Gloria P wrote:
>
> Mark Thorson wrote:
> > Some luxuries are easy to forego in a recession.
> >
> > http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ed...feels_squeeze/
> >
> > I, however, will continue to breathe only bottled air,
> > imported from Switzerland. In fact, I'll open up
> > another bottle right now. Fssst! Ah!!!
>
> A bottle of water is convenient to carry and, if you refill the
> store-bought bottles over and over, no a waste of resources.

Yes, and factory packaged reverse osmosis filtered water is purer and
has a longer shelf life than and city tap water, making it vastly
preferable for uses such as stocking a camper, an emergency meal pack in
a vehicle, etc.

>
> What bothered me was a few years ago when a "study" reported that
> refilling bottles could expose you to a lot of contaminants from
> the plastic. That felt like a major scam.

That was a major scam. Any contaminant leaching from the plastic would
be substantially higher on the original fill and much lower on each
subsequent fill, that is if there was even an appreciable amount of
leaching at all. The only possible exception to this is if you were
refilling it with particularly bad city water with high chlorine levels,
and in that case the water itself is of more concern than any plastic
leaching.

>
> I do know that if you (or a child) have a contagious illness, cold, flu,
> etc. you should throw away the bottle you have been drinking from or
> at least attempt to sanitize it with a bleach solution.

If you're refilling bottles, you should be sanitizing it every few fills
or say once a week anyway.