Does Spindrift (can) have microplastics?
The short answer
Much less than a plastic bottle. No polymer wall, no UV pathway, no resealing. What remains is a micron-thick internal liner, plus real fruit juice — which is acidic, and acidity is the condition a liner has to resist.
Why Spindrift (can) scores 29
Aluminium body — the bottle-wall problem is absent entirely
A thin epoxy or acrylic liner does contact the contents for the whole shelf life
Real fruit juice makes the contents more acidic than plain sparkling water
Fully opaque and single-serve, so no UV and no repeated cap abrasion
Where the 29 comes from
Five components, added. The page renders the parts rather than a stored total, so the number cannot disagree with the reasoning behind it.
- Packaging contact
- 10 / 30
- Use conditions
- 6 / 25
- Measured release
- 6 / 25
- Polymer behaviour
- 4 / 10
- Processing
- 3 / 10
What material touches the contents, over how much surface area, for how long. Glass and steel score near zero here; a film pressed against fatty food scores near the top.
Heat, abrasion, flexing, repeated opening, reuse beyond design life. The same bottle scores differently in a fridge and in a hot car.
What a laboratory actually counted, for this product or its category. A high number here means real particles were measured, not that the material looks suspicious.
How this specific polymer behaves — brittleness, fat solubility of its additives, thermal stability, whether it is a polymer named in existing restrictions.
What happened before you bought it. Retort sterilisation inside the pack, hot-filling, and pressurised brewing all happen at the most migration-favourable moment.
What we don't know
No canned drink of any brand has been particle-tested. The liner is the open question and it is mostly a bisphenol question in the published literature rather than a particle one. Anyone giving you a number for canned drinks is extrapolating.
This section is on every page in the database, including the ones where the answer is comfortable. How evidence grades work →
Better options
Ordered by how much they change, not by how much they cost.
Glass-bottled sparkling water
no liner at all
Home carbonation with fresh fruit
no packaging per serving
Check the one in your hand
This page scores Spindrift (can) as a product. Formulations, packaging and suppliers change, and the specific item you own has its own condition — a scratched pan and a new one are not the same object. Scan yours for a score built from what is actually in front of you.
Scan my drinking waterSources behind this score
Each with the finding we use it for and the limitation that finding carries — because a study quoted without its boundaries is how this subject got so noisy.
- report2026
Earth Action 2026 — Estimated roughly 1,000 tonnes of microplastics migrate from packaging into food and drink annually — about 130 mg per person per year — with PET bottles responsible for around a third, and found UV exposure can raise release up to 100×.
Limitation: An industry-funded modelling exercise, not a laboratory study, and not peer-reviewed. We use it for the relative ranking of formats rather than for any absolute number.
- peer-reviewed2018
Schymanski 2018 — Compared formats head to head: single-use PET averaged 14 particles/L, returnable PET 118/L, glass bottles 50/L and beverage cartons 11/L.
Limitation: The glass result is the one people skip. Glass was not zero — particles came from the cap and the filling line, not the bottle wall. Small sample per format.
- agency2026
US FDA — States that current scientific evidence does not demonstrate that the levels of microplastics detected in foods pose a risk to human health, while listing detection and characterisation as a research priority.
Limitation: A statement about the state of evidence, not a finding of safety. "Not demonstrated to be harmful" and "demonstrated to be harmless" are different claims, and the agency is explicit that the research is ongoing.