Chemicals in Plastic Water Bottles

[Peter Lawless (3R)]

Regulations state that companies must clearly state the composition of bottled water.

However has anyone conducted tests on the plastics from different suppliers to test what chemicals have seeped into the water after 2 weeks, 1 month and 3 months.

How does this affect the consumer?

What probabalistic models exist to assist in these experiments?

[Edel Duffy (Creme)]

Once a chemical is permitted in a food contact material it is permitted for use with all foods once it does not exceed migration limits. Therefore even if water was tested for chemicals and they were present below the overall migration limit or the specific migration limit they are not of concern. There may be issues if unintentional chemicals or non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) were present and these subtances may need to be investigated for their chemical toxicity. If there was a threshold of toxicological concern for food packaging migrants in Europe then exposure assessments would play a role in determing whether further investigation is warranted or not. However, at present no TTC exists in Europe as it is limited by resonable estimates of consumer exposure!!