7 ms·

I got blind sided by an argument when visiting a friend recently because I carry a reusable water bottle with me whenever I leave home for more than a few hours

I got blind sided by an argument when visiting a friend recently because I carry a reusable water bottle with me whenever I leave home for more than a few hours whereas he brings throwaway water bottles. At one point he gestures to my bottled water and asked "does that make you feel good about yourself ?" implying I am virtue signaling. I explained that I saw a documentary ~10 years ago where the claim was if you can do one thing for the environment, please stop purchasing bottled water. It seemed like an easy request, so why not. I then rhetorically asked him if he "felt good" about himself because he doesn't just throw his trash out the car window, which is what we city kids (and adults) used to do in the early 80s. "No you don't do it and you don't think about it, right ? It's the same with my water bottle. I don't lecture anyone, and I honestly didn't think once about what he or others are doing." Culture changes many times for the better. It's odd though how some people are the last to get the memo despite similar demographics.

shkkmo 5y ago
I misplace water bottles on a regular basis. So I buy bottled water and re-fill the disposable bottles until they get lost. The article wholey ignores the costs of production for non-disposable water bottles. They absolutely take more resources to produce and you thus need to refill any given water bottle a certain number of times before you break even with disposable bottled water. For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  >> For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment. Society doesn't and IMO shouldn't optimize for the absent-minded. Do you also loose your keys, wallet and phone on a regular basis? Maybe it's not a memory thing but more of a value thing.
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    I agree it's definitely value based. I've own a hydroflask which is a fairly expensive water bottle and I got it for free, so I value it pretty highly. I think I'm more likely to lose my wallet of plastic/replaceable credit cards than I am my water bottle. Plus it's just a big object, so it actually takes up (virtual?imaginary?) space in my mind.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Your comment comes off as needlessly combative. It is definitely a memory / attention thing. I don't see how I made any suggestion that "society needs to optimize" for me. My point is that you need to asses the full lifecycle costs of any alternative given individual differences.
    - unethical_ban 5y ago
      I think the other person heard you saying "bottled water has a good purpose" and they replied "It's bad enough of a problem that we shouldn't suggest its continued use because you can't remember to care about your bottle". This is just how I'm reading the conversation. As others have said, maybe if you spent $15 on a purpose-built, non-BPA, reliable water bottle, you would use it less because your mind wouldn't perceive it to be disposable.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        > As others have said, maybe if you spent $15 on a purpose-built, non-BPA, reliable water bottle, you would use it less because your mind wouldn't perceive it to be disposable. You have the causality exactly backwards. It is the frequency with which I have lost expensive water bottles that caused me to stop using them in most situations. I don't understand why people only replied to try and tell me how my brain works rather that to engage with the core idea of comment.
sgspace 5y ago
Why is there a weird stigma about carrying around a reusable water bottle? I’ve experienced it myself when I was younger and in school. It’s something about preparing for the moment compared to just going with the flow of life. I remember being categorized, by a girl, as a pretentious nerd soley based off my water bottle choice.
- snypher 5y ago
  Sometimes it's easier to make someone feel bad for making a better choice, than to consider the reasons why they are not making that choice themselves. Also once an mindset like being a bottled-water-family is ingrained into a person anything that runs contrary to that can seem to be almost threatening to one's own behavior. Someone once told me you can learn everything about a person by what they do with their empty cart at the grocery store.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  In school, secondary and college, I remember that you fared better socially if you figured out how to not look like you were struggling to transport all your things. People were unkind to students who had useful rolling packs, for example, as well as students who tended to have their hands full in the halls. I’d think a water bottle could play into that. However, I see my daughter and most of her friends bring them everywhere so I think that particular item is perceived differently now so long as it’s the “right” style.
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    > you fared better socially if you figured out how to not look like you were struggling to transport all your things To be honest, it does look ridiculous hauling all your shit around like some hiker. It lacks grace and is out of proportion with the task at hand. This must be an American thing. I do not recall students elsewhere roaming school halls around like hobos with all their belongings.
    - acranox 5y ago
      My high school (and middle school too) was big enough that the time it took to walk from once class to my locker and the to my next class too longer than the time we had in between classes. So I had to carry a lot more shit than I wanted to. Some kids had classes and lockers in better locations. Anyhow, your attitude stinks. Let people make their own choices what they carry and don’t call them hobos without grace because you can’t understand why they might choose to carry some of their things around.
Eric_WVGG 5y ago
no offense but your friend sounds like kind of an ass How did he respond to the "you don't and you don't think about it" bit?
- throwaway803453 5y ago
  It was kind of a mike drop moment. Honestly, my buddy has associated hard-right and anti-left views as part of his identity. He doesn't wear a seat belt because he doesn't want the gov't telling him what to do. That type of extreme. But he's also smart, so I suspect sometimes he says things as a cry for help, the way an alcoholic will mock you for drinking just one beer because it reminds them that they have habits they can't break or have regretfully become part of their identity.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - loopz 5y ago
    All sorts of insecurities start to show in people when you decide to go against the grain, choose for yourself and embrace deliberate action without hiding anything. That most people tend to think it's because of trying to show off rather than a small sacrifice that you eventually stop thinking about, is sadly very telling. It's very natural though to ask about something that is different in some way.
  - gremloni 5y ago
    Smart how? Like a good programmer or creative or just some sad contrarian?
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    > He doesn't wear a seat belt because he doesn't want the gov't telling him what to do. [...] But he's also smart Is he?
    - slim 5y ago
      People have weaknesses. Some people are afraid of cockroaches. You can't explain all behaviors with logic
dataflow 5y ago
> and asked "does that make you feel good about yourself ?" implying I am virtue signaling Is there more context to this conversation? The reason of course could've been that, but it also seems like there's a chance (not high, I admit) he might've seen the local tap water as dangerous and tried to think of a compelling reason why you would still drink it despite that. Especially if the topic has previously come up.
- throwaway803453 5y ago
  Beach city LA, so water quality isn't bad. As for context, he's a pathological right wing troll and we both have ADD and find mild periodic confrontation stimulating. Everyone I know mocks him for being an absurdist, but he has many friends because he's damn funny, helpful, and caring.
Evidlo 5y ago
What about reusing containers for drinking water that you would otherwise dispose of? I've been using yogurt bottles for my drinking water for a while now. No extra resources wasted to produce a fancy water bottle, and you don't need to worry too much if you lose it.
- riidom 5y ago
  Doing a similar thing; I buy a bottle of plastic water (or some other soft drink) to reuse as container for tap water. I usually replace it when the plastic gets milky, every few weeks.
- extra88 5y ago
  Yes, I refill bottled water bottles with tap water. I usually replace them once a year. Previously, I would buy whatever brand I found that was the right size for how I store them but last time I ended up spending more on Evian and the bottles are holding up much better. Poland Springs bottles use very thin plastic that crumples easily which is good for minimizing the amount of plastic used but bad for reuse. I do wonder if, by reusing the bottles, there could be harmful chemicals leeching out.
  - photojosh 5y ago
    Bottles sit on the store shelf and have a use-by date of often a year in the future. I figure if there is going to be leeching, it's not going to be significant enough in a day or two. Just to be careful though, even with my 'proper' reusable bottles I won't drink the water if it's been there more than a day or two or if it's exposed to the sun.
    - jobigoud 5y ago
      It's not about the water inside, it's about the plastic. I do the same as grandparent, refill disposable but sturdy bottles, I change every 6 month or so. I assume the plastic itself is shedding particles away more and more as it ages. There is a bad smell that develops after a few months. Probably from bacteria build up.
bobthechef 5y ago
> throw his trash out the car window, which is what we city kids (and adults) used to do in the early 80s This must be an American thing. I do not recall this being the case elsewhere that I visited.
- fencepost 5y ago
  There were real pushes from the early 70s on to combat pollution from many sources. One thing that many Americans will remember from then (or from seeing it later) is the "Crying Indian" ad from 1971. Pollution also made it into songs about little things like the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire that provided a lot of push for the passage of the Clean Water Act not long after.
  - alaxsxaq 5y ago
    America solved a large part of air and water pollution issues as a side-effect of policies which shifted production largely off-shore. That solution won't work for the remainder. The trash problem seems to have worsened - especially in the cities. Municipal governments have eliminated street cleaning from their service portfolio and now seem to mostly rely on things getting so bad that some civil group sign on to their adopt-a-highway program and make some effort to clean things up once or twice a year. Hard to take care of the home when you're busy sending trillions to destroying people's lives in other parts of the world. The difficulty I have in looking optimistically toward the future comes from my lack of confidence in the leadership of this nation. An entrenched two-party system and a complicit media has led us to a place where we cannot adequately provide for basic human needs (education, health, and housing). Without caring for those things for all of the people living within our borders, the hard choices we will need to make are going to bring us through a period of turmoil as the pains of adjustment are felt unevenly throughout our society. Someone is going to lose and it probably won't be the rich and upper middle class. We will likely end up covering them for the loss of their beach-side property while the poor sod living in the countryside will be treated like we currently treat our homeless.
- extra88 5y ago
  If they were littering like that in the early 80s, their community was very much lagging behind the American culture overall. Or maybe it was just the people they were around literally being trashy. It wasn't, and isn't today, an American thing. Plenty of countries had, and even still do have, casual attitudes about littering.
majkinetor 5y ago
Unless you clean it like a champ, not sure how sterile your bottle is...
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  I've got news for you, none of the dishes you use, at home or when you're out are "sterile". The good news is humans don't require anything close to this; we're pretty hardy creatures.
  - majkinetor 5y ago
    Water is a bit different tho as it provides the basic stuff for bacterial life and while you cook you process food thermally. I've got bad news for you - look up into antacids and how they block acid barrier. Every other one uses them. I am not into cleaning frenzy, quite the opposite, but water should be kept as sterile as possible IMO.
- bserge 5y ago
  I use plastic bottles 30+ times. Is there any way to get sick or die from this?
  - majkinetor 5y ago
    It depends on how you keep them. Plastic may leak stuff (BPA and friends). Bacteria could build up.
    - Eric_WVGG 5y ago
      regarding BPA, older bottles are more sanitary because most of the BPA has leeched out over time.
      - majkinetor 5y ago
        It’s the heat not the time that causes BPA leaching.
fuball63 5y ago
Was the documentary "Tapped" by chance? I saw that one around that same timeframe you mentioned and it inspired me to get a reusable bottle I still use to this day.
robomartin 5y ago
> I carry a reusable water bottle Every so often I think about this. I use a 32 ounce insulated stainless steel bottle, no disposable bottles. However, every time I have to wash it I take note of the fact that it take several fill-swish-dump cycles to clean it. If I use soap it take even more to get it all out. In other words, someone could make an argument that I am wasting water. I haven't quantified it yet, so I don't have a really good metric from which to judge this. I probably rinse the bottle every couple of days.
- yadaeno 5y ago
  Even in that case, you're wasting less when compared to disposable. From the article: >it takes three times as much water to produce a plastic bottle as it can hold. I also use an insulated stainless steel bottle will only wash if I notice a scent. It's been over 6 M since the last time I washed.
  - robomartin 5y ago
    I tend to wash it more often because I switch between water and other powder-mixed drinks. When you switch you either accept the mixing and taste "pollution" or wash it. Going from something like gatorade to water does not require rinsing. I found that switching from powder-based fiber to water or gatorade does. I tend to schedule these for minimal rinsing though.

shkkmo 5y ago

I misplace water bottles on a regular basis. So I buy bottled water and re-fill the disposable bottles until they get lost. The article wholey ignores the costs of production for non-disposable water bottles. They absolutely take more resources to produce and you thus need to refill any given water bottle a certain number of times before you break even with disposable bottled water. For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment.

skeeter2020 5y ago
>> For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment. Society doesn't and IMO shouldn't optimize for the absent-minded. Do you also loose your keys, wallet and phone on a regular basis? Maybe it's not a memory thing but more of a value thing.
- animal_spirits 5y ago
  I agree it's definitely value based. I've own a hydroflask which is a fairly expensive water bottle and I got it for free, so I value it pretty highly. I think I'm more likely to lose my wallet of plastic/replaceable credit cards than I am my water bottle. Plus it's just a big object, so it actually takes up (virtual?imaginary?) space in my mind.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Your comment comes off as needlessly combative. It is definitely a memory / attention thing. I don't see how I made any suggestion that "society needs to optimize" for me. My point is that you need to asses the full lifecycle costs of any alternative given individual differences.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    I think the other person heard you saying "bottled water has a good purpose" and they replied "It's bad enough of a problem that we shouldn't suggest its continued use because you can't remember to care about your bottle". This is just how I'm reading the conversation. As others have said, maybe if you spent $15 on a purpose-built, non-BPA, reliable water bottle, you would use it less because your mind wouldn't perceive it to be disposable.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      > As others have said, maybe if you spent $15 on a purpose-built, non-BPA, reliable water bottle, you would use it less because your mind wouldn't perceive it to be disposable. You have the causality exactly backwards. It is the frequency with which I have lost expensive water bottles that caused me to stop using them in most situations. I don't understand why people only replied to try and tell me how my brain works rather that to engage with the core idea of comment.

sgspace 5y ago

Why is there a weird stigma about carrying around a reusable water bottle? I’ve experienced it myself when I was younger and in school. It’s something about preparing for the moment compared to just going with the flow of life. I remember being categorized, by a girl, as a pretentious nerd soley based off my water bottle choice.

snypher 5y ago
Sometimes it's easier to make someone feel bad for making a better choice, than to consider the reasons why they are not making that choice themselves. Also once an mindset like being a bottled-water-family is ingrained into a person anything that runs contrary to that can seem to be almost threatening to one's own behavior. Someone once told me you can learn everything about a person by what they do with their empty cart at the grocery store.
1123581321 5y ago
In school, secondary and college, I remember that you fared better socially if you figured out how to not look like you were struggling to transport all your things. People were unkind to students who had useful rolling packs, for example, as well as students who tended to have their hands full in the halls. I’d think a water bottle could play into that. However, I see my daughter and most of her friends bring them everywhere so I think that particular item is perceived differently now so long as it’s the “right” style.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > you fared better socially if you figured out how to not look like you were struggling to transport all your things To be honest, it does look ridiculous hauling all your shit around like some hiker. It lacks grace and is out of proportion with the task at hand. This must be an American thing. I do not recall students elsewhere roaming school halls around like hobos with all their belongings.
  - acranox 5y ago
    My high school (and middle school too) was big enough that the time it took to walk from once class to my locker and the to my next class too longer than the time we had in between classes. So I had to carry a lot more shit than I wanted to. Some kids had classes and lockers in better locations. Anyhow, your attitude stinks. Let people make their own choices what they carry and don’t call them hobos without grace because you can’t understand why they might choose to carry some of their things around.

Eric_WVGG 5y ago

no offense but your friend sounds like kind of an ass How did he respond to the "you don't and you don't think about it" bit?

throwaway803453 5y ago
It was kind of a mike drop moment. Honestly, my buddy has associated hard-right and anti-left views as part of his identity. He doesn't wear a seat belt because he doesn't want the gov't telling him what to do. That type of extreme. But he's also smart, so I suspect sometimes he says things as a cry for help, the way an alcoholic will mock you for drinking just one beer because it reminds them that they have habits they can't break or have regretfully become part of their identity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- loopz 5y ago
  All sorts of insecurities start to show in people when you decide to go against the grain, choose for yourself and embrace deliberate action without hiding anything. That most people tend to think it's because of trying to show off rather than a small sacrifice that you eventually stop thinking about, is sadly very telling. It's very natural though to ask about something that is different in some way.
- gremloni 5y ago
  Smart how? Like a good programmer or creative or just some sad contrarian?
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  > He doesn't wear a seat belt because he doesn't want the gov't telling him what to do. [...] But he's also smart Is he?
  - slim 5y ago
    People have weaknesses. Some people are afraid of cockroaches. You can't explain all behaviors with logic

dataflow 5y ago

> and asked "does that make you feel good about yourself ?" implying I am virtue signaling Is there more context to this conversation? The reason of course could've been that, but it also seems like there's a chance (not high, I admit) he might've seen the local tap water as dangerous and tried to think of a compelling reason why you would still drink it despite that. Especially if the topic has previously come up.

throwaway803453 5y ago
Beach city LA, so water quality isn't bad. As for context, he's a pathological right wing troll and we both have ADD and find mild periodic confrontation stimulating. Everyone I know mocks him for being an absurdist, but he has many friends because he's damn funny, helpful, and caring.

Evidlo 5y ago

What about reusing containers for drinking water that you would otherwise dispose of? I've been using yogurt bottles for my drinking water for a while now. No extra resources wasted to produce a fancy water bottle, and you don't need to worry too much if you lose it.

riidom 5y ago
Doing a similar thing; I buy a bottle of plastic water (or some other soft drink) to reuse as container for tap water. I usually replace it when the plastic gets milky, every few weeks.
extra88 5y ago
Yes, I refill bottled water bottles with tap water. I usually replace them once a year. Previously, I would buy whatever brand I found that was the right size for how I store them but last time I ended up spending more on Evian and the bottles are holding up much better. Poland Springs bottles use very thin plastic that crumples easily which is good for minimizing the amount of plastic used but bad for reuse. I do wonder if, by reusing the bottles, there could be harmful chemicals leeching out.
- photojosh 5y ago
  Bottles sit on the store shelf and have a use-by date of often a year in the future. I figure if there is going to be leeching, it's not going to be significant enough in a day or two. Just to be careful though, even with my 'proper' reusable bottles I won't drink the water if it's been there more than a day or two or if it's exposed to the sun.
  - jobigoud 5y ago
    It's not about the water inside, it's about the plastic. I do the same as grandparent, refill disposable but sturdy bottles, I change every 6 month or so. I assume the plastic itself is shedding particles away more and more as it ages. There is a bad smell that develops after a few months. Probably from bacteria build up.

bobthechef 5y ago

> throw his trash out the car window, which is what we city kids (and adults) used to do in the early 80s This must be an American thing. I do not recall this being the case elsewhere that I visited.

fencepost 5y ago
There were real pushes from the early 70s on to combat pollution from many sources. One thing that many Americans will remember from then (or from seeing it later) is the "Crying Indian" ad from 1971. Pollution also made it into songs about little things like the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire that provided a lot of push for the passage of the Clean Water Act not long after.
- alaxsxaq 5y ago
  America solved a large part of air and water pollution issues as a side-effect of policies which shifted production largely off-shore. That solution won't work for the remainder. The trash problem seems to have worsened - especially in the cities. Municipal governments have eliminated street cleaning from their service portfolio and now seem to mostly rely on things getting so bad that some civil group sign on to their adopt-a-highway program and make some effort to clean things up once or twice a year. Hard to take care of the home when you're busy sending trillions to destroying people's lives in other parts of the world. The difficulty I have in looking optimistically toward the future comes from my lack of confidence in the leadership of this nation. An entrenched two-party system and a complicit media has led us to a place where we cannot adequately provide for basic human needs (education, health, and housing). Without caring for those things for all of the people living within our borders, the hard choices we will need to make are going to bring us through a period of turmoil as the pains of adjustment are felt unevenly throughout our society. Someone is going to lose and it probably won't be the rich and upper middle class. We will likely end up covering them for the loss of their beach-side property while the poor sod living in the countryside will be treated like we currently treat our homeless.
extra88 5y ago
If they were littering like that in the early 80s, their community was very much lagging behind the American culture overall. Or maybe it was just the people they were around literally being trashy. It wasn't, and isn't today, an American thing. Plenty of countries had, and even still do have, casual attitudes about littering.

majkinetor 5y ago

Unless you clean it like a champ, not sure how sterile your bottle is...

skeeter2020 5y ago
I've got news for you, none of the dishes you use, at home or when you're out are "sterile". The good news is humans don't require anything close to this; we're pretty hardy creatures.
- majkinetor 5y ago
  Water is a bit different tho as it provides the basic stuff for bacterial life and while you cook you process food thermally. I've got bad news for you - look up into antacids and how they block acid barrier. Every other one uses them. I am not into cleaning frenzy, quite the opposite, but water should be kept as sterile as possible IMO.
bserge 5y ago
I use plastic bottles 30+ times. Is there any way to get sick or die from this?
- majkinetor 5y ago
  It depends on how you keep them. Plastic may leak stuff (BPA and friends). Bacteria could build up.
  - Eric_WVGG 5y ago
    regarding BPA, older bottles are more sanitary because most of the BPA has leeched out over time.
    - majkinetor 5y ago
      It’s the heat not the time that causes BPA leaching.

fuball63 5y ago

Was the documentary "Tapped" by chance? I saw that one around that same timeframe you mentioned and it inspired me to get a reusable bottle I still use to this day.

robomartin 5y ago

> I carry a reusable water bottle Every so often I think about this. I use a 32 ounce insulated stainless steel bottle, no disposable bottles. However, every time I have to wash it I take note of the fact that it take several fill-swish-dump cycles to clean it. If I use soap it take even more to get it all out. In other words, someone could make an argument that I am wasting water. I haven't quantified it yet, so I don't have a really good metric from which to judge this. I probably rinse the bottle every couple of days.

yadaeno 5y ago
Even in that case, you're wasting less when compared to disposable. From the article: >it takes three times as much water to produce a plastic bottle as it can hold. I also use an insulated stainless steel bottle will only wash if I notice a scent. It's been over 6 M since the last time I washed.
- robomartin 5y ago
  I tend to wash it more often because I switch between water and other powder-mixed drinks. When you switch you either accept the mixing and taste "pollution" or wash it. Going from something like gatorade to water does not require rinsing. I found that switching from powder-based fiber to water or gatorade does. I tend to schedule these for minimal rinsing though.