Which Plastic Bottles Are BPA Free?

If you are new to BottleStore or just browsing through, welcome. For those of you who are familiar with BottleStore: Its parent company O.Berk, you will no doubt have come in contact with our Packaging Crash Course site, a library of articles, infographics, and videos. Those articles are geared towards a wider audience of packaging professionals and companies with large packaging volume needs. We at BottleStore decided to take a selection of these articles and translate for our BottleStore customers.

Therefore we have created the “Follow Up” series. A series of articles that take a deeper dive of Packaging Crash Course, or any other packaging articles on the web, and discuss the relevancy of these articles in BottleStore terms. Let’s start this series with an article posted earlier in 2015 on Packaging Crash Course Quick Question Monday series : What is BPA? Which Resin Has BPA?.

We’re asked a lot about this question. Which bottles in your inventory have BPA and which don’t? This is largely driven by a lot of government and independent studies showing the potential drawback of BPA exposure. While the FDA has indicated in the past that BPA is not shown to be particularly harmful in food and beverage packaging, it is nonetheless something many consumers want to avoid. If you take a gentle scroll through the Baby bottles and containers isle of your nearest baby supply stores, you will no doubt seen a lot of “BPA FREE” logo on many of these items.

Finding BPA Free Plastic Bottles

While we do not want to get into a debate of the effects, direct or indirect, of BPA in plastic, we do know that many common plastic resins used in producing plastic bottles, jars, and jugs do not contain BPA, as discussed in our Packaging Crash Course article mentioned above.

If you would like to make sure the plastic container you are buying from BottleStore is “BPA FREE”, Simply review the “Material / Resin” section of the sidebar filter, located on the left hand side of plastic container catalog pages, and select any of these options: PET, HDPE, LDPE, PP, or PS. All of these resins do not contain BPA.

How to tell if Plastic is BPA Free

If you are looking at a plastic bottle or jar at home, and wondering whether that bottle or jar is generally considered as BPA free, here is how to do it:

• Turn the bottle or jar upside down, and look at the bottom to see if it contains a plastic resin identification code (commonly referred to as recycling code). The symbol has a numeric number (from 1 – 7) encased by three chasing arrows shaped like a triangle.
• If you see 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6, you can comfortably assume the bottle or jar is BPA free
• If it is 3, or PVC, it likely contains BPA. PVC is no longer used in most food and beverage containers, and its use as metal can food lining material is also decreasing
• If you see 7, you won’t be able to determine whether it has BPA or not, as 7 is considered the “catch all” category that all other plastic resins are grouped under. If you know the plastic bottle is made of PVC materials, it will have BPA.

Can the symbol be changed after production?

No. Plastic bottle identification codes are embossed onto the bottle during its manufacturing process. The symbol is embossed onto the mold so it cannot be changed in post production. For companies packaging food, beverage, pharmaceutical, or nutraceutical products in the United States, they often require bottle manufacturers and suppliers to supply a “Certificate of Compliance”, identifying the resin used in the shipment lot. Many companies with dedicated production lines will also identify the exact resin used from the resin manufacturer.

BPA Free Plastic Bottle Catalogs

Take a look at our plastic bottles collection below. BottleStore does carry a selection of BPA free plastic bottles, jars, and pails. Simply click on the links below to go to our catalogs:

• Plastic Bottles
• Plastic Jars
• Plastic Jugs