The Disgusting Reasons You Should Never Refill Your Plastic Water Bottle
Just when we were feeling a bit smug with ourselves for remembering to refill our trusty water bottle. Saving money, our bodies and the planet all at once. We kind of felt like heroes, really.
Well, it turns out that the containers we're all refilling are packed with so many germs you might as well lick your toilet.
Lick. Your. Toilet.
TreadmillReviews.net tested refilled water bottles that had been used by an athlete for a week, and in stats provided to Metro revealed that the highest number of bacteria found on one bottle contained over 900,000 colony-forming units per square cm on average – aka more than your standard toilet seat.
And worse still, researchers found that a whopping 60 per cent of the germs found were capable of making you sick – meaning that if you've been randomly under the weather lately, you may have just found the culprit.
But that's not all. As well as the fact it's clearly disgustingly unhygienic, Good Housekeeping have discovered there are a bunch of nasty chemicals from the plastic that get released as it breaks down with frequent use.
Dr Marilyn Glenville PhD told the magazine these chemicals "can have effects on every system in our bodies". Oh, joy.
Instead of reusing the plastic bottles, it's best to drink from them once and then recycle, but if you must refill your plastic one, then Dr Glenville advises to buy BPA-free plastic bottles, and to avoid rinsing them in very hot water, because this encourages the chemicals to release at a staggering 55 times faster than normal.
So, yeah, chuck ol' trusty in the bin. ASAP.
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