SIGG - Just Another Plastic Water Bottle

Mist rolling in; feels like being in the clouds.


In case you have been on some remote island or in deep in the jungle without any contact to the human world for the last 3 weeks, you missed the SIGG scandal and their admission that they had not been forthcoming about their lining indeed containing BPA. So while Sigg was selling their "BPA-Free" bottles (not) to confident sucking pregnant women, SIGG was pretending to be an environmental company and laughing all the way to the bank.

I won't bother to rehash all the facts and comments that have come before this, a lot of which has been discussed in previous blogs (you can do a search in upper left corner) but I do want to point out some irony.

The SIGG lining, the old BPA containing lining and the new "eco-care", (what ever that means, they won't say) are made from types of epoxies, a polymer made from resins. Just google epoxy and there are many definitions. But guess what? It's a plastic. SIGG (and Laken) can spin all the eco words they want, but the bottom line is, their lining is plastic, always was and will be.

"... plastics. any of a group of synthetic or natural organic materials that may be shaped when soft and then hardened, including many types of resins, resinoids, polymers, cellulose derivatives, casein materials, and proteins: used in place of other materials, as glass, wood, and metals, in construction and decoration, for making many articles, as coatings, and, drawn into filaments, for weaving."

SIGG is willing to exchange their old bottle for their new one but do you really want to be drinking from an unknown plastic? Yes it beats using disposable water bottles but by now (since you were not deep in the jungle) you know there are many alternatives to SIGG. Have you seen the SIGG bottle that says "I'M NOT PLASTIC?" Kind of ironic.

I am fascinated by the blog and twitter discussions of folks willingly replacing their old SIGG bottle with another SIGG, no questions asked. Is it me or are they missing something?

So I guess that squeezey inexpensive #4 plastic (low-density polyethylene or LDPE) plastic water bottle isn't so bad after all. I'm not a fan of plastic but it beats throwing away single use water bottles. They, #4 bottles, are inexpensive, have a relatively low environmental cost (impact) of manufacturing and can be recycled. (virgin aluminum is many more times environmentally costly compared to steel, glass and plastic) Plastics #2, #4, and #5 have a strong food safety record, so they say.

SIGG (and Laken) claim they are "an environmental company". What is so environmental about using virgin aluminum which is 6 times more "costly" than the next type of container and then lining it with an unknown plastic that you refuse to be transparent about? (oh, must be that 1% planet donation thing they do) It seems to me that drinking from a SIGG is just liking drinking from any other plastic water water bottle, only worse.