During warm season, often we may need to carry a water bottle for drinking, so that we can remain hydrated while on the move.
Reusable water bottles are available in many different shapes, pattern and color that can be quite useful for that purpose. This can also help in cutting down the use of disposable plastic.
Most of the bottles that you will find in the market are made of any one of these CEP material:
- Glass
- Metal
- Plastic
Let us discuss about each of these materials used for reusable water bottles.
1 Glass
According to public health experts, glass will be the safest material for bottles, only if it is unbreakable. Since all the constituents of the glass are naturally available material and therefore, there can be no danger of presence of any inorganic chemicals.
You will never find any kind of odor, while drinking water from glass material, which can often be found if you drink water from a metal or plastic bottle. However, glass can be a bit heavier as compared to plastic or metals.
However, many users are concerned that glass can easily break, if it is ever mishandled. Nowadays, you can also get a heat-resistant and shatterproof glass.
However, these glasses are produced under different conditions than any normal glasses and hence they are very difficult to recycle.
2 Metal
Water bottles that are made of metal are usually found to be either of aluminum or stainless steel. Though there can be little transfer of aluminum material into the water, but it does not offer any health risk.
Though people generally find very comfortable to drink water from a glass material, but drinking from a stainless steel can also be an option for drinking safe water.
It is essential that any metal that you use for drinking water must not contain any epoxy or resin, as these materials can contain certain harmful chemicals.
As far as stainless steel bottles are concerned, they can be recycled but their recycling process cannot be carried out in normal plants meant for recycling as they are difficult to compress.
3 Plastic
If you look at plastic material then usually plastic is made out of polymers like co-polyester and polypropylene that makes them lighter material to carry.
The reusable bottles that are made out of plastic are claimed to be free from any chemicals like BPA which may disrupt our hormones.
Though, plastic manufactures have made it BPA free by adding certain other things, but enough studies are not available about those other things and therefore, it is difficult to say how safe these plastic bottles are.
In case, you are using a plastic bottle that are BPA free, it is suggested that it must be hand washed rather than using detergent and hot water.
As far as recycling of plastic materials is concerned, before buying any plastic bottle, you must check its underside for finding its classification number. Since all recycling program may not be the same for all kinds of plastic material.
From the scientific perspective, it will be difficult to say which is the safest, as not everything has been fully studied, however glass and metals can be considered to be safe.
