Make your own BPA-free reusable water bottle

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

What do you mean? I can hear you think and ask. How can I make my own reusable water bottle? Simple, I tell you, and it will not cost you a cent.

The only true and guaranteed BPA-free reusable water bottle is made but from one substance, namely glass, and you can easily make your own. No, not glass or the bottle by blowing your own glass bottle and all that jazz. That is complicated and requires a great deal of skill. We are talking here reuse of what you would, otherwise, toss into the recycling bin.

Yes, that Snapple® bottle that you are just about to toss, washed out and label removed (if you want – I do) and then filled with tap water makes a real good reusable BPA-free (as it is glass) water bottle.

But, I hear you say, glass is breakable and therefore plastic and stainless steel bottles are much better, and lighter. Yes, it is true that glass is breakable and glass bottles will break if handled incorrectly but most plastics contain plasticizers that are hormone disruptors though some are free from it and stainless steel is the best choice when it comes to wanting an unbreakable bottle. However, if you want a BPA-free one for, well, free then reusing a glass bottle of one sort or another is a much better way to go. It is also better for the Planet as it is reuse.

There are many reusable water bottles on the market now that are but tarted up bottles similar to the ones that you can easily make yourself by reusing the likes of Snapple® bottles or other drink ones or even glass tomato ketchup ones. I have done it and so can you and with a little soft cozy made from some thick cloth they can be protected easily against breakages.

So, go for tap water with your own reused reusable water bottle. Please do not think about reusing plastic bottles (PET bottles) for this purpose as they are leaching BPA and other phthalates, and those all are hormone disrupting chemicals.

So-called BPA-free plastics also are not harmless as scientists have recently found and while some plastics are fine glass, especially if it costs you nothing, is much better for you and the Planet.

© 2014

Reinventing the glass bottle

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When you think that you have seen it all as regards to fleecing the “green” consumer and the environmentally conscious along comes this; a range of glass water bottles which sell for from US$18-US$22. Am I crazy or is it everyone else?

The new Metro line of glass water bottles from “Be Truly You” are, so the company, designed to help folks “fall in love with their tap… all over again.” And they continue to state that the glass bottles are 100% recyclable and fit right into a regular sized cup holder. Every glass bottle is 100% recyclable and, as will all glass containers, infinitely.

Unlike plastic, glass does not lose quality in the recycling process, and that is why I could quite happily go along, and in fact do, with using a good solid glass bottle in which to carry my tap water for drinking, instead of buying bottled water, when the bottle finally has to go to the recycling center. However, I do find the prices just a little more than extortionate.

This even more so seeing that anyone with but an ounce of sense and can repurpose a Snapple lemonade glass bottle or a glass Ketchup bottle for the same use. I do! Those bottles come for free with the product and why waste them.

Even the fact that the founders of the company, “Be Truly You”,Heather McDowell and Ann Caiola, are donating $1 from each Metro bottle sold to the UNICEF Tap Project, cannot in any way justify the prices quoted for those bottles sold by that company.

With all the rip offs going on under the “green products and services” umbrella it is not surprising that so many people of the lower income brackets think that they cannot possibly go “green”.

That belief of those people, however, is not correct and going “green” should not be something that should cost you lots; on the contrary, it should be able to save you money.

You do not have to buy into the green consumerism, and you do not have to either in order to do your part for Mother Earth.

The truth is that we are replacing one side of consumerism with another and this was never the idea, I am sure.

When it comes, for instance, to the idea of such water bottles from glass there is no need – none whatsoever – to spend 18 bucks of more on one when, as I have said, you can simply repurpose and upcycle a Snapple lemonade bottle or a Ketchup bottle to do exactly the same, and that for basically zero dollars.

It is time, I think, that we all woke up to the truth that there are people out there who would like to take us to the cleaners. And it is also time that we stood up and refused to be fleeced.

I am well aware of the fact that there are things that we cannot make ourselves and cannot make through repurposing, upcycling and such, I do feel that the finger must be pointed though when there is someone who is jumping on the green bandwagon with but the thought of making lots of money out of such simple things such as these.

So, before you go out and buy such a bottle think as to whether you cannot repurpose one that you have.

You want a label that proudly states the fact that you are using tap water? The create one on the computer using free clipart and word processor, and stick it to the bottle, or be creative and paint it on. But don't spend nearly twenty buck on one.

Copyright © Michael Smith 2010