Study:Drinking from reusable bottles akin to licking public toilet seat

We are told time and time again that reusable water bottles are better for the environment, there’s no doubt that this is true, but they could be doing us more harm than good as a new study reveals they contain more bacteria than a dog’s pet bowl.

The study was conducted by researchers at Treadmill Reviews who did a swab test of a group of athletes’ reusable water bottles. They sent these tests off to the lab and got some startling results.

What they found was for every square centimetre of water bottle there were more than 300,000 colony-forming units (CFU), a scientific measure of the estimated amount of viable bacterial and fungal cells.

To put this in perspective the average kitchen cutting board only has 6.8 CFU while the kitchen sink has 3191 CFU. Even the average pet bowl has less with only 47,383 CFU per square centimetre.

In the big scheme of things, the number of bacteria in the average reusable water bottle is closer to the number of bacteria on a toothbrush holder or on a public toilet seat.

The study tested four types of water bottles including slide top bottles, squeeze top, straw top and screw top bottles to see if there were any differences in the number of bacteria housed in each.

Results from the test revealed that straw top bottles had the lowest number of bacteria with 25.4 CFU per square centimetre. Screw tops were second lowest with squeeze top bottles next, both contained around 160,000 CPU. Slide top bottles contained three times the number of bacteria in the average water bottle with 933,340 CPU.

While the results may seem damning, don’t go throwing out all your slide-top bottles yet. Researchers also looked into what sort of bacteria each bottle had, checking out the ratio of good and bad bacteria.

Surprisingly, 99 per cent of the germs from the squeeze-top bottles and 98 per cent of the germs on the screw-top bottles were found to be harmful.

Only half the bacteria in the slide top bottles were harmful and amazingly most of the germs in the straw top bottles were good.

So, it seems that the next time you’re in the market for a water bottle it might be best to go for a straw top.

When purchasing a reusable bottle, it’s also good to look out for one that doesn’t have a lot of crevices and is easy to clean. Stainless steel bottles been found to be better than plastic ones and are often times easier to clean.

Researchers from the study recommend running bottles through the dishwasher or hand washing them after each use. For older bottles, they recommend using a weak bleach solution to sanitize the water bottle now and again.

Do you clean your reusable water bottles often?

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFO This article is of a general nature and FYI only, because it doesn’t take into account your personal health requirements or existing medical conditions. That means it’s not personalised health advice and shouldn’t be relied upon as if it is. Before making a health-related decision, you should work out if the info is appropriate for your situation and get professional medical advice.