Paper bottles for mineral water gluggers
I have never seen plastic bottles themselves as a green evil. They are very useful and imminently reusable... as long as you can convince people that they can refill them from the tap. It's really the insistence of the water industry that tap water is in some way impure and unhealthy that strikes me as the real problem (and, of course, it can be... but most places in the United States, it is fine).
I have mixed feelings about this line of paper water bottles. They look fantastic and they are certainly more green than plastic, but it still ties into the whole notion that you need to buy a new disposable bottle every time you go for a jog. I suspect they are marginally reusable, which off-sets it a bit, but I'll keep a single plastic water bottle washed and filled for months.
I'm doing a lot of needless hand wringing, though. These are very cool. I just wish people would stop gagging at the mere mention of tap water. I like tap water! It can be delicious!
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Paper isn't greener than plastic. It takes more energy and more land to produce, the chemical runoff from farming and factory is worse, and I've always preferred my fossil fuels locked safely in plastic, compared to belching from an exhaust.
This is bad for the environment.
Nice design, though.
How do you wash a narrow-necked plastic bottle?
Tap water forever! I try to avoid filtered water even. It just strikes me as unnecessary, at least here in the US. Except maybe for that time the water main burst and I didn't hear about the boil advisory... that was a little unsettling...
I used to reuse disposable plastic bottles, but now I don't. It's not the tap water, but the bottle itself. They aren't meant to take use and reuse and reuse. The plastic itself breaks down after a while (esp. if you run it through the dishwasher), and there's no guarantee that the results are healthy.
The best thing to do is buy a few reusable plastic bottles (tupperware or some other thing) and use them over and over. Use, wash, refill; keep them in the fridge.
Basically, the greenest thing you can do is to stop buying disposable crap, I think.
Peter
I was one of those nalgeen guys until I heard it was gonna give me prostate cancer... now I have a stainless steel bottle... which will probably give me some other random disease. But whatever, tap water for life in a reusable container, yo. And it doesn't need washed all that often. Just don't backwash, yo. ;)
@Isaac: Easily. I tip out anything that's left, fill it about half full with the soapy water from the washing up bowl, swirl it around, pour it out, then rinse. Best done earlier in the life of the washing up water, before you put any roasting tins in it...
Pragmatically speaking, paper bottles seem silly. I'm dubious that they can be reused much if at all.
Jeshi et al:
There's tons of chemicals and compounds in plastic that I do not want to ingest. Of course, glass is superior. I've been implementing a rotation of reused fruit juice bottles for months now. They are dishwasher safe and really sturdy.
It began as a way to reuse or repurpose the packaging of regular grocery purchases. At this time, I'm even infusing my own variety of Amarettos in the same bottles.
I like tap water too. Especially when mixed with a healthy dose of sugar and a packet of powdered flavoring and coloring.
@4 - what you said. Unfortunately AFAIK that is correct. I think alot of bottles are PVc based so suffer from polymer migration when exposed to UV - this is where the plasticizer leeches out of the plastic itself into the water. That's why plastic bottles get brittle after a while. Now the effect to you of imbibing this plasticiser may be fairly negligible, but still not great. Buying the bottles in the first place not only supports a very wasteful habit of plastic consumption but also puts pressure on already stretched ground water resources.
As Jeshii does, I use a stainless steel flask, which you can get from any camping store and top up with filtered tap water. job done.
Apologies for the woolly science ^_^
I'll stick to my aluminum Sigg bottle filled with filtered tap water, but I've often wondered how much more energy it takes to produce a metal bottle than a disposable plastic one.
Perhaps I don't want to know the answer...
I like the design, you've got it spot-on with the problem not being bottles but being the insistence that tap water is the devil. In "the Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse", bottles are used for more or less everything - simple tools, cups, planters; it'll be nice to know that when tap isn't available in the post-apocalyptic world that the abundance of bottles will have served some use.
For everyone talking about the evil chemicals in plastic: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/26/76-bottles-of-water/
(though I do like the glass bottle solution. In Central America it was actually reassuring to see the same soda sold from a variety of recycled bottles, even if they had a residue from many caps built around the lip)
There's also the fact that a lot of bottled water is simply bottled tapwater to begin with
You can't save the planet with some designer's virtual concept for a product.
It would have to be lined with something like wax or, ahem, plastic.
If there were justice in the world, these "paper bottles" would contain some kind of Alien egg which would devour the purchaser from the inside.
All of you saying tap water is fine in the US have obviously never tasted (or smelled) San Diego city tap water. Ugh!
Glass all the way. I reuse glass bottles from juice or whatnot. I've never had one break on me and I've been using them for over a year. Interesting side note: I was able to bring a glass bottle full of water onto a plane to LA a few months ago.
I drink water right from the creek using a drinking glass. But then, I'm a human being, so my species has evolved over thousands of years to be able to do this.
If it runs briskly and supports a healthy population of fish, frogs and salamanders, I can drink it. Been doing it for decades.
@4 - thank you. i ditto all you have said.
I used to keep tropical fish. If I added straight tap water, the fish died. If I added Poland Spring water, the fish didn't die. I explained to the fish that tap water was perfectly safe and that there was no difference, but they didn't believe me, I guess, because they went and died anyway. Damned elitest, gullible fish!
I live in the San Francisco bay area, and I've lived places where the water was nasty, even to the point I wouldn't brush my teeth with it, and a Brita did nothing. And I've lived places where it was fine, so saying tap water is good enough is just not true, too many places where I just don't like the taste, and a few where it just didn't seem like a good idea (green ice cubes, coffee smells wrong, etc).
Wow, that's a bad idea. Especially since the bottles aren't reusable (doesn't look like you could get the cap back on).
Just buy a damn metal bottle that will last you a lifetime.
@ 13strong #21
By the look of it. You snap the top off, then the oval with the 36 in it becomes the top. Whilst what looks like a pop out circle on the right of the top of the bottle would mate with the slit in the top (if you see what I mean) making a hinged lid.
Green issues aside. I like the design. I also like the way I've been able to guess the correct use (If I'm right) of the item. That IS good design.
I find it hilarious that people walk around with water bottles at all. At least here in the midwest. What the hell do you need to carry around a canteen for? Are there no fresh water sources in your immediate area? Is it gonna be at least ten miles of difficult hiking until the next stream? Jeez. Get a drink from the water fountain if you're so damn thirsty.
Probably the best thing we could do is just install more drinking fountains in public places.
And another thing: if you can't handle tap water, what are you going to do when the economic situation leads inevitably to the breakdown of civil order? Where are you going to buy your Fiji, from the zombies?
Best get your system adjusted to deal with whatever safe water you come across. And for God's sake stock up on 12 ga. shells.
i remember the first time i tasted philly tap. not a pleasant experience.
Bottled water vs. tap is another run at the USian `private luxury, public squalor': instead of being attached to this basic public good, we are easily led away into buying just as much pseudo-safety as we think we can afford, and the devil take the hindmost. Won't be funny when we can't afford bottled, or when a plague comes down the pipes.
Let us all hang together, or we will surely hang separately.
"Probably the best thing we could do is just install more drinking fountains in public places."
Where I come from (the UK), you almost never see public drinking fountains. If you do, they're plugger up with gum, or someone has puked in them, or they're just generally filthy.
There's a cultural element to the success of drinking fountains.