How often must I clean my refillable water bottle?

It still feels good to me to be using a refillable water bottle and take it with me having filled it up from my TAPP 2 TWIST tap water filter at home in Malta.

I prefer the stainless steel water bottles and have had a few over the years, it is definately better to go with quality ones as they do get knocked arround a bit.

I had never really thought about any issues that could be caused by refilling water bottles. After all, its filled with pure, fresh clean water from my tap and only I am drinking from it; so what's the issue?

It turns out there is more of an issue than we may think at first. I think that the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us more about being aware of spreading sickness and our personal responsibilities and infact thats when I came accross an article that explained why we need to pay attention to hygiene when using refillable water bottles.

"They are bacteria that live in our mouth and throat that our bodies know, and they don’t make us sick. However, if you share bottles with someone else, they may not be used to your bacteria or viruses. The germs that cause strep throat, mononucleosis, colds and the flu, and even bacterial meningitis can be spread by sharing bottles."

This from Brian Chow talking to Hana Asbrink on Treehugger which gave me some good advice on how to clean bottles at home.

To summarise Brian advice then:

• Rotate bottles ideally and clean once a day
• Use hot water
• Use soap and scrub as this dislodges germs
• Leave to dry overnight

My personal way of handling this is to have a few bottles, keep them in the fridge overnight when full and wash a couple at a time and leave to try overnight. I use a small amount of liquid soap and a bottle scrubber to give tem a good wash.

I did try just filling tem with boiling water and leaving them for a bit. I stopped doing this as they became very hot and difficult to handle, it also uses alot of water in comparison to a good wash in hot to touch water.

So how do you clean your refillable water bottles? Leave a comment and let us know!

Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash