Should I get rid of my aluminum bottle?
The simple fact is that aluminum bottles are inferior to stainless for a variety of safety and reliability reasons. First, raw aluminum has been linked through many studies to Alzheimer's Disease, requiring such bottles to use a protective inner coating or lining. Aluminum bottle manufacturers use an oven enamel to coat their bottles to prevent the aluminum from leaching. While these linings appear to be reliable, it's possible the lining will flake off over time...especially if the bottle is dented or exposed to extreme environments. In fact, the lining is so delicate that many aluminum bottle manufactures warn that their bottles are not even dishwasher safe! What?!?! If an aluminum bottle can not withstand a standard dishwasher cycle, can you:
- trust it to safeguard the liquids you are putting into your body during your daily adventures (like sitting in a hot car or gym bag and banging around against your water bottle cage??)
- trust that it will not leach something into the mother’s milk, formula, or even water that you are giving your infants, toddlers, and kids?
Lastly, if (or more likely, when) the coating degrades (look closely at the bottle threads where the plastic caps screw in) you run the risk of being exposed to a material that has been linked to Alzheimer's disease. The bottom line is: are the hazards associated with aluminum bottles worth the risk and are aluminum bottles any safer than plastic bottles? You, as an informed consumer, must come to your own conclusion, but it was these issues that caused us to introduce our line of safe and durable bottles.
Pura bottles are produced from food service grade stainless steel(#304), which does not require a lining and is much less prone to denting.
In addition, and maybe even more importantly, all of the aluminum bottles employ a plastic cap…so while you may think an aluminum bottle is shielding you and your kids from the hazards of plastics…your liquid is still in contact with potentially hazardous plastic…and if you use the sport top…100% of your liquid comes in contact with this plastic before it enters your mouth! Kind of defeats the purpose of using a non-plastic bottle, doesn’t it??
