Bottle Fluoridation
by Dr. Dick Powell
July 23, 2004

The practice of fluoridation of bottles became noticed due to the South African bottle fluoridation case of a South African wine farmer, Nicky Krone of the Twee Jonge Gezellen Estate, with a problem that destroyed his bottle-fermented (champagne style) sparkling wine in the mid 90s. All the circumstantial and scientific evidence strongly supports the contention that the cause was the fluoride treatment of the bottles by the bottle company, Consol Glass.

They obtained the technology from Owens Illinois (O-I), a 20% shareholder and major global glass container manufacturer. Through a contingency lawyer, Gary Mason, Nicky is suing O-I in the USA. After an attempt at an out-of-court settlement failed, the case has now gone public.

SOUTH AFRICA WINERY BRINGS SUIT AGAINST OWENS-ILLINOIS
FOR DEFECTIVE WINE BOTTLES

(Toledo, OH) June 7, 2004 Twee Jonge Gezellen, one of the oldest wineries in South Africa, today brought suit against Owens-Illinois and Owens-Brockway Glass Containers Inc. The lawsuit arises from the sale of defective wine bottles to Twee Jonge Gezellen and other South African producers of champagne. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Documents produced in litigation against Consol Glass, the South African manufacturer of the defective wine bottles, revealed that Owens-Brockway recommended that Consol treat its jars and bottles with HFC-134a gas to prevent, in-bottle haze, also known as “bloom,” which may occur when bottles are manufactured in a humid atmosphere. The bloom itself is harmless, but can be prevented by treating bottles with hydrogen fluoride, a toxic gas, generated by the combustion of refrigerant HFC-152a. In 1993, HFC 152a was temporally unavailable in South Africa. Consequently, Owens-Brockway recommended use of a new refrigerant, HFC-134a, as a substitute.

Although HFC-134a is a safe product for approved applications, such as refrigeration, air conditioning and metered dose inhalers for anti-asthma drugs, its use , adversely effected wine bottles and rendered most of the 1994 vintage of Methode Cap Classique champagne un-marketable. A large portion of the vintage had to be withheld from sales and destroyed.

O-I is a major supplier of glass container technology, including bottle fluoridation. (O-I has just bought a major European glass bottle company is now the largest producer of glass containers in the European Union.) However the O-I web site makes no mention of the treating bottles with fluoride......but there is little detail of bottle production technology so its omission might not be too surprising.

Unfortunately the TJG experience might not just be a local problem in South Africa but may provide a reference point for a problem that could raise world-wide concern.

The original process, approved by the US FDA in 1977, only specified hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) 152a (CF2HCH3) which is flammable. The 152a burns inside the bottle producing hydrogen fluoride which modifies the glass surface. Because 152a was not available in South Africa in 1994, O-I, on the advice of their senior technologist, told Consol Glass that refrigerant HFC 134a (CF3CH2F) was an acceptable substitute, although classed as a non-flammable refrigerant. Of course 134a was not FDA approved for this purpose, but perhaps O-I never thought that this mattered since it was "only" South Africa. Yet the SA wine was to be imported into the USA and would thus, presumably, contravene US regulations. As far we can tell from documents provided during the SA court case where I was an expert witness, no attempt was made to assess the health and safety aspects of the 134a treatment. Yet this could have been tested.......

The fluoride bottle treatment technology is used world-wide where a humid climate causes "blooming". Interestingly the fluoride treatment is known in the glass industry, but isn't known to the fluorine chemists. It certainly isn't known to the general public.

There is no evidence to show that there is a human health problem, but there is an obvious civil liberties issue in that many people object to water fluoridation, so might reasonably be expected to object to the treatment of glass bottles and jars with fluoride.

Bottle fluoridation is carried out in bottle plants world-wide if humidity might cause blooming and hence rejection of glass containers by the food and beverage companies purchasing them. To O-I, Consol etc. this represents a potential loss in profits. Export/import of wine and perhaps other products leads to treated glass containers being used anywhere in the world.

Presumably O-I would claim that overfluorination wasn't possible. But the Twee Jonge Gezellen experience demonstrates that it can occur. The analytical procedures, made public in the Consol v TJG case 2 years ago, to test the effectiveness of the bottle treatment, only showed that alkalinity of the surface was reduced, but could not demonstrate over-fluoridation. Consol now has photoelectric and visual checks on their bottle production lines for etching as an indication of over-fluoridation. Since the problem occurred you will be pleased to hear that Nicky Krone has secured a source of non-fluoride untreated bottles for his wine.

Although this is not strictly relevant to the SA case I think you might also be interested that fluoride might be linked to the formation of an animal carcinogen, ethylcarbamate (EC), in wine from the reaction of urea and ethanol. Urea is destroyed by urease. This occurs naturally, but more can be added to wine to prevent EC formation after bottling. However, the action of urease is inhibited by fluoride, so this can result in the build up of carcinogenic EC after bottling. Normally we are concerned by the direct toxic effects of fluoride in our diet, but this is an example of an indirect effect.


Dr Powell is English. He used to work for ICI Runcorn on the refrigerants, and is now a consultant since retirement, working (amongst other projects) for an SA wine producer on this issue.