The Bindle Bottle Recalled

CR's tests found the storage compartment of the ‘sip and stash’ bottle contained over 1,000 times the amount of lead allowed in many consumer products

Bindle’s “sip and stash” water bottle, heavily marketed on Instagram and once declared one of Oprah’s “Favorite Things,” has been voluntarily recalled, after CR’s test results last week showed it contained alarmingly high lead levels. CR tested a “sealing dot” found in the bottom storage compartment—which the company for years had described as being food-safe—and measured over 1,000 times the amount of lead allowed in many consumer products.

On Friday, a voluntary recall notice was live on the Bindle website, telling customers to stop using the bottle’s bottom storage compartment until they registered for and received a free repair kit that would cover the exposed lead solder. The notice does not describe what the repair entails, but Bindle bottles that CR purchased recently have black rubber seals covering the lead dots. Those seals were not present in the bottles that CR originally tested.

The page also does not mention any offer of a refund for customers who no longer want to use their bottles. CR’s safety experts have long said that companies should always offer full refunds as part of any product recall.

“The company has contacted the FDA in regard to voluntarily removing the product from the market due to concerns regarding the potential for lead leaching from the Bindle Bottle,” said Veronika Pfaeffle, a Food and Drug Administration spokesperson. “The FDA will continue to monitor this situation to ensure that the adulterated product is removed and will post the recall on fda.gov to ensure the public is aware of this action.”

A since-deleted post on Bindle’s website last week called the health risks of the bottles’ lead content “negligible,” but the company’s recall page on Friday states that the sealing dot “may contain excess amounts of lead,” which “potentially poses an exposure risk to lead if unpackaged food is placed in the dry storage compartment.”

CR tested the storage compartments of three Bindle bottles and found lead levels that ranged from 90,800 parts per million to 155,000 parts per million. That’s approximately 1,100 times the levels legally allowed in many consumer products, according to Ashita Kapoor, associate director of product safety at CR, who oversaw the tests. Because of the risk of lead poisoning the Bindle poses, CR’s safety experts recommended that customers stop using it immediately, at all.

“Bindle Bottle takes this issue seriously,” Charlie Crisan, one of Bindle’s three co-founders, wrote in an email to CR earlier this week, before the recall announcement. “We are actively evaluating any potential risk associated with the small solder dot located at the top of the dry storage compartment. We stand behind our products and are committed to taking appropriate steps to ensure that our customers can continue to use their Bindle Bottles without concern for their health.”

Bindle did not answer CR’s questions about how many of its customers had already contacted the company to request a refund or a replacement for their bottles. All of the Bindles on the company’s website are currently listed as “sold out.”

Bindle’s recall notice and website do not mention another potential health problem identified by CR: Some of the bottles CR tested contained bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical linked to fertility problems and certain cancers, despite claims on the product that it is BPA-free. In an email to CR last week, Crisan, at Bindle, said that it had tested its bottles’ surfaces for BPA. But the company’s tests did not look for BPA levels as low as CR’s did, so did not detect any BPA.

In testing the Bindle, CR was responding to a tip from lead-risk activist Tamara Rubin, who ran her own test and posted about it on her blog, Lead Safe Mama, in January.

Product recalled: All Bindle bottle sizes and colors are affected, including bottles in “Puppy Packs.”

Sold at: The Bindle website and at multiple retail outlets across the country.

The problem: The storage compartments on the bottles have exposed lead.

The fix: Consumers with these bottles should immediately stop using them and contact Bindle for a free repair kit.

How to contact the manufacturer: Go to Bindle’s recall page and complete the registration form.

To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury, go to SaferProducts.gov.

Lauren Kirchner

Lauren Kirchner is an investigative reporter on the special projects team at Consumer Reports. She has been with CR since 2022, covering product safety. She has previously reported on algorithmic bias, criminal justice, and housing for the Markup and ProPublica, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2017. Send her tips at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @lkirchner.