BPA - Bottle Plastic Advertising

Since waving goodbye to adolescence, a nutritious diet has been a priority for me every day. As an "on the go" individual, I'm always making portable food and drink choices. So, today when entering the YCP bookstore, a Camelbak "Better Bottle" caught my eye. I examined the bottle and noticed it had several innovative or desirable features:


- Would not leak
- Incremental lines at 8 oz (1 cup) marks
- Has a clip that could be latched to just about anything
- Valve & straw design allows drinking without tipping the bottle
- "Stylish" YC graphic on side


If I had a water bottle clipped to my bag, I thought, I would drink more fluids - and that would be good for me. Seeking to justify the nearly 20$ price point, I launched my iPhone's Amazon app and found the bottle sans the York College logo. 240 people had rated the bottle as nearly perfect. When I realized I would be paying double the online price for a YCP custom bottle, my pride in my school sealed the deal.


Then something caught my eye.
There was a sticker on the side of the bottle that read "BPA Free" with a graphic of two leaves. I assumed (mostly because of the leaves) that this feature had something to do with an environmentally friendlier method Camelbak used to make their bottles. The last such logo I saw boasting about what a product DIDN'T have was on a room freshener spray.



This piece of information about the "Better Bottle" was also supposedly significant enough to be part of the product's title on Amazon.com, so I was suddenly very curious to see what all this fuss was about BPA. When I viewed the product page on my home computer, I noticed Amazon had placed a box right under the price labeled "Informed Customers: BPA". The box queries, "Are you looking for information on BPA? Learn More." The link leads to an information center within Amazon about BPA. Reading through the page, a customer can learn how BPA is involved in the manufacture of polycarbonates (strong, clear plastics), what products contain BPA, and a quick back-and-forth between the FDA and the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health.


The concensus seems to be that though the BPA levels in food packaging are low enough to be considered harmless, the compound does pose potential risks in high concentrations, especially for pregnant women and infants. The Department of Health and Human Services begs to differ regarding the harmlessness of low doses of BPA. "More research is needed," they say. Amazon reassures customers that they "will comply with all applicable safety regulations. In the absence of BPA content regulations, we feel that our customers are entitled to make decisions on which products to purchase and use." This seemingly menial string of events intrigued me because of the connections between my retail experiences and the availability of public safety information.


There are two possible explanations for Amazon's "Informed Customers" box:

1. A product writer or Amazon employee had the foresight to think "If a customer is deciding between Camelbak's "Better Bottle" and a competitor's product, he should be informed why Camelbak spent the time/money to make the bottle BPA free.
2. Enough customers wrote Amazon employees with concerns about the BPA content of their polycarbonate bottles that they thought this information should be right there on the product page.
   

In either case, the immediacy of the answer to the BPA question demonstrates remarkable responsibility and concern on Amazon's part for their customer's peace of mind. Thanks anyway, Amazon, but I'm glad my Better Bottle says YC on it.