OPINION:
The U.S. reusable water bottle market was valued at $2.55 billion last year and is projected to grow. These bottles are everywhere, and so are the germs.
Scientists in Malaysia recently tested water samples from reusable water bottles, and a whopping 78% were harboring bacterial colonies denser than what the World Health Organization considers safe. Forty-six percent of the samples tested positive for “coliform” bacteria, found only in feces. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no “safe” level of exposure. These bottles didn’t belong to garbage collectors. They were all owned by medical students.
In 2018, scientists visited a gym in Brazil and sampled “shaker” bottles — containers with small balls inside that mix protein powder into a shake. Ninety percent of the used bottles tested positive for contamination. Scientists in Singapore bought brand-new bottles for some adults in 2017 and swabbed them after just two days of drinking and refilling. The numbers nearly matched the bottles that were in use for months. It gets worse.
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Because eco-consciousness is a trendy virtue signal, millions of American parents send their children to school with refillable water bottles. I wrote in The Washington Times newspaper three years ago that this “green” motivation to move away from plastic bottles was misguided. The facts driving the substitution toward refillable bottles are nonexistent when you consider that a bottle must be refilled hundreds of times before it improves the environment over plastic production. Unless you scrub it inside and out every single day and find a way to clean all the nooks and crannies and tiny parts in the lid, your children might just as well join your dog in drinking from the toilet.
The Singaporean team also swabbed reusable water bottles belonging to 2- to 7-year-olds at a day care center, reporting “an extremely high level of bacteria content and a rapid microbial growth.” About 23% of the bottles harbored fecal coliforms. How often should these bottles be washed? Once a week? Daily? How hot is the water? Do you air-dry them instead of using the same dishcloth that wipes down your microwave? Do you really have time every day to disassemble the lid and scour the moving pieces with a tiny brush? Don’t forget the pop-up straw.
Despite your daily sanitizing routine, filling your favorite bottle with tap water could still be making you sick. In 2024-2025, more than 2,700 boil-water alerts for contaminated tap water have been issued. (According to the Environmental Working Group in 2023-2024, more than 150 drinking water systems in New York state had high levels of toxic chemicals at the faucet.) Most national incidents involve PFAS, a metabolic hormone disruptor, or E. coli contamination. There are more than 260,000 Shiga toxin-producing (STEC) E. coli infections annually in the U.S.
Universities don’t want to hear any of these warnings. At least 85 in the U.S. and Canada ban the retail sale or use of recyclable plastic water bottles. This plan to save the planet attracted administrative staff members at Princeton, Johns Hopkins, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Toronto, and George Washington University. Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, was a leader when its director of sustainability announced that plastic bottles would be banned on campus in favor of refillable bottles purchased and distributed by the school.
Despite the efforts of smart university staff to devise new programs, unintended consequences often arise. At the University of Vermont, a professor found that eliminating clear plastic water bottles resulted in a 6% increase in plastic on campus. Students increased their purchases of other beverages in thicker plastic bottles, such as soda and flavored energy drinks.
“If your bottle starts to smell,” University of Leicester microbiology professor Primrose Freestone told the BBC, “you’ve reached a point where you should chuck it away.” That number of discards would be a good proxy for how many end up in landfills once germs make these bottles smell funny.
• Rick Berman is president of RBB Strategies.
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