this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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Reusable water bottles, especially their lids. They build up microorganisms faster than a petri dish and the more complex the bottles are, the worse it is.
Worst offender are the ones with integrated straws. Sure, they look nice and are a good idea, but cleaning them thoroughly is a nightmare. Also, I don't know how people tolerate the ones with exposed straws or mouthpieces. Isn't that incredibly unsanitary?
More generally, why doesn't anyone except for Nalgene make reusable bottles without rubber gaskets? Gaskets get stinky, then you have to peel them out, scrub like mad, and then awkwardly stretch them back in. I've been looking for a metal water bottle without a gasket for ages. They literally just need to shove the Nalgene-type screw-on top into a metal body.
Bonus points if someone designs a gasket-less bottle that opens in the middle so I don't have to fiddle with a bottle brush every time I wash it.
The issue you're highlighting is due to the difference between metal and plastic. I have an Orca bottle that has a plastic lid that screws on without any rubber gasket and I end up with shreds of plastic in the bottle.
Plastic rubbing on metal leads to the plastic degrading and metal on metal does not make a good seal, so I think a rubber gasket is your only option.
Perhaps a design where both mating surfaces are plastic with metal for the rest of the body? A lot of vacuum insulated bottles have plastic bonded to metal in the cap, they just have to repeat that with the bottle itself
I stopped using my water bottle for a while til they made a new cap where the rubber gaskets have a pull tab for easy removal and cleaning.
Easy removal of the gasket solves the entire problem for me.
About ten years ago I found and ordered a glass bottle with a fitted silicone lid. It's not tight enough that the bottle can be tipped upside down without the water slowly dripping out, but it's great for keeping stuff out.
I always wanted to see a company make a glass bottle with silicone top that was completely leak-proof.
Water bottles for bikes suffer from this.
You gotta get them really dried out really regularly.
Like if you only have one that you use every day it's just going to get gross no matter what.
It needs to be bone dry for a few days to kill everything.
If you have 2 and switch once a week, the one that's out of rotation will dry out and any funk will just die off.
I love my simple metal Yeti bottles.