Does Voss (glass bottle) have microplastics?
The short answer
Very little, and the little there is comes from the cap rather than the bottle. Glass measured around 50 particles per litre in the one study that compared formats directly — a fraction of PET, and traced to the closure and filling line.
Why Voss (glass bottle) scores 15
No polymer at all on the water-contact surface of the bottle
A plastic cap liner is the only polymer in the system, and it is a small sealing face
Glass is opaque to the UV wavelengths that degrade PET, and heat does not soften it
Voss also sells the identical water in PET — check which one you are holding
Where the 15 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
- 4 / 25
- Measured release
- 6 / 25
- Polymer behaviour
- 1 / 10
- Processing
- 1 / 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
Voss specifically has never been tested. The score rests on the glass result in Schymanski 2018, which is a category measurement, not a brand one. Note also that glass was not zero in that study — around 50 particles per litre, attributed to the cap and the bottling line.
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
keep and reuse the bottle rather than upgrading
Filtered tap water
if cost per litre matters more than the bottle
Check the one in your hand
This page scores Voss (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-reviewed2020
Sobhani 2020 — Simply tearing, cutting or twisting open plastic packaging generates microplastics at the opening — 10–30 nanograms per 300 cm of tear.
Limitation: Mass, not particle count, and it does not follow whether those particles land in the food. It is the reason cap and seal design belongs in an exposure score at all.
- 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.