Everyday Just Living

Why, oh why, do corporations knowingly hide information from consumers? Of course the answer is always the same: money.

But it’s especially disappointing when it happens with a company that seemed socially and ecologically conscious. My complaint today is with Sigg, the makers of those cute metal water bottles like the one I carry everywhere in my purse. In the face of the BPA scare with plastic water bottles I shelled out almost $20 a few years ago to keep myself “safe” with a Sigg bottle. Instead, I now learn, they all along have had BPA in the lining and the company knew about it. The company thought it would be OK with us consumers to advertise their bottles as BPA-free because, in their tests, the BPA didn’t leach out. That’s akin to advertising chocolate-chip cookies as fat-free because the fat doesn’t leach into the milk when you dunk it. If it’s in there, it’s in there and it’s false advertising to call it otherwise.

At least Sigg is taking their old bottles back and exchanging them for free for bottles lined with a new ecocare liner that really, honestly doesn’t have any BPA in it, they swear.  You can see pictures of the old and new liner here so you can decide if your bottle needs to go back. The exchange program is good through October 31st.

The CEO of Sigg wrote an apology letter published two days ago on the Huffington Post. Suddenly he’s more transparent than the water his bottles hold.

I don’t even care that much about the trace amounts of BPA in the old bottles. It probably doesn’t leach out. But tell me the truth. I’m glad to get a new water bottle since my old one is pretty dinged up anyway, but I won’t be buying anymore Siggs down the road. I’ll stick with companies that, at least up until this point, haven’t been found out to be lying to me.

Twelve years ago my college roommate Lisa and I spent a summer in the gorgeous Black Forest town of Freiburg. Here we shared a tiny dorm room while we studied German at a local language school. We got around the town and the entire Black Forest mainly by our own two feet, as well as by local tram, bus and train.  I lost a lot of weight that summer and felt great. I took my husband Steve back there a few years ago for a vacation and together we hiked Black Forest trails, took local busses and trains and generally loved the car-free existence.

Now there’s a suburb of Freiburg that really is 100% car-free. Vauban was built in 2006 and cars are not allowed to even enter the community. If a resident wants to own a car, he or she certainly can at the cost of $40,000 for a parking space at the edge of the development. 70% of residents don’t own a car at all. Everyone gets around instead by foot, bike and the local city tram that passes right through the suburb. It makes for a quiet, peaceful simpler life. By way of definition cars are practically required for most of the world’s city suburbs. Vauban and communities like it are showing that cars are not required if good planning is done. Vauban, do you have room for one more? Read more in the New York Times.