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I wished to know the composition of Arizona 1gal plastic jugs that I have. The bottom is stamped PP COMPATIBLE and has a #7 OTHER RIC code.

I understand PP recyclable would be #5 triangle. #7 means it doesn't fit in the plastic recyclable categories 1-6.

They're great bottles and would be nice to reuse for water storage and so forth. Therefore the inner layer composition, safety and leaching become my concern.

It feels and looks like PP, so my guess is it's #7 because of the (polystyrene?) label that is glued right on.

On 1/13/2020, I wrote to hello@drinkarizona.com, which was the inquiry address given at their Contact Us webpage. Below is the letter

Hi,
Can you tell me the composition of your #7 bottle such as the gallon ice tea comes in? Your FAQ page seems to imply it's a special grade of PP, at least in part..
https://www.drinkarizona.com/faqs
I am most concerned what is the inner layer, what is its composition, and whether there are added plasticizers such as BPA and BPS.
Thank you,
X

As of 2/10/2020 I have received no reply.

I do not have a photo of the Arizona bottom handy, but here is a pic of another bottle, this one a 6oz. juice bottle, which is also #7 OTHER and has the same "G" in rectangle logo that appears on the Arizona bottle. Searching this emblem and major bottle manufacturers I was unable to identify the maker and inquire that way.

G-bottle

Update: Here are pics of an Arizona 1g jug: Ariz 1g front Ariz 1g bottom

What are Arizona plastic gallon jugs made of?

Nissim Nanach
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  • If they were designed for ice tea - for human consumption then storing water should be fine. – Solar Mike Jan 15 '21 at 10:42
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    So were polycarbonate bottles. And Tritan that's proprietary looks like just a polyc variant. So were lead pewter steins – Nissim Nanach Jan 17 '21 at 01:00
  • The food handling regulations were not around when the romans used lead water pipes... now I see why no one else even wasted time commenting. – Solar Mike Jan 17 '21 at 01:09
  • Totally reasonable for Nissim to want to know. Food handling regs allow for BPA even though it is clearly harmful. Some plastics may also be harmful. Given the mechanical properties of the Arizona bottles I would have to guess they are using some plasticizer that may be nasty. The only sure way to know would be to do FT-IR spectroscopy. I recently got a quote for about $1k/sample, so not exactly cheaper than just buying water jugs of known composition. Perhaps if you know someone at a local university, the could run the experiment for you. – Emily Conn Jun 29 '22 at 20:46
  • Did you get an answer to your email finally? – Hugo Oct 09 '22 at 19:17
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    @Hugo No, I haven't received. – Nissim Nanach Oct 12 '22 at 02:04

3 Answers3

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Many times manufacturers make bottles from coextrusions of plastics (see... coextrusion blowmolding). Think of blowing a bubble with two or more thin layers of virgin material (without mixing the materials) so the materials lie against each other without air between them. The bubble is the region that will contain the product (when they inflate the bubble interior which is placed into the bottle forming cavity). That is, they select a combination of materials that provide the barrier properties they desire. A layer of Saran (EVOH) is a good oxygen barrier (unless it becomes wet) while PCTFE is a good water barrier. Look at an old plastic ketchup bottle (tomato sauce) and you may see a bubble in the layers. this is a delamination and air has diffused in between the layers and the change of refractive properties makes it visible. This mix of layers (different materials) makes it a non-recyclable 7.

Take a plastic water bottle. Step on it and bend it multiple times. You may see delamination taking place. Look for Newton's Rings. Bands of faintly visible rainblow in the material in places. Separation of layer materials reflects different frequencies of light determined by the separation distance between the layers.

Also, by having virgin material against the product and recycled material in middle or outer layers, they can claim that they are using recycled materials in their container.

Jim Clark
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I can tell you this is a five layer bottle with polypropylene plastic. I was one of the first engineers to use 7 and 5 layer containers for food it was for Coke and Tropicana orange juice. The Arizona ice tea is and extremely well made bottle. It costs much more than the tea inside. The layered bottle was designed to run regrind. As you may know you cannot use reused plastic in a food bottle that touches the food product. So we designed a whole new process to make our product less costly and still use regrind. IN a 5 layer bottle we run virgin material only. Then we use a adhesive layers to glue the nylon which oxygenates so the product is not touched by letting air into the product. If you put red ketchup in a regular bottle it will turn brown. This allows the product to have longer shelf life.

Russell Young
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  • Nylon layer is glued where, inside the outermost layer? Outside the innermost? And glued how, thermal, sinter, .. ? "Adhesive layer" is itself a layer and one of the five or no? Also I thought different plastics generally don't thermal bond well, so is this an exception, that PP and nylon do bond well? – Nissim Nanach Jun 30 '22 at 07:13
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How about performing a plastic burn test. Plenty of information out there if you search.

Here's one guide on performing the burn test:

https://www.boedeker.com/Technical-Resources/Technical-Library/Plastic-Identification

Or keep bugging Arizona until they respond

GisMofx
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