PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2018

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 05/18 www.petpla.net 45 Industry bodies reject Orb Media “Microplastics in bottled water” claims Plastics in bottled water? PETplanet Insider usually writes about liquids inside plastic packaging – beverages bottled in plastics. A study by an organisation named Orb Media has required that we look at things from the opposite side; it has claimed to have found plastics contained in beverages. Are there plastics in bottled water? In their responses, industry bodies IBWA and BSDA highlight awed methodology, unsubstantiated claims and lack of peer review in rebutting the media organisation’s reports of microplastic pollution in packaged water. In March 2018 Orb Media, a Wash- ington, DC, USA based non-prot journalist organisation, issued a press release (“New Orb Media Reporting Finds Microplastics in Global Bottled Water”) claiming that “a single litre of bottled water can contain thousands of microplastic particles”. The press release related to tests on more than 250 bottles of water from 11 leading global brands, sourced from 19 locations in nine coun- tries on ve continents including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Leba- non, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States. The tests were supervised by Dr. Sherri Mason, a “leading microplastics researcher” and Chair of the Depart- ment of Geology and Environmental Sciences at the State University of New York at Fredonia. It claimed that its tests revealed “widespread contamination with plastic debris including polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate”, in 93% of the samples tested and with a global average of 325 parts/litre (ppl). It stated that implications for human health are “unknown”. Global packaging organisations were quick to respond and largely reject the implications and claims. Gavin Parting- ton, Director General of the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA), said: “There is no evidence or scientic consensus worldwide about the poten- tial impacts of microplastic particles on human health. The study by Orb Media has not been through a scientic peer review and has a number of limitations.” The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), headquartered in the USA and representing US and international bottlers, distributors, and suppliers, highlighted a number of claims in the report that were either unsubstan- tiated or misleading and stated cat- egorically that “…this study’s ndings do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers”. “The particles below 100 microns had not been identied as plastic,” a spokesman told British news ser- vice, BBC News. “Since…alternatives would not be expected in bottled water, they could be described as ‘probably plastic’.” The IBWA pointed out that the ‘not-identied substances’ made up the vast majority of particles counted. The study acknowledged that the make-up of those particles was not conrmed. The research focused solely on bottled water product and did not look at any other food and beverage packaging, or make comparisons with levels of microparticles found in the wider environment, in soil, air and water. As Orb Media stated, the implications (if any) for human health are unknown. “To date, there is no applicable regu- latory framework or scientic consensus with respect to the adequate testing methodology or potential impacts of microplastic particles, which could be found in any bottling environment,” IBWA said. “There is no scientic consensus on the potential health impacts of micro- plastic particles. The data on the topic is limited and conclusions differ dramati- cally from one study to another.” Because there is no scientic consensus about the potential health impacts of microplastic particles, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not issued any regulations concerning these substances in foods and bever- ages. Any regulatory action concerning microplastic particles would need to be based on sound science, including demonstrating a correlation between the levels of this substance found in foods and beverages and any potential adverse health effects. A recent scientic study published in the peer-reviewed journal Water Research in February 2018 concluded that no statistically relevant amount of microplastic can be found in water in single-use plastic bottles. (Analysis of microplastics in water by micro-Raman spectroscopy: Release of plastic parti- cles from different packaging into mineral water by Schymanski et al.) IBWA went on to highlight that bot- tled water, as a packaged food product, is comprehensively regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (and other regulatory bodies around the world). All bottled water products are pro- duced utilising a multi-barrier approach, which helps prevent possible harmful contamination to the nished product as well as storage, production, and transportation equipment. Many of the steps are effective in safeguarding bot- tled water from microbiological and other contamination. Measures may include one or more of the following: source protection, source monitoring, reverse osmosis, distillation, micro-ltration, carbon ltration, ozonation, and ultravio- let (UV) light. “As always, the bottled water indus- try is committed to providing consumers with the safest and highest quality prod- ucts and we are following any scientic developments on this subject closely,” IBWA concluded. www.bottledwater.org www.britishsoftdrinks.com www.orbmedia.org