The Sigg company just recently admitted that its pre-August 2008 bottles have contained BPA, but demonstrated no leaching of BPA. It’s infuriating that the company would mislead health-conscious consumers about its products for the sake of sales. As I learn more about industries in general (specifically, I’ve recently been learning more about the animal and dairy industries), I’m appalled at how often the public is misled — with sometimes serious health consequences at stake — all for the sake of profits! But more on meat and dairy later…
You can contact SIGG USA for a replacement bottle with a new EcoCare liner at liners@mysigg.com, or call them at (203) 321-1220. I emailed the company asking for a full refund, but instead got an offer to replace my pre-August 2008 Sigg bottles with the newer ones that do not have BPA. I would have to pay for shipping the bottles back.
If you would like to exchange your Sigg bottles for stainless steel ones, Baying Hound Howls has an offer to consider. Your pre-August 2008 Sigg bottles would get you a 40% discount on stainless steel bottles. I also just read on Ecorazzi that major retailers (including Whole Foods) will provide the newer (reportedly BPA-free) Sigg bottles in exchange for your pre-August 2008 ones. This would save you the cost of mailing them to the Sigg company and would save you time in quickly getting a replacement.
Click on Inhabitots for the original article that informed me about this. You can also click on Sigg Announcement for the letter written by its CEO regarding this topic. The Sigg Announcement letter is not as upsetting as the Inhabitots article, but, Sigg has just lost my trust.
Related Articles:
10 Reasons to Buy Stainless Steel
The SIGG BPA Confession: You aren’t going to like it any more than we do
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
From another Manhattan Mom:
Hi girls – while BPA is a problem, it usually leaches when exposed to very hot temps (ie hot coffee or dishwasher cycles). If you handwashed and only used it for cold drinks you probably were not getting anything. Polycarbonate has BPA so any clear storage containers you have that are advertised as shatterproof are probably PC, you should look at both dry and wet food (ie rubbermaid, snapware, etc). If you’re not sure call the company. What you may not be aware of is canned food – the can is lined with coatings that contain BPA. Again, considered safe but you probably don’t want your kids eating ANY canned food if you are very aware. Personally if I’m feeding Coop organic black beans and the only way he’ll get them is from a can, I prefer that, but if you have an easier choice (ie Sigg or stainless) probably best to be safe! The thing I find infuriating is that Sigg really jumped on the bandwagon after Nalgene got spanked in the market for being PC and grabbed a huge market share while never divulging their lining contents. Total bs. I think if you can’t get Sigg to refund your bottles take it back to the retailer you bought it at, they’ll prob take it back.
Kate, who works at a consumer product company
From a West Village (Manhattan) mom:
Thanks so much to those of you who alerted us to this — it is so upsetting that the company misrepresented itself. I wrote an email to the CEO, Steve Wasik, and to his credit he wrote me back right away (within 24 hours). (steve.wasik@ sigg.com) Apparently, if you send your SIGG bottles back to them, they will replace them with non-BPA bottles. I am awaiting info from their customer service on exactly how to do it. I’ve posted his email to me below if anyone is interested.
“First off, thank you for taking the time to write to me.I understand your point and recognize that there is a lot of confusion about BPA out there right now. To my knowledge, we at SIGG have never advertised our old liner bottles as being BPA free. Sometimes SIGG retailers or journalists will hear the “no leaching of BPA” message and inadvertently shorten that in their communications to “no BPA”. We did our best to correct, but usually after the fact.
We believe we have the best protective liners in the world and have been extremely transparent with the testing of our bottles which you may have seen in the info section on our site (www.MySIGG.com/ bulletin). The controversy that has swirled around BPA in the past has involved the problems of plastic bottles leaching BPA into the water – and in my 4 years with the company, SIGG has never had a problem with leaching. For the record, my family and I are still drinking from SIGG bottles with the former non-leaching liner which I have complete confidence in.
I have passed your note to our Customer Service Department. They will contact you directly to help you to exchange your old SIGG bottles for new SIGG bottles with the BPA-free EcoCare liner. This is a voluntary exchange program (not a recall as the bottles you have are still safe). Therefore, we are asking people who wish to exchange the bottles to pay the postage for sending them in and we pay the postage for sending them to you. I think this is fair. I hope that you will continue to have confidence in the quality and safety of SIGG products.
Thanks again for your email.
Best regards,
Steve”
As a response to my email to Sigg, asking for a refund for my Sigg bottles, I received the response below. It provides some instruction on how to exchange old Sigg bottles for the newer ones.
Dear Ms. S:
Please know that your SIGG bottles are proven non-leaching, this means they do not leach anything [including BPA] into the beverages that have been poured into them. Extensive independent testing shows this and are located here for your discernment: http://mysigg.com/bulletin/testing.html
We understand your concern and will gladly replace your bottle[s] with brand new SIGG bottles featuring our EcoCare, BPA free liner. We ask that you return your old bottles to us as proof of purchase and so that we may recycle them. Please confirm you have the old liners in all bottles being returned to us by visiting http://mysigg.com/liner – New liner bottles, or stainless steel bottles returned to us will only be returned to you and slow down the replacement process significantly.
Attached please find our return form.
Please print and fill this out and ship the bottle[s] back to us. Upon receipt, we will issue you a gift certificate pin code good toward the purchase of replacement bottles on mysigg.com, this will include the shipping. No need to return any tops or the caps currently on your bottles, as these are BPA free and may come in handy as extras when you receive your replacement[s].
We enclose a mailing label with the appropriate RMA, please USE THIS shipping label on the outside of your package so that we may expedite the processing of your return. Failure to use this label will cause your package to be misdirected in our warehouse, and seriously delay your replacement. Please note that this mailing label does not include postage for the bottles you are returning. We are sorry for the inconvenience. You may choose to keep your current bottle as they have been proven not to leach, [http://mysigg.com/bulletin/testing.html] but if you want to upgrade your bottle[s], you will have to bear the cost of returning it to us. Thank you in advance for your kind understanding in this regard.
If you have any questions, please hit reply to this email [liners@mysigg.com] and let us know.
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