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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 2 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 64
Author
Toxic Climbing Water Bottles

cruze
12-Oct-2007
1:06:44 PM
...or that your coffee was too hot?
widewetandslippery
12-Oct-2007
1:12:15 PM
Sabu, one of my most anal partners and a great friend once pointed out to me (I have preponderance to the filthy) the petri dish of filth that amalgamates around the male and female threads and top keeper ring of old nalgene bottles. Bottle brush and home brewing technolgy works here. We march on our stomach. (We march on our stomach ache?). Keeping good clean hygenic water is key to good health, going up, success, fun. It is not something to belittle. Polio is transfered via faecal matter, are you suggesting we all stop wiping our arse? The original thread is about unknown spectres of the world we live in and I think as most of us reguarly use cheap arse or otherwise plastic bottles this is a great bit of info. Now what about that panther in the southern highlands.....

dougal
12-Oct-2007
2:43:49 PM
Excellent info. I recall a tasty letter in response to a climbing mag editorial about the road trip lifestyle with regards to the whole co2 issue and the obvious and uncomfortable fact that it flys in the face of the outdoor/nature/wilderness/preservation deal. We love our wild spaces but I don't really want to know how much av gas it takes to get me to Thailand.

I have an old nalge. bottle. I don't use it for drinking. It stinks. Always has. The smell even makes me feel a little nauseas. Wake up folks. We shit in our nest.

Head. Meet bucket.
The Keeper
12-Oct-2007
4:54:13 PM
Cruze - you are mixing apples and oranges along with a few old tires, used vegemite jars and perhaps a few other hoary items- maybe a cane toad even. The following will clarify for you why you should be a bit more concerned about what goes down under into your inards.

"At the heart of the intense debate over bishpenol A is that it challenges the main tenet of modern toxicology, the idea that the dose makes the poison, a principle credited to the 15th century Swiss alchemist Teheophrastus Paracelsus.

Under this principle, a two-pack-a-day smoker is more at risk of cancer than a one-pack-a-day user, and the belief that rising doses make a substance more dangerous is the basis of all government regulations that seek to set safe exposures for harmful
chemicals.

It seems obvious that high dose of a poison would be more dangerous than a lower one, but bisphenol A is creating a stir because it doesn't follow this seemingly comon-sense rule. Researchers say this oddity results from the fact that bisphenol A isn't a conventional harmful agent, such as cigarette smoke, but behaves in the uncoventional way typical of hormones, where even vanishingly small exposures can be harmful.

This is why some environmentalists and scientists contend that bisphenol A, which leaches in trace amounts from food and beverage packaging, is among the scariest
manufactured substances in use, an eerie modern version of the vaunted lead water pipes by which ancient Romans were unknowingly poisioned.

Extrapolating from the results of animal experiments, they suspect bisphenol A has its fingerprints all over the unexplained human health trends emerging in recent decades hinting at something going haywire with sex hormones, including the early onset of puberty, declining sperm counts, and huge increase in breast and prostate cancer, among other ailments.

Although it has been known, since a search for estrogenic drugs in the 1930s, to act like a sex hormone, bisphenol A has recently emerged as one extremely odd compound,perhaps the most unusual in widespread use. Research has found tht it seems to turn modern toxicology on its head by being more dangerous at very low exposures than at high ones, a finding that is focusing attention on the possible health
repercussions of the relatively small amounts leaching from consumer products."

Canadian government scientists have classified bisphenol A as "inherently toxic" and Environment Canada and Health Canada have launched a new assessment of the material and companies making it will be challenged by the assessment to prove that continue use is safe.

CRUZE: ppb - the above should illustrate that your premise is flawed - ppb is a big thing.

Amazingly, an inspection of a typical Aussie MEGA shampoo bottle of the type favored by a certain species of S. Queen'sland climbing vixens indicates that the container is a #2 plastic. Gnarly behavior and extreme use of canines cannot therefore be attributed to the effects of BPA and hormonal morphing as a consequence of multiple daily shampooing events. The research continues.


anthonyk
12-Oct-2007
5:05:03 PM
On 12/10/2007 The Keeper wrote:
>"A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET
>or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However,
>as #1 bottles are resused, which they commonly are, they can leach chemicals
>such as DEHA, a known carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential
>hormone disruptor. According to the January 2006 Journal of Environmental
>Monitoring, some PET bottled-water containers were found to leach antimony,
>an elemental metal that is an eye, skin, and lung irritant at high doses.
> Also, because the plastic is porous you'll likely get a swill of harmful
>bacteria with each gulp if you reuse #1 plastic bottles."

call me old-fashioned but i do tend to like references (there is one about the antimony claim, thx). this has some good points about the DEHA claim- http://www.hoax-slayer.com/plastic-bottles-cancer.html

this page http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/press/news/news06/2601antime.html seems to verify that antimony is released from PET, but its well below what are considered safe levels. the concern is that more is released over time- which is more of a problem concerning the amount of time liquid has been stored in the bottle. the time between when a drink is packaged and when you drink it is far more significant than if you have refilled it and used it again, unless you filled up your bottle and put it in the cupboard for a few years before drinking it.

cruze
12-Oct-2007
5:45:01 PM
The Keeper:

Fantastic. Sounds scary. So what are you going to do about it? Not drink from plastic water bottles? Good on you mate. You will live forever!

Meanwhile I, like most people, will continue to live the inherently terminal condition called life safe in the knowledge that something someday is going to come get us. Me? I am looking out for overexposure to UV, drunk drivers approaching me at 100km/h on the roads, the high levels of staurated fats in our diets, an overconsumption of sugar laden foods promoting late onset diabetes, and a whole host of long since proven causes of high mortality rates in Australian society.

But I mean if you have all those, and other bases covered, then sure go drink from a glass bottle or whatever. You have found the fountain of life. Good luck to you.

Zebedee
12-Oct-2007
7:42:04 PM
On 12/10/2007 The Keeper wrote:
> rising doses make a substance
>more dangerous is the basis of all government regulations that seek to
>set safe exposures for harmful
>chemicals.
Enough on this. A more dangerous threat to our health looms. The Australian Government is considering reducing the recommended 'safe' alcohol intake to 2 standard drinks per day for adult males and one standard drink for adult females. This is half the current recommended safe level.

anthonyk
12-Oct-2007
7:45:45 PM
On 12/10/2007 The Keeper wrote:

i don't know where you're getting this stuff from but i think toxicologists know more about this stuff than you give credit for
The Keeper
15-Oct-2007
12:51:45 PM
Cruze - you missed the point - no one said do not drink out of ALL plastic bottles - #2 & #4 are okay and #1 okay for single use. The point is that #7s are toxic. Nalgene makes some bottles that are okay but their #7s are a big problem,.

Your world is not as complex and unmanageable as you depict:

UV - use sun block - it is available even in Aussie.

High level of fat intake - modify your diet and eat more chook or fish than le boeuf - lots of fat free products these days so it is simply a matter of focus and choice.

High sugar intake - reduce or substitute - I recommend more VB and less Coke.

Erratic drivers (drunk or otherwise) - this is definitely the tough one in your list - the others you control - this one you most definitely don't. You're in tough mate and I feel for you - just avoid being on the road after a Cats footie game, or after the TV telecast of any Wallabies game - a bit dicey these days in Kiwiland too - as things didn't go according to plan in France after all the hype but keep the faith in Tri-nations - the Springboks are carrying the load for the southern mob. Given that I once made a near fatal error in coming between an erratically driving Aussie matilda transfixed on her nearby hair salon - as I innocently tried to get from one side of a street to the other in Bathurst, NSW - I would recommend caution in the vicinity of those institutions whereever they are in Aussie. They are a particularly dangerous phenomena on Saturday morning or as the date of the next April Lavigne concert approaches.

It is said that trad climbing is a good multi-task problem solving training ground for life as a whole - as distinct from the simpler lifestyle of sport or gym climbing. It assists in assessing multiple issues , prioritizing on the important ones and dealing with them in a systematic way.

AnthonyK - I give loads of credit to toxicologists - a bit difficult to derive your inference from what has been presented. I do give less credit to corporate executives who are less likely to be really concerned about my personal well-being versus their corporate bank accounts or latest golf score. There are over 150 independent scientific studies on the health problems with No.7 plastics - you can start with the summary documents or references previously provided and then progress through their bibliographies. You can probably find them either on-line or go out to the La Trobe Uni library.

""Some researchers with close-up view of bisphenol A are so schocked by its ability to skew development in their laboratory animals, even at among the lowest doses ever used in experiments, they are waiting for the government to ban it. In their personal lives, they can't run away from products containing it fast enough. "I would love to see it banished off the face of the Earth." Dr. Patricia Hunt, a Washington State University geneticist, said.

She began ditching her bisphenol-A -containing products after discovering that mere traces of the chemical were able to scramble the eggs of her lab mice. In humans, similar damage would lead to miscarriages, and birth defects such as Down Syndrome.""

Zebedee - It may be that the most dangerous threat to your health is John Howard seeking another term in office - this is 4-5 times the recommended (Labour) safe level !

:) ;)


climbau
15-Oct-2007
3:08:26 PM
Not sure if I can ingest 600kg of food from class 7 bottles/containers per day. Rats deal with bisephenol A differrently to humans.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_1178620835386.htm has more info on Bisephenol A.

Sun block contains carcinogens which are no good for long term use (better off covering up).

We can pick the bad in anything. :)
grangrump
15-Oct-2007
5:09:16 PM
>"A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However, as #1 bottles are resused, which they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a known carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disruptor.

I REALLY cant see this! If the plastic was suitable on first use, why would it suddenly start leaching into refill liquid (particularly plain water). I assumed that the reason they changed mini-bottle design to impede refill was commercial (please buy more). In fact if leaching is a problem, repeated filling of bottles will give lower levels (per drink).
Unless anyone can give me a rationale for not refilling, I will continue refilling PET bottles repeatedly. And would encourage others to do so for environmental reasons.
The Keeper
15-Oct-2007
5:53:04 PM
The scientific debate continues and it is not likely that the EFSA report is the final word in the matter albeit it contains some interesting data and perspectives. The EFSA has essentially given the benefit of the doubt to industry but there are a number of scientists that dispute their findings in a number of key areas, including the species of rats used in the lab tests. The debate is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon given the large number of areas needing additional research. There have been a large number of similar types of debates on other toxic/flawed materials or products over the years ie. cigarettes, second hand smoke,Firestone tires in the US, thalidiomide, toxic beast implants , and the list goes on. It is a very good thing that "we are picking the bad in these things" and holding industry and governments accountable for their activities/products. Good thing that some folks are holding the loggers of the Blue Tier to account for their planned industrial impacts on a significant and important Aussie landscape. Good on them. I cannot judge the merits of the EFSA process and whether or not it is politically compromised or not. Certainly, in the US there have been countless examples of the the government agencies manipulating environmental and health information in favor of corporate interests who get them into power and who are used to maintain them in power. One only has to read early materials coming out of the Bush Administration on climate change and Kyoto. Bush, Harper and Howard are now suddenly becoming environmental houdinis - particularly that all three are either in or close to elections. Desperate times require desperate changes even if they are only skin deep.
In any case, I personally prefer a more circumspect position on toxic water bottles until proven otherwise. Non-toxic bottles are available and can do the job perfectly well - to accept substantard materials seems a bit bizarre to me. A choice of better health or using 30 or 40 dollars of a seriously flawed product. I prefer my health. The call by some to just somehow accept toxic bottles as the price of drinking or living reminds me of a simliar scenario - I recommend Dan O'Neill's book" -The Firecracker Boys" (1994)- a informative exposure of US nucleur industrial development in the 1950s wherein the US Atomic Energy Commission gang wanted to let off 4 nucleur devices on the coast of western Alaska (Project Chariot) in an experimental attempt(1958) to create a harbour. It is a story of bad government and bad industry and fortunately of a few good people including some early Alaskan conservationists and Inupiat who stopped the thing finally. The negative effects of the little escapade were consistely minimized and maniupulated . Two scientists with integrity stood their professional ground but paid for it with their careers but ultimately were vindicated. Both were fired from the University of Alaska and blackballed throughout the use in terms of getting positions elsewhere. One Bill Pruitt (a mammologist) came to Canada and became recognized as outstanding northern biologist. It is an educational read (albeit a bit tedious with facts in places)and unfortunately is mirrored in many other places and times. Our PM is bought and paid by the Alberta Oil Industry who got him into power and who keep him clinging desperately to it. Canada has failed to move significantly on Kyoto because of the implications to the Alberta Oil Industry.

To each his own but to the degree possible, I choose to use safe water bottles, not ones that might be safe or may be safe, or are marginally safe.

Non -carcinogenic sun block is the way to go for sure - lots of alternate materials around and some maybe even non-toxic ie. mud, vegemite, whatever. I tend to favour covering up myself albeit my Canadian Rugby jersey may make me a marked man in another sense! Some kevlar attire is certainly appropriate in S.Queen'sland where there are a lot of gnarly things runnin around who might like to take a chunk out of the poor Keeper. :)

It will be interesting to see the Aussie debate unfold on Howard's and the nucleur industry plans to open up a pile of new uranium mines out there in the "ghastly blank" or maybe even close to people. I think there will some interesting debates on what is an acceptable risk or meets a government set standard in terms of radioactive waste materials. A few extra doses of radioactivity and the Southern Cross won't be the only thing glowing in the Antipodes! Simply the price of living, I suspect some will say. Plutonium is forever in the never never. Fortunately Aussie is blessed with some spunky folk who will engage that debate with some vigour and tenacity.

Cheers,


Eduardo Slabofvic
15-Oct-2007
5:56:00 PM
On 12/10/2007 Zebedee wrote:
>Enough on this. A more dangerous threat to our health looms. The Australian
>Government is considering reducing the recommended 'safe' alcohol intake
>to 2 standard drinks per day for adult males and one standard drink for
>adult females. This is half the current recommended safe level.

Is that "day" a school day or a non-school day, as my standard drink is a Martini (shaken, not stirred) and
two of those on a school night is adequate, but then again, if that day is a non-school night then my
standard non-school night drink is a 6 pack of stout. So I don't see the problem.

You should lighten up Zeb, or the mods will make you to go sit in the cyber naughty corner.
climberman
15-Oct-2007
9:38:41 PM
If it's all so f---ed why do we keep living longer and longer ?

DaCrux
15-Oct-2007
11:39:24 PM
On 15/10/2007 The Keeper wrote:
>something way too long to quote

So what do you suggest we use? Sigg bottles? You do know that aluminium has been linked to Alzheimers? Glass bottles? So we can break them and sever an artery and bleed to death? What's the point of lecturing people on the evils of Nalgene bottles if you're not gonna suggest any alternatives.

On 15/10/2007 climberman wrote:
>If it's all so f---ed why do we keep living longer and longer ?
Because there's not enough wars.
The Keeper
16-Oct-2007
5:59:49 AM
Da Crux - your attribution of 'lecturing" is a bit off track - this is a discussion forum according to the header. I thought Aussies were not to be the "ultra-sensitive" types but maybe that notion is off when it comes to water, drinking and other related items. Maybe the nation is a bit edgy as a consequence of rugby results in France.

You obviously haven't read the thread and details if you think I have advocating not using ALL Nalgene watter bottles. My comments have been directed at #7 bottles (the cute multi-colored Lexan types. Nalgene #2 and #4 bottles are okay. Got it?
Plenty of good alternatives when you make the effort to find out. I will assist:

Kleen Kanteen - stainless steel water bottle w/cap 27 fluid ounces. www.kleankanteen.com;

MLS Stainless Steel Thermos Bottle - 1 litre www.mis-group.com

Nissan Thermos FBB500 Briefcase Bottle - 1 pt. www.coffee-makers-espresso-machines.com;

Sigg resin coated aluminum sport bottle, 25 ounces www.mysigg.com

Platypus #5 polypropylene 2+ collapsible water bottle, 2.4 liters

Nalgene HDPE Loop-Top Bottle 16 ounces www.nalgene.outdoor com

National Geographic Green Guide has additional info in an article entiled "Picnic Perfect Plastics" by Danielle Masterson. GG #114.

The list goes on: be creative - maybe recycle wombat road kill carcasses and turn the skins into wine/water containers . Glass is good, works for wine at the crag so why not water - unless you backpacking into some crag north and west of Moonarie.

Don't throw glass bottles at the refs or opposition when your Cats or Wallabies take a bit of a pounding. They might break and sever someones artery and they might bleed to death. Don't throw them off highway overpasses towards oncoming insurgent Queen'sland roadies heading out to the Grampians with their bolt chopping weaponary :).

Drink more beer, get light, be kind (particularly to those shy, innocent blokes from up over) and you will be wielding tremendous influence beyond your accumulated years.
Would be on track for Prez of the VCC to my way of thinking. :)

Cheers,





Zebedee
16-Oct-2007
9:30:54 AM
On 15/10/2007 DaCrux wrote:
>So what do you suggest we use? Sigg bottles? You do know that aluminium
>has been linked to Alzheimers?
I think this one was covered before and no there is no link between alunminium and Alzheimers.

skink
16-Oct-2007
10:09:56 AM
On 16/10/2007 Zebedee wrote:
>On 15/10/2007 DaCrux wrote:
>>So what do you suggest we use? Sigg bottles? You do know that aluminium
>>has been linked to Alzheimers?
>I think this one was covered before and no there is no link between alunminium
>and Alzheimers.

Aluminium - let's nip this one in the bud:

"At present so little is known about the underlying cell changes in Alzheimer’s disease that definitive statements about the role of aluminium cannot be made with any certainty." from http://www.alzheimers.org.au/upload/US5.pdf

"There is circumstantial evidence linking this metal with Alzheimer's disease but no causal relationship has yet been proved. As evidence for other causes continues to grow, a possible link with aluminium seems increasingly unlikely." from http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/Facts_about_dementia/Risk_factors/info_aluminium.htm


Eduardo Slabofvic
16-Oct-2007
10:10:44 AM
On 16/10/2007 Zebedee wrote:
>I think this one was covered before and no there is no link between alunminium
>and Alzheimers.

Although it is a Neuro-toxin.

meinmuk
16-Oct-2007
10:24:50 AM
I had thought that the jury was in, ruling out aluminium and Alzheimer's, but maybe not
see here for review abstract
I think it's still open. It's clearly a (potentially) dangerous world out there.
As for the Keeper's wombat bladder idea, I'm pretty worried too about the possibility of mad wombat disease...
andy

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