Report indicates migration from plastic bottles

A report recently published online claims that contaminants found in commercially available mineral water could partly originate from compounds leaching from plastic packaging.

The report, written by Martin Wagner and Jörg Oehlmann of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, is based on a study analysing bottled mineral water with the human oestrogen receptor alpha.

Breeding of New Zealand mud snails in water bottles made of glass and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resulted in an increased reproductive output in PET bottles. The report claims, therefore, that this "provides first evidence that substances leaching from plastic food packaging materials act as functional oestrogens in vivo (within living things)."

The report indicates in its conclusions that the findings may have identified the tip of the iceberg in the sense that plastic packaging could be a major source of xenohormone contamination of many other consumables. It also emphasises that the purpose of the study is to provide an insight into potential exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) due to unexpected sources of contamination.