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I drink water from my plastic cup regularly and a friend commented that it could cause cancer.

He also added that I should not heat food in plastic containers or wrappings in the microwave as that could also cause cancer in the long run. He claimed that this is due to the plastic slowly entering what you are consuming when heated or by simple erosion.

How much of this is true and supported by scientific evidence?

Sam I Am
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EuropaDust
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3 Answers3

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It's going to depend upon the type of plastic you're using, as they're composed of different chemical compounds. If you look at the bottom of your plastic cup (or dish, etc), there's normally a recycling symbol and a number. The number classifies the type of plastic it is.

You can find the plastic classification numbers here.

My opinion as an environmental chemist: if your drink cup is #2, #4 or #5, then your risk of exposure is low enough to not be an issue, as these classes of plastics do not normally contain bisphenol A (BPA) or phthalates.

You should not be using #3 (polyvinyl chloride aka PVC) for anything food related; they contain bisphenol A and phthalates; both of which are endocrine disruptors.

No. 6 is fine for storing foods, but you should not reheat foods in polystyrene. No. 7 is a 'catch all' for plastics - some of these can contain BPA.

It is nearly impossible to be completely BPA/Phthalate free; they're nearly ubiquitous in our lives: plastic wrap, the coating inside your canned beans, etc.

There are reports which suggests that BPA causes cancer, and there are many published studies regarding phthalates impacting sperm count and quality. BPA has been tentatively linked to premature on set of puberty.

Before you run off and throw out everything plastic in your house, you need to understand that you're exposed to BPA from more than just leaching from your drinking bottles & cups. BPA will degrade rapidly in air but it persists in water - this means that you're potentially exposed to BPA via your drinking water (if it's a public water supply) or through what you eat (fish) since BPA is both bioaccumulated and biomagnified.

So yes, there is a risk of BPA/phthalate leaching from your cup (or container) to your water (and thus into you), however the amount leached is most likely very small. In most of the studies where laboratory rats developed cancer, they were receiving large (1000-10000 ppm) doses of BPA through their food, or via subcutaneous injections.

It's why they pushed to have BPA and phthalates removed from baby bottles (which are still normally marked with a 7 code!) - there was a higher risk of BPA/Phthalate exposure to infants, who are normally given their milk warm. Higher dose given + consistent exposure = increased risk.

Mad Scientist
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Darwy
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  • Thanks for enlightening me on this subject. You make an excellent point that the rats which developed cancer were being given extremely high amount of doses. But in any case I'm sure I'm now going to pay a lot more attention to those classification numbers that I barely even cared about. – EuropaDust Apr 15 '11 at 22:58
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    A little chemical confusion. PVC certainly won't contain BPA and there is little reason to avoid PVC. Endocrine disruption is more often worried about than proven in the real world. – matt_black Jan 24 '12 at 23:28
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    And the reference to sperm count and quality just shows exposure to phthalates, not outcomes. There is no convincing evidence that sperm counts are declining which somewhat undermines the panic over endocrine disruption. – matt_black Jan 24 '12 at 23:31
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    PVC can most certainly contain BPA as it's used as a plasticizer - so the 'flexible' PVC's contain BPA. – Darwy Jan 25 '12 at 10:30
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    http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/66/11/5624.short http://endo.endojournals.org/content/152/6/2150.abstract "These findings provide the first direct evidence that human prostate progenitor cells are estrogen targets and that estradiol in an androgen-supported milieu is a carcinogen for human prostate epithelium? – Darwy Jan 25 '12 at 10:36
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    Is there a risk with #1 (PET)? The plastic used by coke bottles – Chris S Jan 22 '13 at 13:53
  • As there are no such numbers on plastic bottles in my country, I have no way of telling if they are safe or not. I was wondering which kinds they use for bottling mineral, (spring, etc.) water where you are from, Darwy. – superAnnoyingUser Mar 12 '13 at 07:18
  • "BPA will degrade rapidly in air but it persists in water" -- thanks, it's an interesting remark, too. I am worried about using plastic containers for holding water for raising the humidity in the room. They are put onto the hot central heating. How much BPA can leak into the air, and how much of it and how rapidly does it degrade? – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev Jan 31 '14 at 10:58
  • As for the BPA in the air concern, a Google search for "bisphenol" "air" shows some articles stating that the air is contaminated with BPA. So, how xan this be, if it must be degrading rapidly in the air according to you? – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev Jan 31 '14 at 11:41
  • Asked a question: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19370/can-bisphenol-a-get-into-the-air-when-hot-water-evaporates-from-a-plastic-contai – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev Jan 31 '14 at 12:27
  • a slight update to BPA, at least according to the FDA BPA is safe to use, http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm064437.htm and actually some of the newest research the last year (2014) has been showing some signs that the BPA replacements are showing increases in health problems in different areas. might be worth it to check into some of these claims and maybe update this answer should these claims pan out, to provided readers searching with the most current information. – Himarm Feb 04 '15 at 19:48
  • Hi guys - I was on hiatus from stack exchange for a bit, so I missed the follow-up questions. @Student Soda bottles, etc don't have #s on them in DK or the US. Other plastic containers (sports bottles you stick on your bike, etc - do). – Darwy Apr 11 '15 at 06:43
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    @imz--IvanZakharyaschev See: http://www.bisphenol-a.org/pdf/Cousins2002.pdf - BPA has a half life of ~1 day in the air, and is not expected to evaporate from water to air - it has an extremely low Kaw (air/water partitioning coefficient). Furthermore a 'Google search' doesn't mean you're getting accurate information. – Darwy Apr 11 '15 at 06:44
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    How about compounds *other* than BPA or phthalates? – endolith Aug 04 '17 at 16:35
  • *When both new and used polycarbonate drinking bottles were exposed to boiling hot water, BPA was released **55 times more rapidly.*** [link](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/02/23/don-t-put-your-coffee-in-plastic-bottles.aspx) Probably worth mentioning temperature - like drinking hot coffee or re-heating food in a microwave in plastic containers. – Wyrmwood Sep 26 '17 at 22:19
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This claim is most likely related to the presence of certain controversial chemicals present in some kinds of plastic. The most discussed is certainly Bisphenol A (BPA).

Bisphenol Asource

The claim about microvaving in plastic bottles is probably related to the fact that BPA leeches faster out of plastic with hot water than with cold water. One study found that

Exposure to boiling water (100 °C) increased the rate of BPA migration by up to 55-fold

Bisphenol A can mimic estrogen and thereby cause a variety of health effects.

In the review "Environmental causes of cancer: endocrine disruptors as carcinogens" the authors state the following about the occurence of Bisphenol A:

The xenoestrogen BPA is one of the EDCs that has been most thoroughly studied. BPA is found in various consumer products including baby bottles, reusable water bottles and reusable food containers, polyvinyl chloride stretch films, papers, cardboards and in the epoxy resins lining the insides of food cans.

On the carcinogenic properties of BPA they state:

Rats exposed prenatally to environmentally relevant doses of BPA show an increased number of intraductal hyperplasias (precancerous lesions) that appear during adulthood, while high doses induce the development of carcinomas in situ.

There is still some conflict about the interpretation of the studies. The Endocrine Society is concerned, but many regulatory bodies like the EFSA and FDA consider the current allowed levels safe. Although recently the EU banned BPA from baby bottles.

Sklivvz
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Mad Scientist
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  • Thanks for a very informative answer. As I was reading the article on EU banning BPA from infant bottles which you linked, I saw a related story (http://www.physorg.com/news205072601.html) saying that the European Food Safety Authority thinks that it is 'safe' giving testament to the amount of uncertainty that exists. But that can be expected when studying something like cancer. It can only be reduced to evaluating risks and not much more. – EuropaDust Apr 15 '11 at 22:55
  • I'm not really sure how one maps risk in prenatal exposure in rats, to postnatal feeding with a baby bottle. Can you elaborate more? – Russell Steen Jun 09 '11 at 13:28
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No, there is no credible risk of cancer or other adverse effects from oral consumption of BPA.

The studies that claim BPA might pose a danger have methodological issues. STATS.org of George Mason University notes:

The European Food Safety Authority (ERAS) - said that the amount considered safe to ingest on a daily basis for life should be raised by a factor of five.

Many of the studies that show adverse effects in rodents given small doses of bisphenol A subcutaneous injections. Most of the studies in rodents that did not show adverse effects even in high doses used the oral route.

there is "a 500,000 fold difference between the lowest oral exposures in animals associated with any adverse effects and the oral human exposure," [...] By any measure, this does not constitute a health risk. We get vastly more estrogenic chemicals from eating nuts, cereals and bread.

Community
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user1873
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  • "Both ECHA and EFSA agree that there is evidence that BPA has endocrine disrupting properties." "The Commission has published today a new Regulation that significantly tightens the restrictions on the use of BPA in food contact materials." http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/sante/newsletter-specific-archive-issue.cfm?newsletter_service_id=327&newsletter_issue_id=7224 – matus Jun 20 '18 at 09:18