Water is a necessary element of life. We all need it, and most folks don’t drink it as much as they should. It’s also considered a prepper essential. But in an effort to be prepared, we might be poisoning ourselves.
A common practice is to store a supply of clean water in our cars. It makes sense. If you’re not home, you’re likely near your vehicle. But depending on how you’re storing it, you could be exposing it to plastic chemicals. This happens when certain plastic bottles are heated up, like in a car on a summer day, for example.
It’s easy to just buy a 48 pack of bottled water and throw it in the trunk. But according to a report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, this can lead to increased levels of toxic substances known as antimony and bisphenol A in the contained water. The report was done in 2014 with 16 brands of water, which were stored for four weeks in high temperatures.
Lena Ma, the study’s co-author and a professor of biogeochemistry of trace metals at the University of Florida, wanted to clarify the safety of drinking bottled water otherwise.
“I don’t want to mislead people, saying bottled water is not safe. Bottled water is fine. You can drink it — just don’t leave it in a hot temperature for a long time. I think that’s the important message.”
If you’re wanting to keep water supplies in your vehicle or other potentially hot areas, we recommend using stainless steel water containers.