To ensure chemicals are not seeping in your children’s drinking bottles, whether it is a feeding bottle or a water bottle, it is important to pay attention to what type of plastic is the bottle made of. Make sure that the plastic bottle you give for your children are safe for refilling or reusable. Harmful resins or chemicals contained in these bottles may pose severe health problems for you and your family.
Check the recycling numbers below:
Here are descriptions on Plastic Packaging according to American Chemistry Council.
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET, PETE). PET is clear, tough, and has good gas and moisture barrier properties. The resin is commonly used in beverage bottles and many injection-molded consumer product containers.
High Density Polyethylene (HDPE). HDPE is used to make many types of bottles. Unpigmented bottles are translucent, have good barrier properties and stiffness, and are well suited to packaging products with a short shelf life such as milk. Because HDPE has good chemical resistance, it is used for packaging many household and industrial chemicals such as detergents and bleach. Pigmented HDPE bottles have better stress crack resistance than unpigmented HDPE.
Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC, Vinyl). In addition to its stable physical properties, PVC has good chemical resistance, weather ability, flow characteristics and stable electrical properties. The diverse slate of vinyl products can be broadly divided into rigid and flexible materials.
Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE). LDPE is used predominately in film applications due to its toughness, flexibility and relative transparency, making it popular for use in applications where heat sealing is necessary. LDPE also is used to manufacture some flexible lids and bottles as well as in wire and cable applications. Includes Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE).
Polypropylene (PP). PP has good chemical resistance, is strong, and has a high melting point making it good for hot-fill liquids. This resin is found in flexible and rigid packaging, fibers, and large molded parts for automotive and consumer products.
Polystyrene (PS). PS is a versatile plastic that can be rigid or foamed. General purpose polystyrene is clear, hard and brittle. It has a relatively low melting point. Typical applications include protective packaging, foodservice packaging, bottles, and food containers. PS is often combined with rubber to make high impact polystyrene (HIPS) which is used for packaging and durable applications requiring toughness, but not clarity.
Other. Use of this code indicates that a package is made with a resin other than the six listed above, or is made of more than one resin and used in a multi-layer combination.