Tritan copolyester
Brand of plastic products including drinking bottles
Tritan, a copolymer offered by the Eastman Chemical Company since 2007, is a transparent plastic intended to replace polycarbonate, because of health concerns about Bisphenol A (BPA). Tritan is a copolymer made from three monomers: dimethyl terephthalate (DMT), cyclohexanedimethanol (CHDM), and 2,2,4,4-Tetramethyl-1,3-cyclobutanediol (CBDO). Tritan or Poly Cyclohexylenedimethylene Terephthalate Glyco (PCTG) is made without using any bisphenols or phthalate plasticizers.
Compared to similar resins, Eastman says Tritan has improved resistance to heat and chemicals, with less degradation in conditions such as dishwashing, microwaving, and when used with hot beverages.
In April 2008, Nalgene announced it would phase out production of its outdoor line of polycarbonate containers containing the chemical bisphenol A. Nalgene now uses Tritan as a replacement for polycarbonate, as it does not contain BPA.
Toxicology & Health controversy
In 2011, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, George Bittner, published an article claiming that most polymers, including Tritan, contained other materials with estrogenic activity. Bittner published the article eleven years after he founded the company PlastiPure to develop safer plastics.
After these claims were repeated by Bittner's company PlastiPure, Tritan's inventor, the Eastman Chemical Company, sued PlastiPure. A jury ruled in Eastman's favor, and the Court barred PlastiPure from making claims about Tritan's estrogenic activity. In expert testimony, Wade Welshon of the University of Missouri-Columbia, agreed that the Tritan copolymer is likely not estrogenic, but that the estrogenic activity he found in five separate tests of Tritan products could be attributable to other chemicals added during manufacturing.
During the trial it emerged that Thomas Osimitz — who authored the journal article that had initially cleared Tritan of estrogenic activity — was paid $10,000 by the company for the paper, which was not disclosed in the Conflict of Interests section.
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