Did you know that some bottle caps come with a toxic liner on the bottom? Yuck!
Bottle cap liners are used to form a seal against the bottle rim. And testing has found that many of these liners contain toxic chemicals called phthalates. The caps may leave phthalate residue on the bottle rim before you take a sip.
What can you do? Send in your bottle caps for testing! We’re looking for caps from any beverage in a glass bottle—juice, iced tea, iced coffee, kombucha, wine, beer, soda, sparkling water, whatever!
Our partners in the Toxic-Free Food campaign are running a people-powered science project. You send in your caps then, in a few months, they’ll publish the test results in a report naming the best- and worst-performing beverage brands. If your favorite drink comes with a toxic bottle cap, you’ll get the tools to reach out to the company and demand that they switch to toxic-free caps. Have a child who’s learning at home? This is a great project to learn about what’s in the products and packaging we buy and how consumers can demand change.
Phthalates are potent hormone disruptors. Recently, The New York Times detailed the link between phthalates and infertility. Studies have also found that children who were exposed to higher phthalate levels in the womb are at greater risk of ADHD. And boys born to mothers with greater phthalate exposure had altered genital development. Many studies have also shown a relationship between phthalate exposure and asthma. These chemicals don’t belong in our homes, especially not in the packaging of our favorite beverages!
Will you participate? It only takes a few minutes to help find toxic bottle caps!
Just rinse each cap after it comes off a bottle, let it dry, submit an online form (one for each cap), package them up, and mail them in!
Find all the instructions and the submission form on this easy page!
Mobilization and Marketing Director
Beth Kemler led Toxic-Free Future’s public outreach and marketing activities from 2016-2022. She has been organizing public interest campaigns for twenty years, focusing on both policy and markets-based campaigns.
