SIGG Bottles Beat Other Leading Brands in Independent Test
Last year, Julia Roberts told millions of viewers on the Oprah Show, “Everyone just needs to get a SIGG!” And after testing leading brands in his state of the art laboratory, Professor William Shotyk agrees.
Professor Shotyk is Canadian-born but now resides in Germany where he is in charge of the Lab for Trace Inorganic and Isotopic Analyses at the University of Heidelberg, one of the cleanest labs on earth for measuring trace metals in the environment. And when he’s not investigating samples of Arctic ice thousands of years old, he’s teaching about the environmental impact caused by the bottled water industry. “Not only does the manufacturing, transporting and disposal of PET water bottles leave a huge carbon footprint,” claims Shotyk, “but the tap water in North America is some of the finest in the world."
After testing bottled water brands from around the world for trace metals, he found that fresh spring water from Elmvale, Ontario was in some ways the cleanest of all simply because it had no packaging! Shotyk now uses this same spring water as a teaching tool for understanding the environment, creating the Elmvale Foundation, and the Elmvale Water Festival (www.elmvale.org).
As a scientist who studies the damage man has caused to the planet on a global scale, Professor Shotyk is a tremendous advocate of kicking your bottled water habit and switching to a reusable bottle. Many visitors to the Elmvale Water Festival asked him which reusable bottle to choose, so he went back into the laboratory with some of the leading brands. He chose not to include polycarbonate bottles because of the consumer movement away from plastic in all forms. Shotyk selected three brands: two leading brands of stainless steel bottles, both manufactured in China, and the SIGG bottle manufactured in Switzerland; the SIGG is aluminum, but has a protective, proprietary liner.
Professor Shotyk placed samples from all 3 brands under the same conditions: 13 days filled with extremely pure water from the clean lab. At the conclusion of the test, both stainless steel bottle brands were shown to leach metals such as chromium and manganese at levels nearly 1,000 times more than the SIGG bottles which showed virtually no leaching through the protective liner. “While the levels for all three brands were in the safe range for regulatory requirements, I was truly impressed by the quality of the Swiss brand. For the elements tested, there was effectively no leaching!”
Based on these findings, the professor’s message to his students, visitors to the Elmvale Water Festival and anyone else who will listen is, “Think before you drink. If you want a truly clean bottle, get yourself a SIGG.” Julia Roberts would agree!
SIGG was founded in 1908 in Switzerland and today is the leading brand of reusable water bottle in the world being sold in over 60 countries. Backed by 100 years of Swiss heritage, SIGG manufactures bottles that are ecologically sound, reusable and, ultimately, recyclable. SIGG Switzerland is proud to be a member of 1% For The Planet, donating 1% of all global sales to environmental causes.
1% For The Planet is a not for profit organization founded in 2002 by Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. Today, membership consists of nearly 1,000 companies in over 30 countries and is growing fast. To date, 1% FTP members have been responsible for over $30 million in environmental giving. Visit www.onepercentfortheplanet.org to learn more.
The Elmvale Foundation is a Canadian non-profit research organization providing environmental science education. The Elmvale Water Festival is an annual event for the general public. The Elmvale Foundation is a federally incorporated, registered charity (84826 6193 RR0001). Visit www.elmvale.org to learn more.