where do dioxins come from?

 

RH: We always thought dioxins were man-made compounds produced

inadvertently during the bleaching of pulp and manufacturing of

pesticides like Agent Orange and other chlorinated aromatics. But

dioxins in sediments from lakes and oceans predate these human

activities.

It is now generally accepted that a principal source of dioxins are

various combustion processes, including natural events such as wild

fires and even volcanic eruptions.

 

Today, the critical issue is the incineration of waste, particularly

the

incineration of hospital waste, which contains a great deal of

polyvinyl

chloride plastics and aromatic compounds that can serve as dioxin

precursors.

 

One study examined the burning of household trash in drums in the

backyard.

 

It turns out that these small burnings of debris can put out as much

or

more dioxins as a full-sized incinerator burning hundreds of tons of

refuse per day. The incinerators are equipped with state-of-the-art

emission controls that limit dioxin formation and their release into

the

environment, but the backyard trash burning does not. You set it

ablaze

and chemistry takes over.

 

What happens next is that the dioxins are sent into the atmosphere

where

they become attached to particles and fall back to earth. Then they

bind

to, or are taken up, by animals, where they get concentrated and

stored

in fat before eventually ending up on our lunch and dinner plates.

People are exposed to them mostly from eating meat rich in fat.

 

OC & PA: What do you make of this recent email warning that claims

dioxins

can be released by freezing water in plastic bottles?

 

RH: No. This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics.

In

addition, freezing actually works against the release of chemicals.

 

Chemicals do not diffuse as readily in cold temperatures, which

would

limit chemical release if there were dioxins in plastic, and we

don't

think there are.

 

OC & PA: So it's okay for people to drink out of plastic water bottles?

 

RH: First, people should be more concerned about the quality of the

water they are drinking rather than the container it's coming from.

 

Many people do not feel comfortable drinking tap water, so they buy

bottled water instead.

 

Having said this, there is another group of chemicals, called

phthalates

that are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less

brittle.

 

Phthalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-

like

behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals.

 

If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of

phthalates

from the containers into water and food.

 

OC & PA: What about cooking with plastics?

 

RH: In general, whenever you heat something you increase the

likelihood

of pulling chemicals out. Chemicals can be released from plastic

packaging materials like the kinds used in some microwave meals.

 

Some drinking straws say on the label " not for hot beverages. " Most

people think the warning is because someone might be burned.

 

If you put that straw into a boiling cup of hot coffee, you

basically

have a hot water extraction going on, where the chemicals in the

straw

are being extracted into your nice cup of coffee.

 

We use the same process in the lab to extract chemicals from

materials

we want to analyze.

 

If you are cooking with plastics or using plastic utensils, the best

thing to do is to follow the directions and only use plastics that

are

specifically meant for cooking.

 

Inert containers are best, for example heat-resistant glass,

ceramics

and good old stainless steel.

 

OC & PA: Is there anything else you want to add?

 

RH: Don't be afraid of drinking water. It is very important to drink

adequate amounts of water and, by the way that's in addition to all

the

coffee, beer and other diuretics we love to consume.

 

Unless you are drinking really bad water, you are more likely to

suffer

from the adverse effects of dehydration than from the minuscule

amounts

of chemical contaminants present in your water supply. Relatively

speaking, the risk from exposure to microbial contaminants is much

greater than that from chemicals.

 

And here's one more uncomfortable fact. Each of us already carries a

certain body burden of dioxins regardless of how and what we eat. If

you

look hard enough, you'll find traces of dioxins in pretty much every

place on earth.

 

Paracelsus the famous medieval alchemist, used to put it straight

and

simple: it's the dose that makes the poison.--Tim Parsons

 

Public Affairs media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School

of

Public Health: Tim Parsons or Kenna Lowe at 410-955-6878 or

paff-.

 

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/articles/halden_dioxins.html

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets

[Guest guest]

Hmmmm.....this guy can't seem to decide if plastic that leaches is really

all that big of a health concern because after all, we are bombarded with

toxins every day. Well, he is absolutely correct about being bombarded with

toxins! So, logically, we as the consumer should then ask the question:

Then *why* put *more* toxic load on the body?

 

DOW, Monsanto, Bayer and the likes of them are not and will not ever tell

the consumer or the manufacturer the truth about plastic or anything else

for that matter. While I agree that the safest place to use plastic is in

the freezer, why even use it at all if there is even one chance that you

will be ingesting toxins? We are bombarded with toxins on a daily basis

from toxic food, toxic air, chemicals in all the products that we put on our

skin and hair, toxic water and even toxic emotions from the junk we watch on

TV and listen to on the radio. We are choosing to accept something that is

unacceptable to our health. We don't have to!

 

So this guy says, go ahead and drink the water from those plastic bottles

that sit on hot trucks 6-8 hours/day and in hot warehouses in 95+ degree

heat. A little more toxins added to the body won't hurt. And he even

alludes to the fact that there is a possibility that bottled water is not

all that clean to begin with. Yikes!

 

This kind of thinking is exactly why we are seeing so much

disease---especially auto-immune diseases. Even as recent as 15 years ago

plastics were considered so safe---remember when you first put that

Tupperware bowl in the microwave and when you pulled it out there was a ring

of melted plastic around the ingredients? After a while Tupperware decided

that using their plastic in the microwave wasn't recommended and that they

wouldn't replace if the bowl melted. I never heard a warning from them

about the plastic that leached into the food, they just didn't want to have

to replace product. Remember when using plastic wrap in the microwave was

OK and even encouraged? Now, it's not. Remember T-Fal? You see, we must

realize that this industry is not going to tell the truth---because it's all

about money--not your health or my health. They " knew " the truth about all

of this but decided to lie by omission. Therefore their track record for

" being truthful " stinks!

 

Many of us are trying to educate the natural supplement industry about the

importance of putting liquids into glass containers. Too much breakage in

shipping they say---and this from an industry that is supposed to care about

health and well-being. Certainly we have wonderful technology that can

solve shipping concerns. However, the good news is that slowly but surely

many supplement companies are coming around. Oxygen drops in plastic

bottles (which we still see a lot of) is highly unacceptable as are

essential oils used as ingredients and packaged in a plastic bottle. There

will be a reaction---yes, it may be small. But if you get too many " smalls "

then soon your body will begin to break-down. Considering that many

products have 3-5 year shelf lives, what kind of condition will that product

be in by the time you buy it?

 

Those are the negatives. What are some solutions? Use glass, heavy-grade

stainless steel or cast iron to cut in and eat out of. Refuse to buy

anything liquid that will be consumed into the body (either orally or by

skin) that is not packaged in glass. Do not ever cook in any type of

plastic. Use stainless utensils for cooking. Use glass for drinking. Yes,

it breaks but it is cheap to replace. This is what was used way before the

debut of plastic and it worked just fine.

 

When study and research is done on the properties of water it is realized

quickly how important clean water is to the function of every cell in the

body. There are great filtration systems out there and there is actually one

company, Mountain Valley Spring, that provides water (distilled and spring)

in glass bottles (5-gallon and also the individual bottles).

 

Don't accept the faulty logic that just because you are bound to get toxins

that it's ok to add more. Each of us has a toxic threshold. Yours may be

higher than mine which means that your body will process a higher amount of

toxins before breaking down and my body may break down with just a small

amount of toxins. The concern is that none of us know how much is too much

for our body---until it may be too late. This guy just rides the fence a

little bit too much for me. Remember that people who work in the chemical

industry including scientists, doctors, PhD's, etc. have been taught that

chemicals are ok.

 

Take Care--

Loretta

 

 

 

Unless you are drinking really bad water, you are more likely to suffer from

the adverse effects of dehydration than from the minuscule amounts of

chemical contaminants present in your water supply. Relatively speaking, the

risk from exposure to microbial contaminants is much greater than that from

chemicals.

And here's one more uncomfortable fact. Each of us already carries a certain

body burden of dioxins regardless of how and what we eat. If you look hard

enough, you'll find traces of dioxins in pretty much every place on earth.

 

Paracelsus the famous medieval alchemist, used to put it straight and

simple: it's the dose that makes the poison.--Tim Parsons

 

Public Affairs media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of

Public Health: Tim Parsons or Kenna Lowe at 410-955-6878 or paff-.

 

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/articles/halden_dioxins.html