One challenge in publishing a consumer research blog is that we sometimes get information off the record. We regularly point readers to the ZRecs Guide because it allows us to assign "confidence" ratings, which we often cite as allowing us to consider a company's track record when evaluating statements they make. What we don't usually like to spell out is that we also base our confidence ratings, at times, on information we have acquired but cannot publish.

BPA researcher Frederick vom Saal's statements in an article in The Star today have given us the opportunity to let something come out that we weren't previously at liberty to share. Vom Saal stated that he tested SIGG bottles several years ago and found leaching in the parts per trillion range. Based on an agreement we have made with a party that provided us with testing data off the record during our investigation of SIGG last month, we are now able to share some information that we believe independently supports Vom Saal's claim.

Two out of two labs agree: SIGGs leached BPA

Two weeks ago, we were provided with BPA leach testing results for a SIGG water bottle purchased in July, that had SIGG's older, BPA-containing liner. The test was conducted in a 3% acetic acid solution at 40 degrees Celsius, with a stated limit on quantitation (minimum detection level) of .5 parts per billion, or 500 parts per trillion. The bottle was found to leach BPA at 1.25 micrograms per liter, which is roughly equivalent to 1.25 parts per billion. In relative terms, this is more than what Vom Saal states he had found, although he has not yet provided many details of his tests. In absolute terms, both values are very, very small. Everyone - you included - is exposed to BPA at higher levels from other sources, many of them entirely outside of your control. Canned foods tested by the Environmental Working Group contained up to 385 ppb, and even if you avoid those, there are plenty of others. Labs testing water bottles for BPA have to correct for background BPA in the water - sometimes up to 2 ppb. (We have confirmed, for the record, that this test made such a correction as a matter of standard procedure.)

As for SIGG's specific situation, we aren't sure this is particularly damning. They tested to 2 ppb - a level that others in the industry, including company heads we know to be aggressive in their own testing and have no love lost with SIGG, told us was a reasonable threshold for commercial testing of a product. Spinning this into "0.0% leaching," as SIGG often did, is another story.

How can we get more information on the record?

Most of the information we accept off the record is product testing data we would never get otherwise. We scrutinize it carefully, and if it checks out, we may negotiate with the provider of the information to see if there is some way we can use the information that protects their anonymity. In this case, there was no agreement that worked for both sides until Vom Saal went public with his own testing, at which point our source agreed to let us share the findings and the methodology of the testing they had performed, although we agreed to continue to protect the name of the lab and the source of the information.

Accepting information off the record is never ideal, but it allows us access to a lot of information we can use indirectly to provide guidance to consumers through our listings in the ZRecs Guide. We encourage you to pay attention to product listings that are not flagged for a chemical but have "low" confidence assigned to that status, as well as products you might have believed were free of BPA or some other chemical but are flagged as containing it. Most of these are based on our knowledge of a company's track record of trustworthiness, but some are based on information we have acquired but are not in a position to share.

There is another way to get around off-the-record testing: Testing products ourselves based on good leads. The problem is that that costs money. We considered testing an older SIGG bottle for BPA so we could get a clean lab result we could share openly, but it would have cost about $350 that we do not have.

But we have been thinking about a different way of doing testing to find out things that our community of readers want to know. What if ZRecs readers were willing to contribute small amounts to a fund that would test a product we believe, for reasons we cannot disclose, is highly likely to contain a harmful substance its manufacturer believes claims it is free of? What if ZRecs as a community engaged in grassroots product testing?

We'll be making an offer to ZRecs readers to do just that very soon.

More on this story

• SIGG's BPA Confession


• Two warnings before you request a replacement SIGG bottle


• The ZRecs 2009 BPA-Free Water Bottle Showdown


• ZRecs evidence of misleading statements by SIGG representatives


• our interview with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik

SIGG made headlines when it announced that it had stopped producing aluminum water bottles with a lining that contained BPA. But they weren't the kind of headlines it wanted. Many consumers had already believed that SIGG bottles were BPA-free, and despite the lack of such explicit language in the official statements made from SIGG's highest levels, there is some evidence this care may not have been taken at all levels of the organization, or among retailers.

SIGG Switzerland CEO Steve Wasik, an American who held posts at Chanel and other lifestyle brands prior to joining SIGG as the General Manager of SIGG USA in 2006, has been under fire in the blogosphere and is now garnering some mainstream media attention as well. Our own assessments of SIGG's actions have been harsh, and we were interested in hearing the company's top official explain its actions, so we emailed a list of ten questions to Wasik as we gathered information for our stories. He graciously responded with an offer of a phone interview. What follows is a near-complete transcript of that conversation.

ZRecs: When did you first learn that there was BPA in the lining of SIGG bottles?

Steve Wasik: When I met with suppliers back in the summer of 2006 [as General Manager of SIGG USA], I learned about BPA in the liner. I was reassured that there was no leaching, but I knew at the time that if we could remove the BPA, we should do it. And I sat down with the CEO at the time and said, "Let’s develop a new liner."

One of our objectives was to remove BPA so consumers could have confidence in our product; the other issue we wanted was to be able to speak more transparently about the ingredients of the formula. The reality was that we did not own the formula and the agreement that was in place before I got there was that we would not speak about it. So we began by doing leach testing. But we also wanted to develop a solution that was more environmentally friendly. We developed this whole new process that is powder based.

Most water-based epoxy coatings contain VOCs so as you're spraying it they're kind of released into the air. Not good for your carbon footprint. So as we started developing the brand image back in 2005 we said, we are a Swiss company, we should start being eco-minded, and when we walked through the factory, we said, we could probably do better there. It's a whole new process. If any of the powder is sprayed outside of the bottle it's captured by a vacuum and recirculates. No fumes going into the air.

ZRecs: Why did the suppliers tell you about the BPA in the liner at that point?

Wasik: I asked. I wanted to know more about the formula. I basically did not want to take "No, we will not tell you" as an answer, which is what my predecessor had heard. I demanded a meeting with the supplier and said I have to know what is in the formula. They said look this agreement precedes you, but the fact that I knew there was BPA in there I said now was the time. And it didn’t take me long to convince the CEO and the board.

ZRecs: So you met with them and said that it was not enough for you that they had this agreement, but they still would not provide you with the formula?

Wasik: I said point blank you have to tell me what is in this. They told me at that time [that there was BPA in it] but were not providing us with an ingredient list.

ZRecs: We've read in some of your statements that you chose to "honor the agreement" by keeping the ingredients of the liner private until your recent announcement. But we've also read at least one statement from SIGG in an email to a customer that seemed to claim that the company did not know about the BPA. The email, which was published on the blog Light Green Stairs, read: "I understand where you are coming from. Fact is SIGG did not manufacture the old liner, it was provided to us by a third party that would not disclose the ingredient list, only testing that assured no leaching of BPA or ANYTHING else into any beverage poured into a SIGG. Several tests were conducted in Europe and the US to make sure of it. And we paid to have one too!" Isn't this saying that SIGG didn't know there was BPA in the liner?

Wasik: I think I know where that confusion may have come from. We knew there was BPA in the liner, but they would never give us the formula.

ZRecs: We've had some confusion about the timing of your shift to the BPA-free EcoCare liner. When did you convert your factories to test and begin production of bottles with the new liner?

Wasik: The conversion took place in July and August. We shut down factory for 4 to 6 weeks. The [product] category was growing tremendously and it was a difficult time to shut down the factory, but we knew it was the right thing to do and we wanted to get into the new liner as quickly as possible.

If we didn’t own our own factories, it would have been a lot easier. But when you do, you have to work with machine manufacturers and suppliers and since we purchase our own equipment you unfortunately can't do that so quickly.

ZRecs: When did you stop manufacturing bottles with the BPA-free liner?

Wasik: We tried to build up some stock raw bodies that are undecorated. So there's two sides of our company. One side is turning it into a finished assembled bottle and the other is the decorating side - the painting. We tried to keep up some stock so we could keep the workers working. [In a statement in a follow-up phone call, Wasik stated that "this project never really got off the ground," and maintained that few bottles were actually stockpiled.]

ZRecs: When did you stop shipping bottles with the BPA-containing liner from Switzerland?

Wasik: We stopped shipping the old bottles out of Switzerland in December 2008. In the U.S., we had bottles that were the old liner and we never did a recall, we consider the bottles to be safe, so yes there are still bottles that are at retail and that were in our warehouse. All of the ones on the MySIGG line are the new liner. What we can’t control as much is what the retailers do.

ZRecs: Do you still have any more bottles with BPA in SIGG's U.S. warehouses?

Wasik: We only have one warehouse and we aren't sending out any more with the old liner. [Follow-up: Wasik explained in a subsequent phone call that after the public outcry following its announcement, it had decided to stop selling the remaining stock from its U.S. warehouse that used the old liner. Wasik could not provide detailed numbers of the bottles that would be recycled, but said it was "millions of dollars worth."]

ZRecs: When did you begin shipping bottles with the EcoCare liner?

Wasik: At the end of August or the beginning of September 2008. Typically it takes a month to get to the U.S. and then warehouse to stores. They could have been sold as early as October.

ZRecs: What date did you publish your statement about the liner change to the MySIGG website?

Wasik: On August 14 [2009].

ZRecs: You mentioned in April 2008 that you were choosing to "honor the agreement" with your liner supplier by not discussing ingredients in the liner. When did you feel that you were no longer bound by this agreement?

Wasik: In my view we stopped being bound to it in January 2009. We didn't come out and say exactly what we're saying now, and we should have have said it in January. If we had it to do all over again, we would have. It was my mistake to basically not understand that consumers were interested in the mere presence of BPA rather than just "Is it a leach-free bottle." That was a miscalculation on my part. When consumers write into us, we're basically saying, "We should have handled this better and we should have been more clear in our communications."

ZRecs: Do you have plans to test your new liner for BPA on an ongoing basis?

Wasik: The new liner has been certified in powder form. We also have asked our supplier to test every time they make a batch.

ZRecs: Do any SIGG products still use the older BPA-containing liner? Your food tins, mugs?

Wasik: No. The old liner is gone.

ZRecs: How does the cost of the new liner compare with the old one?

Wasik: I was told that the new powder was going to cost us ten times as much as the old liner. It wasn't just the cost of the $1M piece of equipment but the ongoing cost of goods. But we decided it was the right thing to do. We also know it differentiated us from the Chinese suppliers out there who are maybe using low-cost, off the shelf epoxies.

ZRecs: Readers have been sending us complaints and photographs of bottles with the new liner that have coating chipping from the lip of EcoCare-lined SIGG bottles. Did you have initial problems with the new liner, even after your initial testing, when you began producing bottles and distributing them to be sold?

Wasik: We had some trouble at the beginning - there was a learning curve. We found out that they looked great going out but as a Swiss company you want to make every bottle perfectly. Some customers have come back to us and said the mouth of the bottle is peeling away. We would take back their bottles and give them a new bottle, and what we found was that in the early weeks of the production the sprayer was spraying too much liner in the lip. Because it was too thick, it would cause the liner to peel away. That took some adjusting, but we're pretty confident we got it right now. It’s a process. We definitely tweak it here or there. But I think compared to other manufacturers we still have fewer returns than anybody.

ZRecs: And I assume that exchanges of bottles with the EcoCare liner, based on this problem, are not subject to the return shipping policy you require for replacement of the old SIGG bottles?

Wasik. Correct.

More on this story

• SIGG's BPA Confession


• Two warnings before you request a replacement SIGG bottle


• The ZRecs 2009 BPA-Free Water Bottle Showdown


• ZRecs evidence of misleading statements by SIGG representatives


• BPA researcher claims older SIGGs did leach BPA, and we can independently confirm it

Last week, we wrote about SIGG's careful management of information in the years leading up to its announcement that the products many consumers had turned to to avoid the endocrine disrupting chemical bisphenol-A actually contained it. Their announcement marked the beginning of what now appears to be a public relations freefall, as the company grapples with a massive and overwhelmingly negative consumer reaction to what it had pitched as positive news.

Shifting from secrecy to transparency on any topic is always difficult, but the damage to SIGG's ability to connect with customers is downright corrosive. Like an unfaithful partner expecting praise for ending a secret affair, SIGG's attempt to come clean depends on consumers' belief in their deep-down goodness, which in turn requires SIGG to continue to defend actions which suggest, outside of the culture of secrecy and its desperate internal logic, the hardened cynicism of a serial philanderer.

We interviewed SIGG CEO Steve Wasik on Friday afternoon, and talked with him again on Saturday to follow up on some of his statements. Topics ranged from details about SIGG's transition to a BPA-free liner in 2008 to how they have attempted to handle it publicly, as well as an admission of initial production problems that affect some bottles currently on the market. We'll publish an extensive transcript tomorrow.

Today, though, I'd like to draw from that interview and from other sources that have come our way to address what has become a working assumption about this case: That SIGG claimed only that its bottles did not leach bisphenol-A, and never claimed its water bottles were "BPA-free."

Below is the evidence we have collected from readers, from our research and interviews, and from some excellent bloggers over the past week.

Paving the way for consumer confusion

One problem companies face when maintaining a fiction - even if this does not involve lying - is that everyone has to stay on script, all the time. Our sense at this point is that SIGG was very concerned about being on script when it came to the highest official channels of their organization, but ultimately either failed to control communication at all levels of their company, or used a different script altogether.

"I also double checked with our PR agency last week and Meredith Maldonado, who has been working on the SIGG account for the last 3+ years, confirmed that she has 'never ever told a journalist that SIGGs are BPA Free,'" Wasik told ZRecs in an email. "She always tells them that SIGGs are tested to ensure no leaching of anything including BPA." Wasik also mentioned attempting to control the claims stores made about their bottles, and shared an anecdote about dropping a Canadian distributor because they were making BPA-free claims.

Whether this razor-thin distinction was made throughout SIGG is a different story. Megan Kress, a former sales representative for Laken aluminum water bottles who now represents Innate Gear, summed it up in a comment on SNEWS, an outdoor and fitness website that published one of the first reports of BPA in aluminum water bottles, days after SIGG posted their own announcement. Kress is a seasoned veteran of the outdoor industry, and she believes reps were provided with false information about BPA from both companies:

We may be debating the consequences of BPA for years to come. Heck, tomorrow we may find scientific evidence it could cure cancer. But one thing is clear: Too many retailers were misled about what was and was not in the liners of aluminum bottles - frequently by sales teams that were fed a line of hooey who in turn fed that same hooey to accounts.

If retailers were making false claims on SIGG's behalf and appending them to SIGG-provided displays, it is easy to understand why consumers would become confused by the layers of messaging. But looked at another way, if consumers were confused by SIGG's roundabout and often evasive way of "telling the truth" about their products, maybe those retailers were, too.

After publishing our article last week, we found a full transcript of the March 2007 press release Wasik issued after forcing the Environmental Working Group to remove statements about SIGG bottles containing BPA from a report. (In SIGG's defense, EWG had included SIGG in their list without testing any SIGG bottles for BPA.) After examining the full release, we noticed something even more questionable than the careful wording and overarching intent we highlighted in our previous discussion. Wasik went on to cite the retraction made by the Organic Consumers Association, who had picked up EWG's statements and then overreached with their apology. By citing it, he allowed them to make a claim that thus received SIGG's implicit endorsement, without anyone at SIGG having to say it:

Unfortunately, in the meantime this message was picked up by a few other websites, one of those being The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and their newsletter Organic Bytes. When we questioned the OCA on their mention of SIGG, this is the emailed response we received:

“We made a mistake. Sigg bottles do not contain BPAs… it was read wrong and there was confusion. Apologies about this.” - Member Services, OCA

Wasik then goes on to describe the safety of SIGG bottles in his own words - of course, never calling them BPA-free himself.

We know, Steve. You never said it.

Telling customers what they wanted to hear

Under normal circumstances, we would probably not consider a single email exchange with customer service at any company to be worthy of publication. We receive questionable information from major corporations about the BPA status of their products on a regular basis, and it's why we work our way into organizations to get the product chemical listings we publish in the ZRecs Guide. In this case, however, we sat up in our chairs when a reader emailed us to say that a SIGG representative had told her point blank back in 2007 that there was no BPA in SIGG bottles. As it turned out, she had the emails to prove it.

We have the full German transcript of the email exchange between Christina and the Product Manager with whom she corresponded, and were able to verify the employee's presence at the company by examining additional emails he sent to another blogger in 2008. We have attempted to protect the identities of both the employee and the customer by using only Christina's first name and redacting the SIGG employee's entirely.

It's August 2007. Christina sends an inquiry to SIGG that is brief and to the point.

Subject: Questions

1) Is it true that Sigg bottles contain Bisphenol-A?
2) Are there Sigg bottles that can survive a crash better than anyone else (other lacquer?)?
3) If the active bottle top suitable for children?

Thank you.
Christina *****

The Product Manager responds according to SIGG's BPA playbook:

Dear Mrs. *****,

Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to answer your questions:

1. All test trials have been no bisphenol-A found in our bottles
2. The typical aluminum bottles from SIGG we also carry a stainless steel collection (Hot & Cool), which is very robust - also applies to our oval-bottle made of aluminum.
3. Generally NO, the ABT is designed for adolescents and adults.

Sincerely,

********* ****
Product Manager

This is where most consumer inquiries end, and although we could criticize the manager for their slippery wording in that first answer, there may be something lost in translation as well. But Christina followed up, more persistently, on the question of BPA. And that's when the Product Manager appears to go off script - or at least, to stop following the one we're familiar with.

Christina:

Mr. ****, thanks for your answer. Frankly it does not reassure me, your answer to question No. 1 is not particularly .... This could be interpreted either way ...

I would ask again: Is bisphenol-A used in the manufacture of SIGG bottles?

Please excuse my persistence but I'm about to renounce the Sigg bottle and switch to Kleen Kanteen .... I will not take risks for my children if I am not 100% sure that the bottle is okay.

Thank you,

Christina *****

Five hours later, the manager responds.

Hello Mrs. *****,

No, SIGG does not use Bispenol-A. Our aluminum bottles are completely okay.

Sincerely,

********* ****
Product Manager

We have heard similar stories from others who have no record of conversations they believe they had with SIGG. We have seen similar claims online that we had no way of verifying. On close questioning, it can be hard for someone to be certain they remember exactly what was said, or simply what SIGG invited them to infer.

But this above exchange is strong evidence that such incidents did occur. How often this occurred is and will likely remain a mystery.

You can read a full transcript of this email exchange, in German as well as our English translation (performed by Christina and replicated in Google Translate) here.

Transparency is a value, not a strategy

SIGG is a company of around 100 employees. For the past three years, SIGG's secret has been their own. It has been a secret kept through the cynical urgency of preserving and expanding market share at the expense of other companies whose secret world had been exposed.

Secrets can be as corrosive to companies as they can be to individuals. One reason for this is that they allow a company culture to develop assumptions and beliefs that are never challenged by outside views or information. These views may naturally arise from the perspectives of those involved in the deceit, or they may be self-justifications for it, but either way, they don't get properly ventilated and informed and shaped by opposing viewpoints. This is one of the plausible ways we can explain how SIGG could be genuinely surprised by the tremendous backlash it has faced in the wake of its announcement.

But this also means that transparency, when employed as a new tack in an evolving public relations strategy rather than a deeply felt value, is a mixed blessing. Being transparent from the outset tends naturally to make an individual or a group make choices that will look appropriate in hindsight. But being transparent after being vague, misleading, or obscure means that you get all of the risks of transparency - including the instant exposure of your company's insular, incubated views on issues your customers are passionate about - with few of the benefits.

This is the problem SIGG faces now.

Two brief illustrations of this will close out this post, likely our last about a company we once had high hopes for but now find depressing and sad, with the exception of our full interview with SIGG's Steve Wasik, who was very generous with his time and with the information we were looking for.

First, old habits die hard. The experience of former SIGG user Peggy Rowland, who emailed the company on August 22, is a case in point. She wrote to SIGG to demand a refund.

I purchased two SIGG water bottles on 2.9.08 from reusablebags.com. I feel that you didn't tell the whole truth about your bottles. In fact, you let the public believe they were BPA free instead of setting the record straight.

I don't want another one of your bottles because I don't trust you. However, I do want my money back. I paid a total of $38.90 for the bottles. I can give you my mailing address to send a check or my paypal account address. Either way, you were deceptive and you owe me my money back.

SIGG's response began:

Dear Peggy,

I understand where you are coming from. Fact is SIGG did not manufacture the old liner, it was provided to us by a third party that would not disclose the ingredient list, only testing that assured no leaching of BPA or ANYTHING else into any beverage poured into a SIGG. Several tests were conducted in Europe and the US to make sure of it. And we paid to have one too!

They went on to reject her request.

Peggy inferred from their email that SIGG was claiming it had not known there was BPA in liner it used until the summer of 2008, and we'd go further and agree that the email seems designed to make this inference seem quite logical.

• "I understand where you're coming from" = We are in the same situation, i.e. we feel betrayed as well.


• "It was provided to us by a third party that would not disclose the ingredient list, only testing that assured no leaching of BPA or ANYTHING else..." = The provider did not disclose any ingredients, including BPA.

Peggy published an excerpt from her email in a post on her blog, Light Green Stairs, with SIGG's surprising claim as her headline - "SIGG Not Taking Responsibility." A pretty fair title, if you ask us.

However, statements Wasik made to ZRecs directly contradict the claim made in the company's email to Peggy.

"When I met with suppliers back in the summer of 2006 [as General Manager of SIGG USA], I learned about BPA in the liner," Wasik told ZRecs. "I was reassured that there was no leaching, but I knew at the time that if we could remove the BPA, we should do it. And I sat down with the CEO at the time and said, 'Let’s develop a new liner.'"

Having recently read Peggy's post, we repeated Wasik's statement back to him and asked him to confirm it, which he did: He had known about BPA since mid-2006. We then confronted him with the statement made in the SIGG email.

"I think I know where that confusion may have come from," Wasik said. "We knew there was BPA in the liner, but they would never give us the formula." Italics mine.

Visiting SIGG's Facebook page is like entering Coraline's mirror world, where things are definitely off-kilter but it's hard to say why. It might be because the issue of SIGG's profiteering on the issue of safer water bottles has become so personal for so many people, but a corporate page on Facebook is disembodied and dehumanized by design. Or it may be the fact that while storms rage outside its walls, writing on the page's Wall requires you to actually label yourself a fan of SIGG, making this a quiet little hideout. SIGG's outpost on the world's most powerful social network may be the best metaphor yet for the type of culture SIGG has nourished within its own walls.

The company's erratic and often hostile statements on Facebook culminated in a feed item they published but then had the wisdom to retract - although not before Candace at Mama Saga / Mamanista got a screen capture:


She has more, with some great commentary, here.

A bit further down the list, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Thank you for your support, the blogs are on fire and some [I cannot say which ones] have posted some false information. Some of them have retracted their statements and removed their posts. For info 'straight from the source' please write us directly at [liners@mysigg.com] and we will address each and every one of you personally.

"False information"? Forgive us for wondering what that phrase means, exactly, to you.

And you cannot say which blogs have published false information? How odd.

Retracted? Removed? Will we hear about this someday?

"Straight from the source." Sorry, SIGG - for you, those days are over.

We have much more to say on the predicaments companies are finding themselves in as they attempt to decouple their business and their products from a chemical they should have nothing to do with. We believe standards should be put in place that provide companies with goals to meet rather than penalizing them for failing to anticipate evolving science. But we don't have much sympathy for SIGG.

More on this story

• SIGG's BPA Confession


• Two warnings before you request a replacement SIGG bottle


• The ZRecs 2009 BPA-Free Water Bottle Showdown


• ZRecs evidence of misleading statements by SIGG representatives


• our interview with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik


• BPA researcher claims older SIGGs did leach BPA, and we can independently confirm it

The exchange below occurred in August 2007 between a German SIGG customer and a SIGG representative. You can read more about this and other evidence collected in our investigation of SIGG's relationship with the truth on BPA in its products here.

Initial request for information

From: Christina <*******@*****.com>
To: info@sigg.ch
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 10:07:00 PM
Subject: Fragen

1) Stimmt es, dass Sigg Flaschen Bisphenol-A enthalten?
2) Gibt es Sigg-Flaschen, die einen Sturz besser ueberstehen als andere (anderer Lack?)?
3) Ist die active bottle top auch fuer Kinder geeignet?

Danke.
Christina *****

--------------------------------
Translation:

Subject: Questions

1) Is it true that Sigg bottles contain Bisphenol-A?
2) Are there Sigg bottles that can survive a crash better than anyone else (other lacquer?)?
3) If the active bottle top suitable for children?

Thank you.
Christina *****

Initial response to the questions

From: **** ********* <*********.****@sigg.com>
To: *******@*****.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 4:46:11 AM
Subject: Fragen

Sehr geehrte Frau Amail

Besten Dank für Ihre Anfrage. Gerne beantworten wir Ihre Fragen:

1. Sämtliche Testversuche haben bisher kein Bisphenol-A in unseren Flaschen festgestellt
2. Zu den typischen Alu-Flaschen von SIGG führen wir auch eine Edelstahl-Kollektion

(Hot&Cool) die sehr robust ist – gilt auch für unsere Oval-Bottle aus Aluminium.

3. Generell NEIN, der ABT ist für Jugendliche und Erwachsene konzipiert.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

********* ****
Product Manager

SIGG SWITZERLAND AG
Walzmühlestrasse 62 , CH- 8500 Frauenfeld
Tel. +41 (0)52 728 63 30 , Fax +41 (0)52 728 63 07
Tel. direct: +41 (0)52 728 64 16
email: *********.****@sigg.com
www.sigg.com

--------------------------------
Translation:

Dear Mrs. *****,

Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to answer your questions:

1. All test trials have been no bisphenol-A found in our bottles
2. The typical aluminum bottles from SIGG we also carry a stainless steel collection (Hot & Cool), which is very robust - also applies to our oval-bottle made of aluminum.
3. Generally NO, the ABT is designed for adolescents and adults.

Sincerely,

********* ****
Product Manager

SIGG SWITZERLAND AG
Walzmühlestrasse 62 , CH- 8500 Frauenfeld
Tel. +41 (0)52 728 63 30 , Fax +41 (0)52 728 63 07
Tel. direct: +41 (0)52 728 64 16
email: *********.****@sigg.com
www.sigg.com

Persistent questioning

Von: *******@*****.com [mailto: *******@*****.com ]
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 29. August 2007 18:00
An: **** *********
Betreff: Re: Fragen

Herr ****, vielen Dank fuer Ihre Antwort. Ehrlich gesagt beruhigt mich Ihre Antwort zu Frage Nr. 1 nicht besonders.... Dies koennte man so oder so deuten...

Ich frage daher nochmals: Verwendet Sigg Bisphenol-A bei der Herstellung der Flaschen?

Bitte entschuldigen Sie meine Penetranz aber ich bin kurz davor der Sigg Flasche abzuschwoeren und zu Kleen Kanteen ueberzugehen.... Ich moechte das Risiko fuer meine Kinder nicht eingehen, wenn ich nicht 100% sicher bin, dass die Flasche okay ist.

Besten Dank

Christina *****

--------------------------------
Translation:

Mr. ****, thanks for your answer. Frankly it does not reassure me, your answer to question No. 1 is not particularly .... This could be interpreted either way ...

I would ask again: Is bisphenol-A used in the manufacture of SIGG bottles?

Please excuse my persistence but I'm about to renounce the Sigg bottle and switch to Kleen Kanteen .... I will not take risks for my children if I am not 100% sure that the bottle is okay.

Thank you,

Christina *****

Final response from SIGG

From: **** ********* <*********.****@sigg.com>
To: *******@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:26:06 PM
Subject: AW: Fragen

Hallo Frau *****

Nein, die Firma SIGG verwendet kein Bispenol-A. Unsere Alu-Flaschen sind absolut okay.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

********* ****
Product Manager

SIGG SWITZERLAND AG
Walzmühlestrasse 62 , CH- 8500 Frauenfeld
Tel. +41 (0)52 728 63 30 , Fax +41 (0)52 728 63 07
Tel. direct: +41 (0)52 728 64 16
email: *********.****@sigg.com
www.sigg.com

--------------------------------
Translation:

Hello Mrs. *****,

No, SIGG does not use Bispenol-A. Our aluminum bottles are completely okay.

Sincerely,

********* ****
Product Manager

SIGG SWITZERLAND AG
Walzmühlestrasse 62 , CH- 8500 Frauenfeld
Tel. +41 (0)52 728 63 30 , Fax +41 (0)52 728 63 07
Tel. direct: +41 (0)52 728 64 16
email: *********.****@sigg.com
www.sigg.com

I had promised to write about the somewhat shocking marketing tactic SIGG is taking in positioning its new, BPA-free "EcoCare" lined bottles, which they're attempting to favorably contrast not only against their competition but the millions of bottles SIGG previously produced while challenging anyone who claimed their BPA-containing bottles actually contained BPA. But two items must take precedence, because they affect whether or not you should be even thinking about buying another SIGG bottle, or even emailing them (at liners@mysigg.com) to request a free replacement. Both are hot tips from readers that come with ample photographic evidence.

Problem No. 1: SIGG didn't stall long enough

Fully one year after SIGG stopped making bottles with their BPA lining, these bottles are still being shipped to customers by some online retailers. In other words, may have no way of knowing which you will receive until it arrives at your door.

Karen F. ordered a SIGG "Happy Cars" kids' water bottle a week ago through Amazon.com, sold by the third-party seller OnlineComponents.com. This was of course before we published our story and before she'd heard anything about a change in liners in SIGG bottles produced for the last full year. Then she read our story, and that was, you know, surprising. But she even more surprised when she received the package yesterday and discovered that the bottle she'd been sent was one with the older, BPA-containing lining. We found the item for sale through them on Amazon, with nary a whisper (naturally) of which liner was in the bottle.

She wrote:

I just wanted to thank you for your recent story on Sigg water bottles. I ordered one for my son last week. It just came today, and lo and behold, matches the brassy looking BPA filled liner that you display in your story. I would never have know to look for this if I had not seen it here first. I actually thought the product was stainless steel when I ordered it. I didn't realize it was aluminum. Based on your report of the third party testing, it looks like we're still safe with this one, but I wish I had know before I ordered! Thanks again for all the work you do to keep us informed.

What a proposition for consumers willing to swallow their anger and continue to do business with SIGG: Buy your bottle online, wait for it to arrive, and then check a consumer website to see if you actually wanted it in the first place!

We wrote Karen back, asking her for whatever substantiating evidence she could offer. She sent back photographs of everything you need to know. Here's a little slideshow:



Anyone know what those little codes on the sticker mean? We'd love to learn anything else about this bottle based on it. Rogue SIGG employees, we will protect your anonymity!

By the way, this is the single best lesson in how long it can take for a company's "coming clean" to matter to consumers, a fact we mention whenever a company announces they are going BPA-free. It is also the single best reason to do business with a company you trust.

Problem No. 2: The new liner may be very bad

You would think - you really, really would think - that a liner that involved $1 million in factory retooling, two years of secret R&D, and three years of obfuscation and tricky talk would at least be Pretty Damn Good. But we have received reports from two different readers that their SIGG bottles, which they have now identified as being made with the company's new EcoCare liner, have fragments of the liner chipping away from the lid area. ZRecs reader Amelia Sprout writes:

Here are the best pictures I could get. I got it from REI, I think earlier this year. I didn't even notice the different liner until this happened. I came back from a walk and went to take a sip from it and something nicked my lip. I haven't used it since.

Have you had experiences with SIGG's new EcoCare liner, or purchased SIGG bottles in calendar year 2009 that turned out to have the old liner? Tell us in the comments, or email your story to us at editors (at) zrecs (dot) com.

We're working on three posts at the moment that should be of interest: That post I promised about the unwritten rule SIGG is breaking in order to attempt to save its market share, and a two-part, wide-ranging comparative review of safer water bottle alternatives. We have a ton to great adult water bottles to recommend and not-so-great ones to warn you about, so stay tuned, and remember that your purchases through ZRecs links to Amazon help make our consumer research and reviewing possible!

If you'd like to do something about this issue, why not help us do a definitive test to see if EcoCare liners are still flaking? SIGG says' that's impossible. With your help we could test that claim.

Updates to this story

• The ZRecs 2009 BPA-Free Water Bottle Showdown


• ZRecs' evidence of misleading statements by SIGG representatives


• our interview with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik


• BPA researcher claims older SIGGs did leach BPA, and we can independently confirm it

Update: Heard about Gaiam's BPA problem?

Swiss sports and children's bottle maker SIGG has admitted what many consumer advocates have suspected for years, but never proven: That the epoxy lining used for years in SIGG bottles - which they secretly swapped out for a new liner last summer - contained the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A. There's more to the story than that, but the bottom line is that this company is in a very vulnerable position, and there are a couple of factors that will make it hard for them to claim the high road on this issue.

Which bottle do I have?

Let's figure out what you have - if you have any SIGG water bottles, I'm guessing that's the first thing you want to know.

If you own SIGG bottles you purchased before August 2008, you definitely have one with the old liner. But even SIGG bottles that are less than a year old don't necessarily have the new liner. In fact, SIGG's announcement may be somewhat conveniently timed - it can take several months for products to move through the supply chain, and if I were a betting man I'd bet that many of the SIGG bottles with the BPA-containing liner were being sold as late as this spring.

But it's easy to compare them by sight alone. The old version of the liner is very brassy looking, like the inside of a can of tomatoes. The new liner is dull and beige.


As a case in point, a product sample SIGG sent us in the fall of 2008 actually has the old liner.

SIGG's slippery claims

Consumer groups have been alleging since at least 2007 that SIGG bottles are lined with a BPA-containing epoxy, and on the face of it the claim makes sense - SIGG bottles are aluminum, after all, the same material used in canned foods, infant formula, and soda that have been second-class citizens in the debate over BPA exposure. SIGG, in turn, maintained that their bottles did not leach BPA, but that they could not disclose the formula for the liner because it was made by someone else. It is important to note here that they did not claim not to know what was in the formula, only that they could not or would not reveal it. As SIGG Switzerland CEO Steve Wasik explained it in April 2008:

SIGG has proprietary rights with a 3rd party producer of our liner formula. In other words, we do not produce it ourselves. This supplier is based in Switzerland and has an impeccable reputation for quality and safety. SIGG is the only water bottle on the market to use this special liner. As there are many copy-cat manufacturers in the market (most based in China) that would like to get their hands on this formula, our supplier has an agreement with SIGG to keep his formula confidential.

Because we know that this liner is the very best on the market and we have had a positive working relationship with this supplier, we have honored that agreement.

With that context in mind, let's jump back to early 2007, when the Environmental Working Group published a guide to BPA-free products that listed SIGG water bottles as containing BPA. SIGG responded by demanding that the organization either furnish proof that this was true or remove SIGG from its list. Listen to the very carefully crafted language of then-SIGG USA president Wasik:

On March 9th, it was brought to my attention that a website sponsored by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) made mention that SIGG bottles contain plastic liners with bisphenol A (BPA).

I can assure you that SIGG bottles are absolutely not made with a plastic liner and are in fact lined with a proprietary non-toxic, water-based resin which has been refined over decades of study and is extremely safe & stable.

Based on the confidence we have in our product backed by numerous laboratory studies, we questioned the EWG and requested that they provide us with the testing they have conducted on SIGG - or alternatively to remove the "SIGG" mention from their website if they have not tested SIGG. Within 24 hours of this request, the EWG removed SIGG's name from their report. [Via Eco Child's Play]

I encourage you to read those paragraphs again. There are great ravines of fact bridged by carefully chosen inference. And they helped ensure that SIGG benefited mightily from the rampant purchases of aluminum and stainless steel water bottles Americans made in 2007 and 2008 to replace their Nalgene and other polycarbonate sports bottles. Where would SIGG have been if they had admitted to having BPA in their product at the time, but assured consumers that it would not leach out?

Meanwhile, the Organic Consumers Association had picked up the SIGG contains BPA claim, and reported that consumers should avoid SIGG bottles along with many other known BPA-containing products. They published this in the March 8, 2007 issue of their newsletter, Organic Bytes.

But SIGG was edited out of that document, too - even the PDF version of the newsletter! - after an unspecified party alerted the OCA to SIGG's counter-claim. In the next issue of Organic Bytes, editors Craig Minowa and Ronnie Cummins wrote:

In Issue #104, we ran a piece with quick tips on how to avoid toxic BPA. One of our bullet points mentioned avoiding SIGG water bottles (among other brands). We acquired that information from the Environmental Working Group. Unfortunately, the data was slightly dated. SIGG has since gone BPA-free, so it is now safe to purchase SIGG water bottles.

SIGG began releasing independent testing showing that its bottles leached no BPA in tests that mimicked liquids like colas, fruit juices, and water. These tests don't appear to be any different from the kinds of tests Canada would do if SIGG wanted to import bottles with that liner into our BPA-banning neighbor's home turf - put the material up against a liquid, wait, and see what comes out. In other words, Health Canada and anyone else who regulates BPA will not test for the presence of BPA in the material itself; they will test to see if BPA comes out of the material. It is entirely conceivable that a material could be made using BPA but be so well-engineered and so carefully used that it does not leach BPA, and that appears to be what SIGG accomplished with its third-party provider.

Still, things seemed a little funny. As Amelia Royko Maurer of the green online shop Free Market Organics wrote in an undated page of notes and clippings on her website:

When I bought my first Sigg bottle, I called the company up and asked what the liner was all about. They said something like they were working on a patent and could not yet reveal what it was. So I waited and wrote again. Then I would just periodically check in at their website to see if they had given the answer yet. Finally one day it said the liner was a "water based epoxy resin". If you look today, they have removed the word epoxy, but the funny thing is, none of their other retailers have, which looks a little obvious, especially since their descriptions of it all match accept for the missing word "epoxy." They mention that it is not plastic - which is true, nonetheless, BPA is used to make most epoxy resins. [Link]

For much of this period, we assumed that SIGG was either bluffing about knowing whether the product was made using BPA (it wouldn't sound very good to admit you were using a coating but weren't entitled to the formula, would it?) or that there was some strange legal quandary that prevented them from coming out and explicitly saying their product was BPA-free. (Incidentally, many companies that have been selling products as BPA-free must now wrestle with some of those questions.) Because of these unanswered questions, we chose not to flag SIGG bottles with BPA as a "chemical of concern" in the ZRecs Guide, but flagged our level of confidence in the information provided by the company as "Low," because it was clear SIGG was failing to disclose something, although we couldn't be certain what.

We'll be changing it soon to reflect SIGG's new revelation, so this is for posterity:


Despite this "Low" confidence rating, we trusted (and continue to trust) their third-party testing. It isn't the stuff of peer-reviewed scientific journals, but it's the kind of data companies have to submit to government agencies to certify their products. It describes the methods used and provides a lot of detail. And Z has used SIGG sippys off and on for years. We have no concerns about BPA exposure, based on the test results.

But that doesn't mean we like the way SIGG does business.

Whether or not you are comfortable using a bottle that contains but does not leach BPA, for us the real story here is how a company using BPA that would have been absolutely sidelined by consumers seeking BPA-free alternatives managed to make itself a central player by carefully controlling information about its products, challenging consumer advocacy organizations when they made statements that were unproven but that the company knew to be true, and "coming clean" only when it suited its own purposes.

Now SIGG CEO Wasik has proudly announced on SIGG's U.S. website:

Within the scientific community, the safety of the packaging ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) remains the subject of considerable debate and controversy as evidenced by the FDA meetings on the topic this month. For decades, BPA has been the industry standard for protective coatings – approved by food and health regulators around the world. One year ago, Andrew von Eschenbach, the Commissioner of the FDA, announced that, "The science we have reviewed does not justify recommending that anyone discontinue using products containing BPA." At that time, SIGG Switzerland, the world leader in premium reusable bottles, had already made the transition into bottles that are BPA free.

(Of course, it wasn't long before we all became painfully aware of how cozy the FDA and industry were during that time. But let's not quibble over details.)

Within the reusable bottle water category, polycarbonate plastic bottles (#7) came under scrutiny in early 2008 because they were found to leach BPA. As a result, many consumers turned to metal bottles (aluminum and stainless steel) because these bottles had no issues with BPA migration. Prior to its transition, SIGG utilized a water-based epoxy liner which contained a trace amount of BPA. The bottles were thoroughly and regularly tested in both the USA and Switzerland and all tests revealed absolutely no migration or leaching of BPA or any other substance from the protective inner liner. These tests have been public information on the SIGG website for several years and remain there today.

Despite the fact that these bottles were manufactured well within strict international regulations and posed no health risk, my team and I initiated a project in June 2006 to develop a new liner which would be both BPA free and produced in a more environmentally friendly manner. We recognized early that there were questions surrounding BPA and we wanted to be sure that we had a bottle liner that you, our customers, could have absolute confidence in.

After two years of comprehensive testing and development and a one million dollar investment in new equipment for our Swiss factory, SIGG began producing bottles with our new, next generation "EcoCare" liner in August 2008. Providing the same quality and protection afforded by the previous liner, this new powder-based, co-polyester coating has been thoroughly tested and is certified to be 100% free of BPA... [Link]

WTF SIGG?

August 2008? Yep, SIGG has been sitting on this news for a year. Why? Well, one reason a reasonable person might assume would be a factor is that the overwhelming majority of SIGG bottles made with the old liner have now moved through what is probably a year-long supply chain of production, distribution, and brick-and-mortar and online sales. SIGG offers a product line of dizzying variety sold at premium prices, and they are probably slow to move. But of course that is not the real reason!

The primary reason that I am writing this letter today is because I believe that the BPA conversation has changed dramatically in the last 12 months. Last year, the primary concern was that of BPA leaching from bottles. Since that time the dialogue has evolved such that now some people are concerned about the mere presence of BPA and some states are considering legislation.

But how much trust can consumers spare for a company that operates this way? Does this chain of events lead you to have "absolute confidence" in SIGG's desire to meet your expectations - and to protect your health?

As Alicia at online retailer The Soft Landing put it in a post yesterday about her company's experiences with SIGG that ultimately led her to stop selling them in her online shop:

We’re not interested in dealing with another used car salesman. There are too many other top notch water bottle companies out there! It’s not about the "mere presence of BPA" or that their studies didn’t show any leaching - it’s about the principle of trust. We as parents, consumers and advocates should demand transparency from companies who build their entire foundation on being healthy and green.

We'd be very surprised if SIGG wasn't prepared for some kind of backlash. The question is, how big will it be? We want to know what you think about this issue. Does this news anger you? Or do you think this is the only way a business could handle this kind of transition, and applaud SIGG for "taking the lead" in making a safer aluminum container lining?

Tomorrow I'll talk a bit about what we find really shocking about SIGG's strategy to minimize the flight of consumers from its brand. It's a move that could shake things up the backrooms of the children's products industry and yield a lot of new, but not necessarily enlightening, claims and counter-claims about various products' safety.

New to ZRecs? Find out what we do in this list of our best recent consumer reporting and reviewing.

Updates to this story

• Two warnings before you request a replacement SIGG bottle


• The ZRecs 2009 BPA-Free Water Bottle Showdown


• ZRecs evidence of misleading statements by SIGG representatives


• our interview with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik


• BPA researcher claims older SIGGs did leach BPA, and we can independently confirm it

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SIGG's public statements about BPA

"SIGG's Bottle Liner"
publication date unknown, received by ZRecs on March 18, 2008

SIGG Bottle Liner


"Former Liner Full Report, BPA Leach Testing, June 2007"
publication date unknown, received by ZRecs on March 18, 2008

Former Liner Full Report BPA Leach Testing June 2007


"SIGG Quality Guarantee"
released April 15, 2008

SIGG Quality Guarantee- April 15, 2008


"EcoCare Swiss Testing Feb 2008"
released August 2009

EcoCare Swiss Testing Feb 2008