It has become hard to avoid the news over Bisphenol A (BPA) lately (here, here, here and many, many more). As an avid water drinker — in addition to beer, of course! — I have sworn off plastic disposable water bottles for a while now and mainly used my trusty Nalgene water bottles. Made of lexan (polycarbonate) it is nearly indestructible and was always with me on hikes.

No more Nalgene bottles for me, however. With the recent news of Bisphenol A, I swore off my old-school Nalgene bottles (at last count, I think we had 6 of various forms in the house) and went to REI to buy a new bisphenol A free water bottle. Here's where things get interesting: REI has voluntarily removed all bottles containing BPA from their shelves! According to their staff they are only selling BPA free bottles, predominantly from CamelBack. Cool, nice job REI, I'm glad to see you out ahead of this issue.

But wait, there's more! If you bought any BPA containing bottles from REI under an REI membership, you can return them for a full refund! Sadly, many of my bottles predate my membership, but at least one bottle is being returned for a refund. Two more bottles, neither of which appear on my membership purchasing history, have REI labels printed on the bottle, so I hope to return these as well so I can replace them with new BPA free bottles.

REI, once again, you prove what a great company you are. Your customer friendly policies will have me coming back and paying (sometimes) high prices again and again.