SIGG Bottles Unsafe?

There has been claims floating around that Sigg bottles are using plastic lining containing BPA and other poly-vinyls that leach into whatever drink you've put in it.  I see also that there is a negative review of them in the product reviews.  I wonder where everyone is getting this information from?  I cannot find anything to actually validate these claims.  I did however find a German study from Stiftung Oekotest (a company that tests for environmental friendliness and health concerns). 

The SIGG aluminum bottle they tested received very good ratings: it leaks minimal traces of aluminum at room temperature, more at higher temperatures (that's why you should protect it from heat and not use it with hot drinks as stated in the manual that comes with the bottle), there was no bis-phenol A found, no diethylhexyphthalate, no vinyl. With this it did quite good in the test. They consider traces of aluminum less dangerous than the stuff plastics usually leak.

Germany is generally a lot stricter with it's standards than North America so where is the bad info coming from?  Enlighten me please!

I actually just wrote my Sigg review to add my two cents to the conversation.

There have certainly been questions raised and tons of debate over the safety of the Sigg bottle liners.  And while I understand the desire for the company to protect their industry secrets...it's still a tad worrisome when you don't know what's in something.  This comes from a Sigg document:

For example, last summer SIGG bottles were tested for BPA versus the competition at Alliance Technologies, one of the finest independent laboratories in America. Under harsh conditions to simulate time and use, the results were as follows:

• Polycarbonate #7 plastic bottles – 71 ppb (parts per billion) were leached into the water.
• Chinese-made aluminum water bottles – 19 ppb
• New SIGG bottles – no detectable BPA
• Used SIGG bottles (2 years old) – no detectable BPA

So while we might not know whether or not Sigg uses BPA in the liner, they say no "detectable" leaching occurs into the water.  Some people might choose to read this as 0 BPA will leach into your water.  Other people choose to read it as they didn't test below a certain level. 

Well...I just found a copy of the report written by Alliance Technology. 

In comparison, SIGG bottles faired extremely well. Based on this analytical method, the limit of quantitation (LOQ) for BPA was approximately 2ppb. The LOQ is the level of BPA that can be determined reliably in these samples. Even under these extreme temperature conditions, no BPA was detectable in the SIGG bottles above this LOQ.

In layman's terms, that means they didn't test for levels below 2 parts per billion.  So we can't be sure that there aren't trace amounts of BPA leaching...

Now....you might think 2ppb is a very small amount.  And it certainly is.  But research is still emerging on the effects of endocrine disruptors in trace quantities.  I mentioned it in my review, but basically if you're going on the precautionary principle, you might want to say it's one questionable chemical source you can avoid.  I still use my bottle some...but I know my environmental health and risk assessment professor only uses her stainless steel bottle.

 I'm not really familiar with all of this safetiness in bottles.

I like to reuse my water bottle and fill it with crystal light. That only lasts a few times, since bacteria builds up. So I bought a stainless steel bottle at bed bath and beyond and think I'm saving money than buying a 20 dollar sigg bottle. Am I wrong? 

Well, stainless steel does not leach BPA etc that are endocrine disrupters, but many stainless steel products will leach heavy metals if the water is not very close to pH zero. Many plants will have an interesting reaction when their leaf touches SS for a while... the leaf will die because it does extract too much chromium and nickel.

Some stainless steel is certified for food use, some is not. One needs to know what SS is involved.