Last week, Swiss company SIGG splashed a bunch of ice water in the faces of consumers who go out of their way to avoid products containing bisphenol-A (BPA). The company announced that the linings formerly used in their aluminum bottles did, in fact, contain the controversial substance.

Now they plan to make up for the misunderstanding with an offer of free replacement bottles.

Reader Jason sent a letter to CEO State Wasik, and received the following response (which, somewhat inexplicably, came through Gmail in Comic Sans):

From: Wasik Steve
Date: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Subject: RE: My Sigg bottle.
To: Jason
Cc: liners@mysigg.com

Hi Jason,

First off, thank you for taking the time to write to me.

I understand your point and recognize that there is a lot of confusion about BPA out there right now. To my knowledge, we at SIGG have never advertised our old liner bottles as being BPA free. Sometimes SIGG retailers or journalists will hear the “no leaching of BPA” message and inadvertently shorten that in their communications to “no BPA”.

We believe we have the best protective liners in the world and have been extremely transparent with the testing of our bottles which you may have seen in the info section on our site (www.MySIGG.com/bulletin). The controversy that has swirled around BPA in the past has involved the problems of plastic bottles leaching BPA into the water – and in my 4 years with the company, SIGG has never had a problem with leaching. For the record, my family and I are still drinking from SIGG bottles with the former non-leaching liner which I have complete confidence in.

I have passed your note to our Customer Service Department. They will contact you directly to help you to exchange your old SIGG bottles for new SIGG bottles with the BPA-free EcoCare liner. This is a voluntary exchange program (not a recall as the bottles you have are still safe). Therefore, we are asking people who wish to exchange the bottles to pay the postage for sending them in and we pay the postage for sending them to you. I think this is fair.

I hope that you will continue to have confidence in the quality and safety of SIGG products. Thanks again for your email.

Best regards,

Steve

For information on how to exchange your own bottle, send an e-mail to liners@mysigg.com – and to express your displeasure, send an email to steve.wasig@sigg.com. If you’re looking for a new water bottle, check out these recommendations from Z Recommends

PREVIOUSLY:
Water Bottles Marketed To BPA-Fearing Parents Contained BPA All Along

(Photo: TreeHugger.com)

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