Reuse of Bottles - Reuse of Bottles Intended For A Single Use - Carcinogens

Carcinogens

A university student's master's thesis suggested that repeatedly rewashing plastic water bottles can lead to the leaking diethylhydroxylamine (DEHA) into the drinking water, and can be detrimental to human health. The results of this research was repeated by various sources and also became a chain email, later declared to be a hoax. The American Chemistry Council claims that "DEHA is neither regulated nor classified as a human carcinogen by the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, the National Toxicology Program or the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the leading authorities on carcinogenic substances. Further, DEHA is not inherent in PET as a raw material, byproduct or decomposition product. DEHA is a common plasticizer that is used in innumerable plastic items, many of which are found in the laboratory. For this reason, the student’s detection of DEHA is likely to have been the result of inadvertent lab contamination. This is supported by the fact that DEHA was detected infrequently (approximately 6% of the samples) and randomly, meaning that the frequency of detection bore no relationship to the test conditions. Moreover, DEHA has been cleared by FDA for food-contact applications and would not pose (any known) health risk even if it were present".

The American Cancer Society and Cancer Research UK have stated that DEHA is not present in plastic water bottles, even if it were it is not a known carcinogen.