Are You Watering Your Garden With BPA and Toxic Chemicals?

“We’ve been look­ing at a wide range of prod­ucts where there is a cred­i­ble con­nec­tion to hav­ing human expo­sure and we know that con­sumer prod­ucts are a very sig­nif­i­cant source of expo­sure to many of these chem­i­cals,” explained John Gearhart, the Ecology Center’s research direc­tor. “We’ve looked at every­thing from baby prod­ucts to toys to things as big as vehi­cles and build­ing materials.”

They had not yet exam­ined gar­den prod­ucts, and a few peo­ple had asked about them. “We started off try­ing to do a broader assess­ment and we did screen a range of prod­ucts, but over­whelm­ingly we found that the gar­den hoses were of most concern.”

What is so dan­ger­ous about an innocent-looking hose? To start, one in three of the hoses tested had lev­els of lead that exceeded drink­ing water stan­dards. And water sam­pled from one hose was 18 times the lev­els allowed in drink­ing water! Only there is noth­ing ille­gal about this, because hoses are not reg­u­lated by the same laws that limit lead leached by plumb­ing fix­tures into drink­ing water. (Since, you know, no one is ever going to drink out of a hose or use it to water plants they might eat.) Brass, often used in plumb­ing fix­tures, is an alloy that can con­tain up to 8 per­cent lead. In addi­tion to its uses in brass fix­tures, lead is also some­times used as sta­bi­liz­ers or pig­ments, par­tic­u­larly in yel­low or green hoses. Lead is a neu­ro­toxin and chil­dren are more vul­ner­a­ble to lead poi­son­ing than adults.

The good news is that the state of California took action against three major man­u­fac­tur­ers of water hoses over lead con­tent in their prod­ucts in 2003 and set­tled in 2004. Under the set­tle­ment, the com­pa­nies Teckni-Plex, Inc.; Plastic Specialties and Technologies, Inc. Teknor Apex Company; and Flexon Industries Corporation were to limit the lead con­tent in their prod­ucts. (The details are on this page, toward the bottom.)

While the Ecology Center did not test any of these brands for lead leach­ing, pre­sum­ably gar­den­ers who pur­chased their hoses since 2007, when the set­tle­ment terms fully took effect, can skip wor­ry­ing about lead – and instead only worry about other chem­i­cals like BPA and phthalates.

For any­one famil­iar with polyvinyl chlo­ride (PVC), nick­named “poi­son plas­tic,” it should come as no sur­prise that PVC hoses con­tain phtha­lates and leach them into the hose water. According to Gearhart “most vinyl hoses are going to have phtha­late plas­ti­ciz­ers in them.” Phthalates, used as plas­ti­ciz­ers, are endocrine dis­rup­tors, and some stud­ies link them to liver can­cer. Levels of one phtha­late, DEHP, was found in the hose water at a rate of four times the amount per­mit­ted in drink­ing water. Several phtha­lates have been banned in children’s toys, but they are still used in gar­den hoses and gar­den gloves.

Another con­cern found was BPA, an endocrine dis­rup­tor that has got­ten a lot of pub­lic­ity recently due to cam­paigns to ban it from use in baby bot­tles and sippy cups. Nowadays, con­sumers have wised up, and many plas­tic water bot­tles are mar­keted as “BPA-free.” The hose indus­try has faced no such scrutiny, it seems. This endocrine-disrupting chem­i­cal was found at a level 20 times higher than what is con­sid­ered a safe amount in drink­ing water by the National Science Foundation.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at AlterNet.org.