Does Topo Chico (glass bottle) have microplastics?
The short answer
Very little in the glass bottle with the crown cap — that combination has the least polymer of any mainstream bottled drink. The aluminium-can version of Topo Chico is a different product with a liner, so check the format.
Why Topo Chico (glass bottle) scores 18
Glass wall plus a metal crown cap — the smallest polymer sealing face of any closure in retail
No resealing, so no repeated thread abrasion
Carbonated, which raises internal pressure but has little effect on glass
Also sold in cans and in PET in some markets, which score differently
Where the 18 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
- 3 / 30
- Use conditions
- 6 / 25
- Measured release
- 6 / 25
- Polymer behaviour
- 1 / 10
- Processing
- 2 / 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
Brand has not been tested. Applied from the glass category result. Crown-cap liners have not been separately measured by anyone, so the "smallest sealing face" argument is a physical one rather than an experimental one.
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.
Already among the cleanest formats
the crown-cap glass version specifically
Home carbonation in glass
no packaging per serving at all
Check the one in your hand
This page scores Topo Chico (glass bottle) 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.
- 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.
- peer-reviewed2018
Mason 2018 — 93% of 259 bottles across 11 international brands contained microplastic; an average of 325 particles per litre across all size classes.
Limitation: Nile-red staining and optical microscopy only reliably resolve particles above ~100 μm, so its counts are a floor, not a total. Lower numbers here do not mean less plastic than the 2024 study — they mean a less sensitive method.