Paris Olympics 2024 official kids drink bottles recalled over chemical scare

The bottles were removed after they were found to exceed BPA limits, but how concerning is the chemical really?

A little girl is pictured next to the Paris Olympics mascot Phryge. Source: Getty
Some of the recalled water bottles featured the Paris Olympics mascot Phryge. Source: Getty

Ahead of the Paris Olympic Games starting this week, scrutiny on the the city has focused on the polluted River Seine which tests have shown to be unsafe for humans on multiple occasions. Now a second contamination scandal has rocked Games organisers with official drink bottles featuring Paris 2024 Olympic branding recalled this week.

Rappel Conso, a French website listing alerts on dangerous products, announced the bottles made by French company Vilac and marketed to children had been removed from sale because the levels of BPA in the plastic were "not in compliance with regulations”.

Some of the bottles featured the 2024 mascot Phryge holding the Eiffel Tower, while others sported the Olympic rings and the Games logo.

While BPA was once commonly used to strengthen food storage containers and reusable bottles, the European Union now heavily restricts its use and it has been completely banned in food and drink containers used by kids.

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While the revelation sparked global concern, an Australian chemistry expert believes the alarm the community feels about BPA needs to be placed in perspective.

RMIT’s Professor Oliver Jones concedes it might be best practice to limit exposure to babies, children and pregnant women, but he believes the negligible amounts most adult humans are exposed to are nothing to be alarmed about.

And that’s something Food Standards Australia and New Zealand agree on. Its current advice is “there are no safety concerns at the levels people are exposed to”, according to the majority of global research.

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“It’s the same with alcohol. Yes, if you drink a bottle of whisky a day for a week, you’re going to have a serious problem. But if you have a shot of whiskey every now and then it's not, even though it's the same compound,” Jones told Yahoo News.

“And if you go and sit on the beach in Melbourne or Sydney in the height of summer and you wait five minutes, you'll probably get sunburned. But if you go out in the middle of winter, you generally won't bother putting any sunscreen on at all.

“In both cases, you've been exposed to a class one cancer causing agent — UV light — but you take precautions in summer to reduce your dose, and you don't bother to in winter because the dose is much lower.”

Because of the alarm around BPA, most Australian retailers have stopped using it as a compound in their printed receipts, and the EU banned outright thermal paper receipts in January, 2020.

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But Jones is concerned there’s little transparency about what chemicals have replaced it.

“It sounds like some retailers have replaced BPA (Bisphenol A) with BPS (Bisphenol S) which potentially has a stronger action on oestrogen receptors,” he said.

“So they’ve replaced one compound that is well studied and we know what the risks are, with another that we don't know what the risks are.”

Despite the science now finding minimal risk to low level BPA exposure, Jones thinks fear of the chemical will continue.

“It’s already established in popular culture that it’s bad for you. But most people that say that aren't toxicologists, or chemists, or food regulators,” he said.

“People get really hung up on the chemicals and don't think about dose and so forth.

“It’s important to remember that we’re all made up of chemicals. There’s a lot of nuance there.”

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