SIGG Sucks.

Hey, I’m back! Can’t say I’ll be consistent, since I’ve got a bazillion things going all at once… But I really felt the need to weigh in on how misleading SIGG has been to its customers. No, that’s putting it nicely: they’re liars. Remember this post about water bottles? Well, forget it. Klean Kanteen all the way, baby.

I know this is an older topic, but here’s why I’m pissed at SIGG. There was a question for a while about whether their water bottles contained BPA or not, and the company was very ambiguous it. Even Treehugger wasn’t able to get to the bottom of it, and their resources are considerably larger than, say, this site’s. Their post about SIGG featured a response from SIGG’s CEO, Steve Wasik, about the safety of SIGG’s bottles. A quote: “Very thorough migration testing in laboratories around the world is conducted regularly and has consistently shown SIGG aluminum bottles to have no presence of lead, phthalates, Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), Bysphenol A (BPA), Bysphenol B (BPB) or any other chemicals which scientists have deemed as potentially harmful.” Okay.

But here’s an excellent post from TheSmartMama.com written in September of last year. Here’s a quote:

“The problem with SIGG is that it claimed no leaching above 2 ppb [parts per billion]. But the details of that claim got lost in the shuffle with consumers, and consumers assumed no leaching equaled no BPA[...] But below that level of 2 ppb, nobody knew what happened with SIGG bottles. Vom Saal states that he did test SIGG, and found that the bottles leached below 2 ppb. And Vom Saal, and others like him, believe that BPA’s hormone disrupting effects occur at the parts per trillion (ppt) level.”

So basically, by allowing everyone to believe that their bottles were BPA-free, the company committed a lie of omission. The bottles pre-August of 2008 were not BPA-free, they did leach, and the amount of leaching, while small, might still be enough to cause hormone disruption. And even if the amount was safe (which I don’t buy), the company took action against the Environmental Working Group and the Organic Consumer’s Association for reporting that their bottles leached, and here’s a letter from Wasik posted by Eco Child’s Play in March of 2007 in which the CEO claims that “We understand the controversy and concern surrounding BPA leaching from plastic water bottles and can assure you that SIGG bottles are leach-free and 100% safe. We are upset about the misinformation which has circulated and are working feverishly to clear the good name of SIGG.” Oh, really?

And last year, a lot of moms left comments on SIGG’s Facebook page about the BPA issue, and the company deleted all of the comments and took the post down that night. (Here are some of those moms talking about it.) So I can’t link to those comments or discuss how SIGG responded, because it’s no longer on Facebook. Is that the kind of transparency we ask from companies whose products we buy? Lame.

It’s true that SIGG’s current bottles are lined with a BPA-free material, but I couldn’t care less. SIGG, you fooled us once, but the shame is all on you.

Here are some blog posts about the issue, if you’d like to read more:
Z Recommends (This is a great post, you should read it)
GreenMe
Mama Saga