Here's What's in Your Bottled Water: Unveiling the Hidden Contaminants
Here’s What’s in Your Bottled Water is a revealing CBC Marketplace documentary that delves into the hidden contaminants in popular bottled water brands, including microplastics, and examines implications for consumer health and industry transparency.
In a global study, microplastics were found in 93% of the bottled water tested. Researchers examined 11 different brands of water purchased in 9 countries.
The bottled water industry is estimated to be worth nearly $200 billion annually, surpassing sugary sodas as the most popular beverage in many countries. However, its perceived image of cleanliness and purity is being challenged by a global investigation that found that the water tested is often contaminated with tiny plastic particles.
“Our love affair with making single-use disposable plastics out of a material that lasts for literally centuries — that’s a disconnect, and I think we need to rethink our relationship with that,” says Prof. Sherri Mason, a microplastics researcher who carried out the laboratory work at the State University of New York (SUNY).
The research was conducted on behalf of Orb Media, a U.S.-based non-profit journalism organization with which CBC News has partnered.
Mason’s team tested 259 water bottles purchased in nine countries (none were bought in Canada). Though many brands are sold internationally, the same brand’s water source, manufacturing, and bottling process can differ by country.
The 11 brands tested include the world’s dominant players — Nestle Pure Life, Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, San Pellegrino, and Gerolsteiner — and major national brands across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
Researchers found 93 percent of all bottles tested contained some sort of microplastic, including polypropylene, polystyrene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
10.4 particles/liter on average
Microplastics result from the breakdown of all the plastic waste that makes its way into landfills and oceans. They are also manufactured intentionally, as microbeads used in skin care products. Microbeads are now being phased out in Canada after significant numbers began to appear in the Great Lakes, and the tiny particles were found filling the stomachs of fish.
Anything smaller than five millimeters in size (5,000 microns) is considered microplastic.
On average, Orb found 10.4 particles of plastic per litre that were 100 microns (0.10 mm) or bigger. This is double the level of microplastics in the tap water tested from more than a dozen countries across five continents, examined in a 2017 study by Orb that looked at similar-sized plastics.
Other, smaller particles were also discovered — 314 per liter, on average — which some of the experts consulted about the Orb study believe are plastics, but cannot definitively identify.
The amount of particles varied from bottle to bottle: while some contained one, others contained thousands.
The study aimed to establish the presence of plastics in bottled water.
It’s unclear what the effect of microplastics is on human health, and no previous work has established a maximum safe level of consumption. There are no rules or standards for allowable limits of microplastics in bottled water in Canada, the United States, and Europe. The regulations and standards for other countries in the study are not known.
Two brands — Nestle and Gerolsteiner — confirmed their testing showed their water contained microplastics, albeit at much lower levels than what Orb Media is reporting.
Emerging science
Plastics are present nearly everywhere and can take hundreds of years to degrade, if at all. Many types only continue to break down into smaller and smaller particles, until they are not visible to the naked eye.
Plastics have also been known to act like sponges and can absorb and release chemicals that could be harmful if consumed by mammals and fish.
“It’s not straightforward,” said Prof. Max Liboiron of Memorial University in St John’s.
“If you’ve ever had chili or spaghetti and you put it in Tupperware, and you can’t scrub the orange color out, that’s a manifestation of how plastics absorb oily chemicals,” says Liboiron, director of the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR), which monitors plastic pollution.
The European Food Safety Authority suggests the body will excrete most microplastics. However, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has raised concerns about the possibility that some particles could be small enough to pass into the bloodstream and organs.
It’s unclear how the plastic gets into the bottled water — whether it’s the water source itself, the air, or the manufacturing and bottling process.
“Even the simple act of opening the cap could cause plastic to chip off the cap,” Mason said.
The science behind the test
The water tested was purchased in the U.S., Kenya, China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Mexico, and Thailand, and represented a range of brands across several continents. It was shipped to the specialized lab at SUNY in Fredonia, N.Y.
Scientists used Nile Red fluorescent tagging, an emerging method for rapidly identifying microplastics, as the dye binds to plastic. Scientists put the dyed water through a filter and then viewed the samples under a microscope.
Mason’s team identified specific plastics over 100 microns (0.10 mm) in size but not smaller particles. According to experts contacted by CBC News, there is a chance the Nile Red dye is adhering to another unknown substance other than plastic.
Mason leaves open that possibility but leans strongly to the smaller particles being plastic.
The developer of the Nile Red method agrees.
Fluorescing particles that were too small to be analyzed should be called “probable microplastic,” said Andrew Mayes, senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of East Anglia in the U.K.
Orb consulted several toxicologists and microplastics experts throughout the process, who also reviewed the findings.
“This is pretty substantial,” Mayes said. “I’ve looked in some detail at the finer points of how the work was done, and I’m satisfied that it has been applied carefully and appropriately, in a way that I would have done it in my lab.”
CBC News also asked multiple experts to review Orb’s study. At the same time, similar questions came up with the Nile Red dye; they were convinced there was some level of microplastics in the water, and further research was warranted.
Big brands respond
Nestle said in a response that it had tested six bottles of water from two of its brands — Nestle Pure Life and San Pellegrino — and found between two and 12 microplastics per liter, much lower than what Orb found in its study. The company suggested that Nile Red dye is known to “generate false positives.”
Gerolsteiner also said its tests showed a “significantly lower quantity of microplastics per liter” in its products.
“We still cannot understand how the study reached the conclusions it did,” the company said. “The research results do not correspond to the internal analyses we conduct regularly,” the company responded.
Danone, the company behind Evian and Indonesian brand Aqua, told Orb it is “not in a position to comment as the testing methodology is unclear. There is still limited data on the topic, and conclusions differ dramatically from one study to another.”
Brazilian brand Minalba told Orb that it abides by all quality and security standards required by Brazilian legislation.
The American Beverage Association, representing many of the biggest brands across North America, including Nestle, Evian, Dasani, and Aquafina, told Orb that “the science on microplastics and microfibres is nascent and an emerging field…. We stand by the safety of our bottled water products. We are interested in contributing to serious scientific research that will … help us all understand the scope, impact, and appropriate next steps.”
Brands Biserli and Wahaha did not respond to Orb’s request for comment.
Plastics, plastics everywhere
Within three decades, more plastics will be in the oceans than fish. They are having a profound effect on the environment. In the oceans, vast quantities float on the surface, trapping sea life and blocking the sun’s rays from entering the waters.
Mason points out that people can choose not to buy water in a plastic bottle and to carry a refillable bottle instead. But for other products, there is no choice. Most products on grocery and retail store shelves are made of plastic.
“It’s portable, it’s lightweight, it’s convenient, it’s cheap — that just makes it easy,” Mason says. “It’s difficult to get people to care about things they can’t see.”
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