Kind of depends on what the basic ingredients of your bottle is don’t it?
Perhaps I should rephrase the question: What are some examples of chemical that get released back into the contents of re-used bottles? Any history of health problems with this as the cause?
I used the same plastic water bottle to drink water from for about 2 years at work once. It was just an old mineral water bottle, and i never washed it or disinfected it or anything. I never got sick.
I wonder if the warning might be for a different reason - to prevent people filling old water bottles with other, potentially dangerous liquids, which someone else might come along and drink.
Maybe you 'merkins have very poor quality glass, then. In Sweden there has been a glass recycling system for 33cl beer/soda bottles since 1885, and on average a bottle is reused 30 times.
When it comes ot reuse of plastic bottles, that’s another problem. First of all, the thin walled bottles are far to flimsy to be re-used. There are re-fillable PET bottles, however, with much thicker walls. The main problem with these though, is that the plastic used can absorb imputities, and they have to be carefully screened before re-use.
A completelly different problem is that it’s difficult to have beer in plastic bottles. Something in it (maybe the alcohol?) attacks the PET, and it is slightly permeable, just enough to spoil the beer. (I think it might also be a problem that the PET lets through more of the UV, and this quickly ruins the beer.) These problems have, however, been addressed within the past few years, and there are now reuseable plastic bottles for beer as well. (They have a thin coat of SiO or something similar on the inside of the plastic .)
Hello, All!
While a lot of this discussion is interesting, it has veered away from my original question. What I am looking for is the specific reason that 2-liter soda bottles and 1.5-liter water bottles have “Do Not Reuse” printed on the lables.
It is absolutely true that many, many plastic bottles do not have any such statement anywhere on them. It is also true that many people drink out of the same plastic container for a long time with no ill effects. The later is the reason I was skeptical about the “Do Not Reuse” statement specifically existing because manufacturers are worried about people getting ill from refilling the bottles or about supposed toxins that could be ingested from deteriorating plastic.
Actually, Nametag’s post, way back at the top, seemed pretty reasonable (that the “Do Not Refill” label is for the bottlers’ benefit, not the customers’). However, neither Nametag nor anyone else seems to have any source other than speculation for this.
In short (too late!), I wasn’t looking for info on why one should or shouldn’t actually re-use soda bottles at home or in industry; rather, I’m trying to find out why these particular bottles say this – to get at what the actual purpose of printing this on the labels is.
BTW, for those who are worried about plastic containers breaking down on re-use and poisoning them, there is an article that discusses exactly what components of plastic might be toxic under some circumstances at:
As no experts from the SDMB seem to have come forward, have you considered writing a letter to the distributor of the bottles with the warning on them and asking? I’m sure they’d be happy to dispel any fears.
Aren’t you guys missing the blindingly obvious? Water bottles have “Do Not Refill” printed on them because the people who produce bottled water do not want you to refill them.
THEY WANT YOU TO BUY NEW ONES.
This is kinda obvious, especially with the “sport top” water bottles. The consumer’s natural reaction is to say, “Yeah, I’ll splash out an extra 50 cents for the bottled water with the sport top instead of the ordinary screw-on top – I can always re-fill it and use it again!” The people who sell bottled water, however, don’t make any money when you do this. It is, therefore, in their interest to discourage this practice.
I’ve even seen some “sport top” water bottles in the U.S. in which the “screw on” part is somehow locked to the bottle so that it can’t be removed and the bottle can’t be refilled. They aren’t going to these extreme lengths to protect you from the horrible dangers of un-sterilized water bottles, people.
Hey,Truth Seeker! While you certainly have a point, in that some companies deliberately make their bottles hard to refill so you’ll have to buy a new one, the question still stands: why is this label specifically on 2-liter soda and 1.5-liter water bottles (and seldom on other such bottles)?
Yeah, every bottled water maker wants you to think you need to buy bottled water, and there is a LOT of bogosity in the ways they work to convince people of that. Heck, many kinds of bottled water actually come from municipal water sources.
However, the soda manufacturers surely don’t have to worry about people refilling their bottles with homemade soda: not only are 2-liter soda bottles inappropriate for bottling homemade soda, but soda from the store is cheaper and often pretty darn good.
So the original question still stands.
Greetings, dlack! First of all, it isn’t nearly as interesting to write to PepsiCo as it is to post here. Second, I myself have no worries or fears about reusing plastic bottles – I’m just one of those people who wonders about stuff for no good reason.
However, since there seems to be no actual info here on the topic, I probably will fire off an email to one or more soft drink manufacturer(s) this weekend. I wonder what they’ll say . . . .
I’ve been reusing a 330 litre bottle of Lilt for the past 2 years.
I wash the bottle carefully evey week or two.
The only side affect that I have noticed is that my weight has dramatically decreased by40% and my use of toilet tissues has increased by 300%.
While I am happy with my weight loss, I am unhappy with how tender my arse is nowadays.
Still, you can’t have everything.
**
It’s not. I have in my hand a list . . . err, I mean, a one-quart plastic water bottle with a sport top from the U.S. with “DO NOT REFILL” printed on the label in capital letters. It’s not like I’ve done a survey or anything, but I bet you’d find that this varies by brand rather than the size of the bottle.
Don’t assume there is only one reason for this. However it started, I’m quite sure that my reason has occurred to every water producer who prints these “warnings.” They’d never admit it, though.