Many local Safeway stores (including the one pictured above on Willow Pass Rd. in Concord) have dozens of cases of bottled water stacked outside in the sun for hours at a time, leading some shoppers to question whether that’s the best way to store bottled drinking water. While there’s no evidence that bottled water left in the sun becomes immediately unsafe to drink, health experts recommend storing bottled water in a cool, shaded place. Prolonged exposure to heat and sunlight can accelerate the breakdown of the plastic, potentially affecting the taste of the water and increasing the migration of small amounts of chemicals from the bottle into the water. If you have a choice, experts generally recommend purchasing bottled water that has been stored indoors or out of direct sunlight. Thanks to Jennifer for the photos and information!
Hey, that is one smart store manager !
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Hmm, . . . . . would health department be interested ?
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Do believe Jennifer has started something.
If you see dumb stuff, take a PIC and send it in with story.
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Thank You Jennifer !
This isn’t something new, this has been going on for decades. Although, I’m surprised that the time and effort was taken to stack this merchandise on the ground, normally they just park the pallets of water or other merchandise in front of the store. I don’t really like the taste of bottled water, but bottled water that’s been heated tastes even worse.
Who doesn’t like plastic in their water? yummy good!
Maybe not to worry. We’re all mutating into half-organic half-plastic creatures. 👽
Enjoy your microplastics! No thanks, garbage water.
It’s definitely a dangerous practice.
Scientific study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889157526001778
Highlights
• Heavy metals (Pb, Co, Cr) migrated from PET plastic packaging.
• Migration into water increased with longer sunlight exposure.
• No health risk (HI, ILCR) were detected for Cr, Co, and Pb.
• Environmental conditions strongly influenced bottled water quality.
• PET bottled water showed pollution level from none to poor.
Well, you all seem to think that businesses shouldn’t have to keep up with cost-of-living and should be able to exploit their employees at all costs. Why should Safeway backroom employees give two effs about water being outside when they’re getting paid garbage wages to be worked like animals? They’re likely also being threatened by job security.
Businesses get what they pay for; qualified, hard-working people are NOT going to apply for jobs where they are overworked and exploited. So underqualified people take those jobs or don’t work hard for them and then we have consumers who think that people should be exploited because they “don’t work hard enough”. And, therefore, consumers then what they pay for — water sitting out in the sun.
Safeway is unionized.
As far as I know they have been doing that for years!
This doesn’t surprise me. Of all the Safeway stores in Concord, Pleasant Hill, and Walnut Creek, this particular store is the one I least go to because of the layout and how they treat their stock.
I’d never knowingly buy or drink water left out in the sun in plastic for any length of time.
We all drank from the end of a water hose as children. It’s perfectly okay.
I once drank from a garden hose that turned out to have had Miracle-Gro fertilizer run through it with a Siphon Ex fertilizer device…got a bad stomach ache, and I did not grow!