It’s a nice eco-friendly step in the right direction, but reusable water bottles are still the better way to go for the environment and your hip pocket. When buying any water bottle to use again, just check that they’re bpa free. Budget reusable bottles can be found in supermarkets from brands such as Smash & Decor, or for longer lasting quality & style, try brands such as SIGG, Thermos, Earthlust, Cheeki or Camelbak.

If choosing Aluminium water bottles, make sure they’re lined, and that the lining is BPA Free (as the SIGG bottles are). Very few companies to Aluminium bottles safely. Our advice is to choose SIGG or go stainless steel instead.If choosing Stainless Steel, no lining is required, just ensure they’re using food grade stainless steel.

They’re available in Australia from Peters of Kensington. For Lego junkies, they also have storage bins and notebooks too.

The bottles are 400ml in volume and are made from plastic, but they don’t say what type, so we have no idea on what their BPA status is.

There’s a video on the website asking people how much they’d pay for the bottled water they were sampling in the street. Most people were surprised that they were drinking tap water. According to the Tap Sydney website, tap water costs less than 1 cent per litre. I was astounded to see that a lot of people would have been prepared to pay $3-$4 for a litre of the water they were drinking. More money than sense!!

While I’m a strong advocate for drinking tap water, for health reasons, I won’t go so far as to push people to drink large amounts straight from the tap. Depending on where you live and how close you are to outlets where flouride & chlorine is added, your water may or may not taste nice. I know that in our own home, we have a strong chlorine taste in our water, so I will always use a water filter and then fill up a reusable water bottle to take with me on my travels.

While there are plenty of fancy filters and drink bottles on the market, for those on a budget, it can still be done cheaply. Brita filters are cheap and BPA Free, and budget drink bottles can be purchased from any supermarket in the country.

To filter water directly in your bottle, Brita have the Fill & Go bottle, so you can filter on the go for approx $10 and are usually available from Coles, K-Mart and anywhere Brita is sold. The Camelbak Groove is a more high-end product that does a similar thing, prices starting from $39.95 and 321 Water make a 500ml Plunger for those who prefer to filter their water and then pour it in to a glass or use the screw lid on top of the bottle, $39 for thso one.

There’s always the glass thermos flask options, but they usually have super thin linings and are prone to easy breakage.

We stumbled upon the Therm-O Terra insulated glass water bottle (right). They’re pretty funky looking, with their double glass construction, and there’s a removable tea strainer in it, but for $38 (in Australia), we think they’re a bit on the pricey side. Why? They’re only 250ml in size.

I don’t really class this as much of a sensible water bottle, but if you’re looking for something to make and carry tea around in and you’re sensitive to the taste of nickel found in stainless steel, you may have just found yourself a perfect insulated tea bottle.

I have been using Brita on and off for years now, both with the jugs and the filters you screw on to your tap. I have looked pretty hard for the information and had trouble finding it without putting on my detective hat. I finally gave in and just wrote to them.

I always had concerns that the clear hard plastic in Brita Jugs was actually polycarbonate. I can confirm that it’s NOT. It’s SAN (Styrene Acrylonitrile). SAN is BPA Free. Some lids and the cartridges are made form Polypropylene – again, BPA Free.

You can find the information on the FAQ section of the Brita site. I have also copied the reply I received from Brita below (this is not edited).

Thank you for your enquiry.

We are pleased to advise that all materials used in the manufacture of BRITA products are certified as highest food grade quality. The plastics used are tested and certified that no leaching of chemicals will occur. So you can use your BRITA system with confidence.

All BRITA jugs (pot and funnel), are made of SAN (Styrene Acrylonitrile, a transparent, rigid styrenic plastic offering high chemical resistance,) and some lids and the cartridge are made of PP. Neither materials release any Bisphenol A, all are BPA free.

All BRITA materials are certified food grade quality and meet the corresponding positive lists for plastics in food/water contact. Tests include migration tests according to applicable legislation. For BRITA jugs and cartridges we can confirm that there can be no Bisphenol A release.

Your BRITA jug can be put out for recycling if your council has plastic recycling. However, it is not graded for recycling at this stage. We feel that by owning a BRITA, the amount of bottled water that we prevent from being dumped (150 litre bottles for every BRITA cartridge) is a significant eco benefit.

You can find further information about BRITA products on our website www.brita.com.au

whereyou will also find the reference to BPA under FAQ – Jug & Casks.

I trust this information has been of assistance to you. Please feel free to contact me should you have any further enquiry.

BRITA are available to purchase at most K-Mart stores, supermarkets such as Coles, and also places like Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, Bing Lee, Officeworks and many other places. Visit the stockists page on BRITA to find your nearest location.

Did you know that bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste each year? This really isn’t necessary, and it’s a relatively modern trend. 10 years ago, if someone told you that we’d be buying bottled water that was as dear as petrol, you would have been laughed at. So what is the obsession with bottled water and how much longer is it going to last?

Here’s a summary of the 5 reasons.  You can read the whole article here.

1. It’s not good value.
   As I mentioned, around the price of petrol. Why is that?
2. It’s no healthier than tap water.
   We actually like the idea of people filtering water, and if possible, using a mineral pot to put essential minerals back in to the water, but even without that, if you can stand the taste of tap water (I can’t), it’s not that bad for you in most places.
3. Bottled water means garbage
   And as we mentioned in the opening, 1.5 million tons of waste per year. Ouch mother nature.
4. Less attention given to public water systems
   If you’re drinking bottled water and the tap water tastes crap, you’re not going to complain about the tap water if you’re paying for an alternative. In 2005, California lost 222 million litres of drinkable water due to leaks in the pipes. Whinge and they may fix them.
5. The corporatisation of water
   I’ll let you read the article for this one.

#4 – LDPE – Low Density Polyethylene is the most common plastic that squeezable budget water bottles are made from. LDPE is BPA Free and is durable and not easily damaged or broken during use. It’s cheap to make bottles from LDPE and some are even made in Australia. The trouble with LDPE is that you can taste the plastic in the water. Even worse, mix cordial or a sports drink in LDPE and you’ll always taste it in whatever comes next. LDPE bottles are very common for cyclists and sports people as they’re cheap and disposable and by squeezing the bottle you get a rush of water when you need it the most.

#2 – HDPE – High Density Polyethylene is another common budget plastic. Also BPA Free, it’s commonly used for water bottles, milk cartons and more. In our own fridge, the Dairy Farmers milk is in HDPE. We have seen HDPE produce squeezable and solid water bottles like the Polar Half Twist. Again, like LDPE, HDPE can leave a plastic taste in your water and leave behind odours from cordials, juices and sports drinks. It’s impact resistant, lightweight and durable.

#5 Polypropylene is used mainly for plastic food containers. It’s a cloudy plastic favoured by the majority of food container manufacturers including Decor, Sistema (the poor cousin to Lock and Lock) and the majority of high quality and cheap generic knock off containers sold in Australia. It is also used for water bottles with some manufacturers including a small sample of the Contigo and Lock & Lock range. Polypropylene plastic can stain and also retain odours, however, in our own experience, not quite as much as the HDPE or LDPE. There is a better choice than polypropylene. Keep reading ……..

#7 – Polycarbonate  is the danger plastic.  #7 doesn’t always been polycarbonate, but it can do, so you always need to check. Polycarbonate is a solid clear plastic that behaves a little like glass. Polycarbonate contains BPA or Bisphenol-A and should be avoided for food and water storage. It was most commonly used in baby bottles until research in to the dangers of BPA were made public. Now it’s rarely used and virtually every baby bottle manufacturer as stopped using it. Australian retailers have voluntarily stopped selling baby bottles with BPA in them. The demise of polycarbonate made way for ‘the winner’ in our plastic water bottles material choice – Tritan Eastman.

Tritan Eastman is made by the Eastman Chemical Company. It behaves like polycarbonate used to. It’s clear and hard and behaves like glass when it comes to not absorbing or leaching flavours. It’s tough (but not unbreakable) and is used by leading water bottle manufacturers including Camelbak, Thermos, Lock n Lock (in their drink bottles and also their premium food containers), Nathan Sports, Nalgene, Contigo, Enviro Products and dozens more. This is our top choice for a plastic water bottle as it doesn’t leach flavours and most quality brand bottles are thick and durable.

For those of you who are interested in plastics and food, Choice have done a thorough job of reviewing a wide variety of choices. Read more.

We found them on online from Travel Gear for $9.95. The official Steripen website will give you more info.

On their FAQ page, they not only address the ‘aluminium doesn’t cause Alzheimer’s Disease’ question, but they take it one step further (quite discreetly I might add, since they also sell stainless steel products now) to link to a report on what leaches from stainless steel bottles. They take aim at Klean Kanteen, the world’s first commercial stainless steel water bottle plus 2 other brands that are not available in Australia.

Their tests took bottles filled with water and incubated them at 45-50C for 2 weeks and then tested the water. You can read the report below for yourself, but I’m just wondering who in their right mind would warm water for 2 weeks in a bottle and then drink it? Can you imagine how revolting that would taste?

In my mind, it’s like testing milk and leaving it out in the sun for 2 weeks and then seeing if it’s contaminated. No-one drinks milk like that and no-one stores water in a warm metal bottle for 2 weeks and then takes a swig. It’s only natural that distilled water living in a metal bottle may have traces of some of the mineral elements in the water, the same elements that were distilled OUT of the water before the bottle was filled. I just don’t get the rationale behind this test. It smacks of desperation and sensationalism (in my opinion of course).

It’s called food grade stainless steel for a reason. I find this attempt to discredit their competition in the face of producing bottles with BPA in the lining to be quite tasteless. SIGG bottle linings are BPA Free now, but if you have an old one and it has a copper coloured liner, you might want to consider replacing it with something else.

Read the report here.

He has chosen to ditch bottled water from the restaurant and invested $6,000 in an Italian made water filtration system that also chills and carbonates the water. It’s a $5 ‘all you can drink’ policy and is saving the environment.

Bravo Marque Restaurant.