Does my water have plastic in it?

Were the coolers washed well before they were used? And are you sure the water from the kitchen doesn’t have the same taste?
I’ve never had that problem, and we use the same coolers at my camp.. we use water from the creek though.

Usually with containers, say an aluminum water bottles they are coated on the inside with ceramic I believe. That ceramic stops taste from transfer between liquids. So your water today wont taste like yesterdays lemonade even after washing it.

Perhaps the cooler you are using is not coated with this, and it’s simply transferring the taste to your water. I don’t think any “plastic” is in your water however there may be other bacteria depending on whats been in the cooler, and how well it had been cleaned.

Some plastics can leech chemicals into the water. Is there a number on the bottom of the container that says which it is? Like 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.?

It sounds like the thing wasn’t washed properly before being used. Brand new plastic is probably coated with the stuff they used to stop it sticking to the mold so you need to wash them with plenty of hot soapy water a couple of times before using them.

Is the container in the heat? It probably is leaching chemicals into the water. If they only drink this once in a while I probably would not worry about it, but I would not let my kids or adults drink it every day on e regular basis. They recently did a study about the chemical in soft plastics, can’t remember the name of it, and found that pregnant women who had high levels in their urine were much more likely to have male sons with with genital abnormalities. The percentage was significant, but I don’t remember the numbers I guess these chemicals are hormone inhibitors or something like that. Also, I have a personal experience. A man who is a close relation to me was having trouble with very low testosterone, and he stopped bringing his lunch in plastic containers and switched from using plastic water bottles and his testosterone is singificantly higher a year later. o way to really know if the switching from plastic actually caused the increase in testosterone, but I find it interesting. He had not changed away from plastic for that reason, he had changed for other health concerns, and when he heard about the study on pregnant women he began to connect it all.

@JLeslie was it BPA? BPA is a nasty, terrible thing. It’s also a synthetic estrogen, as well as being a highly used plastic.

@tragiclikebowie Not sure. I can try to search for the information later, I have to lof off in a second. They said it is in soft plastics like plastic shower curtains, and the squeezable rubber duckies for the bath tub.

A few months ago I noticed that the filtered water I kept in a plastic container in my fridge was tasting odd, but tasted fine when it came straight from the sink. I eventually realized that I must have washed the plastic pitcher in very hot water and that’s where the taste was coming from. You make want to look into that.

@rangerr the coolers are supposed to be washed after anyone uses them, and every time I go into the kitchen the staff seem to be doing a good job of it. I just went downstairs to taste the water from their faucet and it tastes fine.

I think the coolers may be pretty old (at least 5–10 years) and they get used all the time. Do you think some kind of deterioration could be a factor?

@tragiclikebowie I think this is the 60 minute episode I saw on the topic. My computer is giving me so much trouble it is a torture to try and watch a video. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6512528n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.3