There have been questions for some time now about the lining of SIGG bottles. In a response to the website TreeHugger.com back in April of 2008, SIGG CEO Steve Wasik said that the company uses a proprietary liner formula with
"an impeccable reputation for quality" but that "as there are many copy-cat manufacturers in the market (most based in China) that would like to get their hands on this formula, our supplier has an agreement with SIGG to keep his formula confidential."
Wasik assured TreeHugger that:
"Very thorough migration testing in laboratories around the world is conducted regularly and has consistently shown SIGG aluminum bottles to have no presence of lead, phthalates, Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), Bysphenol A (BPA), Bysphenol B (BPB) or any other chemicals which scientists have deemed as potentially harmful.
"Within the scientific community, the safety of the packaging ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) remains the subject of considerable debate and controversy as evidenced by the FDA meetings on the topic this month. For decades, BPA has been the industry Standard for protective coatings – approved by food and health regulators around the world. One year ago, Andrew von Eschenbach, the Commissioner of the FDA, announced that, 'The science we have reviewed does not justify recommending that anyone discontinue using products containing BPA.' At that time, SIGG Switzerland, the world leader in premium reusable bottles, had already made the transition into bottles that are BPA free."So there was BPA present, although they've always said the lining was a "safe, proprietary" formula, but it's okay that it contained BPA because the FDA hadn't yet condemned it...even though MANY other sources had. Sounds like semantic greenwashing to me.
For those of you out there who own SIGG bottles that were made before August of 2008, it's important to know that they still test at no detectable levels of BPA, which is obviously a good thing. If you still feel cheated, you can let SIGG CEO Steve Wasik know by emailing him at steve.wasik.ceo@sigg.com. I haven't done that yet, but will as soon as I can think of something to say other than "Dude. You used to be cool."
BTW: If you're not sure when your SIGG was made, you can simply look inside...
People are totally bringing me down this week.
6 comments:
This totally stinks. We have a few Siggs hanging out from before we switched to Kleen Kanteen. Sigg was the original good guy - or not.
boo that crap. :( I THOUGHT they used to have "confidential" on their site with regards to what is in their liner (which was the reason I didn't buy one)- but now they've changed it to exactly what their new and old liners had.
I've heard that you can email them and send your old bottle (postage pre-paid by you) and get a new eco-liner bottle.
but then- where would your old bottles go? in the landfill?
ps= congrats on being a new greenphone booth super hero!! :)
You know, that was my first thought: "Damn straight they're going to replace my old bottle!" Then the more I thought about it, I realized that means more manufacturing to replace it, shipping it to them and getting a new one back, the cost of recycling my old bottle....that's a big impact. Even though I'd really like to send mine back make a statement, I'm not sure it's worth it unfortunately. Plus I don't want to "advertise" for them by continuing to carry a SIGG. Maybe I'll make my statement by purchasing a Kleen Kanteen instead!
Did you see you were quoted on time.com for this?? Congrats! :)
I've been feeling duped by SIGG for years, the BPA things really just confirms it all for me.
Crappy SIGG
Thanks for the warning. Glad to have looked back on this post.
Post a Comment