This week has been full of stories about big companies letting me down. Perhaps you've heard about this one, and you're really pissed about it, too. I can't say I'm completely surprised, just really disappointed.
Sigg came out with a press release recently saying they have reformulated their bottle liners to be BPA-free. All this time, people have been buying Siggs thinking they are a safer alternative than plastic bottles.
You can see the difference between the old and new liner here. The switch occurred about a year ago, in August 2008 (so bottles manufactured since then are BPA-free).
The company clarifies that they had always claimed their proprietary (secret) liner did not leach BPA. I had written about it, and Sigg had even sent me a report by a third party showing that the liners were safe. I also had heard conflicting accounts from friends of friends who worked at other bottle companies and had done their own testing which found BPA in Sigg liners.
So, like I said, I'm not surprised since the whole proprietary nature of the secret liner only fed my skepticism. And it may be true that the old liners, while they contained BPA, didn't leach much BPA.
BUT, I feel really mislead and disappointed. This post on Treehugger sums my feelings really well.
What to do? We've mostly been using our Kleen Kanteen and Earthlust bottles lately since my kids are older now and like to drink out of a larger opening with the top off. Should I toss our old Siggs? Can old Siggs go in recycling since they are aluminum?
6 comments:
Oooh, this made me so mad yesterday! Especially since we own like 6 of them, most of which have been used by the 4 year old. Ugh.
The Earthlust look nice; think I will replace hers + mine with those.
Any advice on good/safe sippys for the baby? Our Avent ones spill everywhere, although they are BPA-free...
I'm reposting this comment from the mom go green facebook group because it is so helpful:
Lyra wrote, "I'm bummed about this too and contacted SIGG. They promptly sent me a RA for all of my old liner bottles and will recycle them. In addition, when they receive my old ones, will send me an on line gift card for new replacements. I too have switched to Kleen Kanteen."
I'm going to call Sigg tomorrow, too!
I think they're going to need a letter from me as well. I'm not sure I can trust their company now - which is too bad since the bottles are so cute. Grr.
I emailed them as well and they said that I can return my "bad" bottles and they will replace them all with the new ones.
Still makes me not trust them, though!
I just wrote an email to the CEO of sigg. Like Nicole said above me, I feel they betrayed my trust. A company that won't tell you how a product is made due to proprietary information is just hiding the fact they did use bpa.
I would have gladly used their new bpa-free product if they had been forthcoming at the very beginning and said they were improving their bottles for the safety of their customers.
Instead, they hid behind the idea of trade secrets and I felt were dishonest.
We've been using Kleen Kanteens since sigg announced way back when that they would not disclose the ingredients of the liner. That was a red flag for me. I like the larger mouth of the Kleen Kanteen much better.
If you want to email about the sigg bottle, here's the address:
steve.wasik.ceo@sigg.com
Not sure if you ladies have heard of this or not but www.idscontainer.com makes buildings by recycling shipping containers. If more businesses used shipping containers instead of cutting down trees wouldn't that be great?
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