Many people reuse their plastic water bottles. This is actually handy in various circumstances. However, a question arises:is this practice risky? Can we really reuse this kind of packaging? The thing is, none of these questions have an answer that can be 100% certain.
Everyone's done it before:use a plastic bottle again , whether for a sports session, a walk or a picnic. At first glance, this practice can be considered ecological. By reusing these bottles – especially with tap water – we naturally avoid buying new ones. However, while we face a multitude of information concerning the problem of plastic in the oceans, this simple gesture remains more common than ever.
Still, this might not really be a good idea. In a 2016 article, Business Insider listed several sobering arguments. Among these, we find the risks of letting chemicals escape into the water, or the colonization of bacteria in the bottle itself.
As far as the dissolution of plastic bottles in water is concerned, the various studies call for caution. Some questions related in particular to Bisphenol A and antimony. In France in 2013, however, ANSES published a report indicating the presence of the first component in plastic bottles, which led to its ban in 2015. Regarding the second substance, we have to go back to 2006 – a publication in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring – and 2008 – in the journal Water Research – to cite works focusing in particular on its presence in bottles in Europe and Canada. The results announced certainty as to the presence of antimony, but at reasonable levels with regard to regulations. Nevertheless, other studies tend to question the idea that chemical elements pass from plastic packaging to water. Moreover, no research can confirm with certainty that this really happens.
In reality, the main risk of reusing bottles would be the potential accumulation of bacteria . Some studies claim that reusing bottles offers the possibility for certain bacteria to find refuge in the container. A 2017 Chinese study (PDF / 8 pages) claimed that bottles may eventually contain an extremely high level of bacteria and experience a rapid increase in microbial growth . However, these works did not mention whether the bottles in question had been manufactured with a view to reuse. In the absence of formal certainties, the best thing is still to clean the bottles regularly plastic that can be reused, just like other containers of the same type (gourds, etc.).
