Rubbermaid Water Cooler - any health issues

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Octavius

Octavius

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I'm about to pull the trigger on a 10 gall for a MLT.

My only concern is the plastic - are health concerns negligible? Are these things made in China, like everything else.

It was only a couple of years ago that I was drinking out of Nalgene bottles and now they tell me I'll soon be growing female appendages.

Appreciate any comment.

Cheers!
 
It's all FDA approved. If it wasn't, they couldn't sell it as a water cooler. I haven't grown any limbs from when I used mine for a few months worth of brews.
 
Meh. At 60 you'll likely appreciate having a few personal female apendages.

I used one for a few years and once the nub finally poked through at my beltline it didn't grow any bigger. The constant wagging gets annoying tho'. Especially when I see female appendages.

Truth be told, even contacting the manufacturer result in a disclaimer that the proposed use was never intended for the product.

As for SC1884, the Nalgene bottles were FDA approved too. It seems these days that it's more difficult to disprove food safety than it is to approve it.
 
I am looking to get rid of mine for that reason, I dont trust plastics in high temperatures. I would question if the fda approved these water COOLERS for what we are using them for.
 
BPA is not the only chemical of concern. Plastics leach out all sorts of goodies when exposd to extreme temp and sunlight (have you ever drank a bottle of spring water that has sat in the sunlight in summer, just for a day?). We would all be smart to move away from these vessels being used for unapproved uses. Just a thought.
 
That which does not kill you will only make you stronger. Again, another question on the safety of plastic. Funny how people obsess about the little things like this, but will readily accept other known health risks that are far more dangerous.

To the OP. It's your choice. Everything out there says that these vessels should be safe for our use. People have been using rubbermaid coolers for MLT's for years, and I'll bet there is not one reported case of anything that can be linked back to them. If you are not comfortable with it, you will have to look at other options.
 
May be possible to figure this out. Manufacturer lists material as a classification of polyethylene. If we find out it's classification, then it's possible to guess it's heat tolerance. A clue may be molded somewhere into the plastic as a recycling material code symbol. My understanding is this symbol is to advise the recycle plant what kind of plastic it should be recycled with. I can check my cooler tonight if nobody's sitting next to theirs.
 
coolers are the same as the brewing buckets HDPE #2code. basically inert unless your taking it to temps well over 220.









but if your worried still you can always stick a knife in you heart and stop worrying about all the little bs since something out there will kill you anyway.
 
Many thanks for the opinions.

I went out and got a 10 gall Rubbermaid - Home Depot had one for $40.

When I get some cash I'll look into getting a 15 gall keg but for now I'm good to go.

Cheers!
 
I called Rubbermaid on the phone today out of curiosity. The woman on the phone did not offer any great info and she said they do not give out material information. Although she did say that at temps of 175+ the cooler should MELT and Turn into a liquid. She did say that the cooler is not intended for hot liquids. The only other thing she was allowed to tell me was that the number 7 recycling code on the bottom meant that they were using a mixed plastic product. I looked up the number 7 and it stands for "other". I was also thinking that the inner liner maybe made of a different platic than the outer shell, therefore you get the 7 code. Maybe someone else can have better luck finding out data. Knowledge IS Golden!
 
doogilas said:
I called Rubbermaid on the phone today out of curiosity. The woman on the phone did not offer any great info and she said they do not give out material information. Although she did say that at temps of 175+ the cooler should MELT and Turn into a liquid. She did say that the cooler is not intended for hot liquids. The only other thing she was allowed to tell me was that the number 7 recycling code on the bottom meant that they were using a mixed plastic product. I looked up the number 7 and it stands for "other". I was also thinking that the inner liner maybe made of a different platic than the outer shell, therefore you get the 7 code. Maybe someone else can have better luck finding out data. Knowledge IS Golden!
Click to expand...
Melts at 175+? I'm surprised we don't have a post of someone somewhere on here that had an accident with their water cooler MLT...
 
I too got the run around from rubbermaid after a few minutes on the phone I was told I would be contacted by a tech who could answer my questions. The #7 plastic is the outside shell only, the inside is made up of #2 HDPE as is the lid.

Hopes this helps
John
 
The problem here is that given the Internet and the speed at which "information" moves, it's very easy for people to hear a lot of things that they believe "proves" something, when in truth it does nothing of the kind. More people saying it does not equal proof (cf. Plato's Republic for 2500 years ago, Washington DC for now).

On the other side of the coin, once people have accepted a lot of noise -or a rumor- as proof (cf. UFOs) it's virtually impossible to disprove.

What we know NOW: According to the best authority (which, whether you like it or not, is the FDA....the Internet is NOTNOTNOT an authority), these coolers are fine. I use the Rubbermaid 10 gal. MLT conversion, and I will continue to do so.
 
Melt at 175? I've had mine above that storing my sparge water and it's never melted. Warped, yes, but not melted. As for rubbermaid giving people the runaround...isn't that illegal? I always thought if you asked for safety reasons, they had to tell you.
 
The inside should be good to 190F like 99.99% of HDPE. I assume they tell you 175 so that if you for some insane reason you put the whole cooler into a bigger container of boiling water, that it would melt? The lesson, don't put the whole cooler in your cauldron of boiling goo.
 
There are probably chemicals leaching from our brewing plastics, but my theory is that anything capable of biological assimilation with be consumed by the yeast, the vast majority of which will not make it into the final product.
 

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