The Best Reusable Water Bottle

Most of us are doing well just to get in our 8 glasses of water a day. But if you care about both your health and the environment, you need to know the facts about the water bottles that keep your H20 close at hand all day.

Environmental concerns override convenience when it comes to single-use plastic water bottles. With more people becoming eco-conscious, consumption of bottled water is falling every year. But concerns about the toxin BPA in reusable plastic bottles has added to consumer confusion about which kind of reusable water bottle is safest. Here are a few things to consider that can aid in evaluation of your options.

Reusable plastic bottles have been in the media spotlight since several studies indicated that bottles made with a manmade hardening chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA, long used to make polycarbonate bottles, could escape into the water in low doses. One study by scientists at the University of Cincinnati found that chemical leaking increased if the plastic was heated.

The Canadian government then declared BPA a toxic substance, triggering a ban on products made with BPA, including baby bottles, other baby products and water bottles, according to research compiled by the Boston-based Clean Water Fund.

Manufacturers and retailers that sell plastic bottles in the United States reacted by switching over to BPA-free polycarbonate bottles.

You can avoid plastics altogether with a stainless steel or aluminum water bottle. Unlike BPA-free plastics, they’re not made from petroleum products. Metal water bottles are more durable than plastic, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration requires that aluminum bottles sold in America be lined to eliminate the possibility of metals leaking into the drinking water inside. Manufacturers point out that the composition of the metal also tends to keep water colder for longer than other containers.

Aluminum bottles are also 100 percent recyclable and it is the most commonly recycled post-consumer metal in the world, according to The Aluminum Association.

No way! They are made with a particular petroleum-based or PET plastic, the bottles used for packaged drinking water are not always safe to refill and reuse multiple times. While the American Plastics Council says daily washing with soap and hot water will prevent contamination, there's a concern that frequent washing can cause leaking of possibly harmful chemicals into the water.

Single-use bottles are also far from eco-friendly. Almost all plastic water bottles end up in landfills, and they take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, according to the American Recycling Institute. Transporting bottled H2O from far-away places like France or Fiji to the United States takes another bite out of the planet, gobbling up over 1.5 million barrels of fossil fuels a year.

To do right by both your health and your planet, purchase a BPA-free reusable water bottle made of the most eco-friendly material you can find. Make a conscious effort of bringing a full reusable bottle with you each day — in the car, to the office, traveling, on vacation — to avoid the need for single-use plastic water bottles.