DO: Reuse Plastic Water Bottles

I drank a lot in college.

While there was a healthy mix of the stuff you’d expect, there was also a lot of coffee, apple cider, chocolate milk, and most importantly, tons and tons of water.

When I was in high-school, I didn’t drink at all, and yet my brain soaked up all of the drinking lore that I ever heard like a sponge. For whatever reason, one rumor really stuck with me: hang-overs are caused by being dehydrated, so all you had to do to never be hung-over was stay hydrated. (Maybe this struck me because it met my solution criteria- I can't help it, I like my solutions how I like my men; easy and elegant. ☺)

Once I began my magical (albeit hazy) experience at Penn State, I credit my water rule with a higher than average classroom attendance. While my friends were skipping class to recover in bed, or escaping during class for a bathroom throw-up break, I usually woke up feeling hunky-dory and ready to go eat a breakfast bagel. I attributed all of these wake-up success stories to my beloved bottles of Aquafina. (My personal standard was downing two 50 oz. bottles before going to sleep. I'd have to pee a lot, but I'm telling you, I'd wake up feeling grrreat!)

I still drink a lot, except that my age and responsibilities seemed to have increased proportionally to my alcohol tolerance decreasing? Next to me, ALWAYS, is at least one beverage-- usually a boring, but satisfying drink of water.

On my desk lives a bottle of “Wawa” brand water, and I use it every single day like a sealable cup. I refill it as needed, and have had this particular bottle for about 6 months.

Leave it to co-workers to try and ruin a good thing...

The first buttinsky told me that I was probably giving myself cancer by reusing the same plastic water bottle. Didn’t I know that water bottles are designed to be used once, and that after that first use the plastic starts “leeching” deadly chemicals into the water, which I then drank?!

I had never heard this before, but the use of the word “leeching” sounded a bit scientific, so I checked it out on snopes.com.

Just as I cynically suspected, water bottles DO NOT have a magic sensor that tells them when they “emptiness” cherry has been popped, and therefore can start “leeching” all over the place. The plastic is designed to be extremely resilient, which is what gives it a major advantage over glass. It is also designed to be able to handle Whitney Houston amounts of abuse (it’s still too soon to make tasteful Rhianna abuse references?) without chemical consequences.

The second water bottle know-it-all happened to walk by me during a refill session at the water fountain. He distracted my mental zombie preparations by smugly saying something like, “You know you’re not supposed to reuse those, right?”

Since I had already gone through this once, I had a good response.“Yeah, I have heard that before, but it turns out it’s a big urban legend that chemicals from the plastic leech into the water.”

He wasn’t impressed with the “leech” bomb being dropped at all, and snorted through his nose in reply.

“It’s not about the chemicals. It’s about bacteria growing in the bottle. You know how sometimes your bottle looks green? That’s mold you’re drinking.” He snorted at me again, and then turned on his heel and went into the bathroom.

I stood looking at my crystal clear bottle of water for a moment, and hoped that the bomb he was about to drop in there somehow exploded all over him.

However, this made me kind of paranoid and so yet again... to my trusty Google I went in order to uncover the truth of this new thing to worry about. (Just mind your P's & Q's about my H20, ok?!)

On plasticsorg.com, I hit the jack-pot of relevant information. “Plastics are by nature extremely sanitary materials, and plastic bottles are no more likely to harbor bacteria than other kinds of packaging or drinking containers.” While it is true that “bacteria thrives in warm, moist environments,” as long as you don’t poop into your water bottle you’re pretty much good to reuse it as often as you like.

Bottom line: the FDA closely regulates the plastic used for water bottles, (these materials are used around the world) and there is absolutely no harm in reusing them with a little common sense. (i.e. Please don't poop in a water bottle you want to drink from later!)

It’s good for you to drink tons of water, and you should—by reusing plastic water bottles you’re getting more for your money, but most importantly, (truly) you’re keeping a lot of perfectly good items out of landfills, and preventing energy being used to recycle them into something else when they would love to still be contributing members of your household.

Water does a body good. Pay it forward and return the favor; increase the life-span of your average disposable water bottle and reap the benefits. (I forgot to mention they make pretty cute accessories, and can compliment a wide variety of outfits and styles. Reference: all included Jennifer Aniston images, where she is looking fabulous as usual with [reused?] water bottle in hand.)