# cleaning plastic bottles



## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

We like to drink sparkling mineral water and were buying a couple of cases of 6 liter and a half bottles each week - more in the summer.  Apart from the weight and pain of lugging them up, they're not a very good thing for the environment.  Also the water in Rome is remarkably good, it actually tastes good. 

So when we saw this "soda stream" gadget in a local dept store we decided to buy it - expensive but we paid it back in a couple of months with the savings from the bubbly mineral water we would buy. 

However there's a problem.  I know plastic bottles are not good to keep water in, or to reuse.  These say they have a two year life span and then have to be changed.  But i noticed that after several months they begin to smell - not sure what of, but just not right.  We rinse them out every time, wash occasionally with detergent and recently have been washing with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar.  I remember reading somewhere that you shouldn't reuse plastic store-bought mineral water bottles or to refill them, and the plastic bottles used in water coolers are not supposed to be refilled.  would it be better to have the glass ones and am i taking any risks with the plastic?


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## shipscook (Jan 14, 2007)

how about a metal water bottle?

Nan


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Well, yeah, but even the plastic ones are very expensive, and we need three when the family is all home.  I wanted to know how to clean the plastic ones.


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## panini (Jul 28, 2001)

Siduri,

I understand using BS and vinegar to cover or remove smell.

I personally think that as the bottle gets porous it would be best to sanitize it.

Bleach @ 150 PPM would be fine.

Some of us hippies know how to make a rocket flame with alcohol. Might be dangerous./img/vbsmilies/smilies/laser.gif

panini


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

I was never a true enough hippie, i guess /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

i never think of bleach because every single time i use it I splash some on my clothes! So i just ignore its existence. But yeah, that would be the ideal bottle cleaner, thanks. I'll do it when i'm in my pajamas or something or better yet, get someone else to do it.


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## panini (Jul 28, 2001)

quasi hippie,

Back in the day, you could throw in an oz, or 2 of alcohol. Rubbing, southern comfort, even blackberry brandy.

Hold your hand over the top and roll it and shake it around. Set it down and place an open flame near the opening of the bottle and the flame

would dance like a disc up and down the bottle, sometimes keeping with the music. Then it would gather and shoot out the opening

like a jet engine. Really neat man!

I usually put on my tie dyed swim thong to work with bleach/img/vbsmilies/smilies/peace.gif


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Wow, i missed alot in the 60s!


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## panini (Jul 28, 2001)

We learned that by accident while going to woodstock. I was a kid, we went in my cousin's 1959 Rambler Classic. We procured enough wine from his

dads basement to fill three of those bottles. 2 were finished before we even got close to the grounds. The 59 seats folded back into a big bed. The

rest is history.

I had such fond memories of that old 59, I actually bought a very clean one and added it to my little collection.

We tried a repete for watkins glen and got deathly ill./img/vbsmilies/smilies/drinkbeer.gif


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

We had a Rambler when I was a kid, and i inherited it as my first car - it had push button shift!  No one could steal it because they couldn't figure out how to start it (turn the key and press the S button!)  But the farthest i got with it was the Newport Folk Festival.  Didn't develop a taste for alcohol of any kind till i was in my 40s, and even now i can barely drink a small glass of beer without getting wobbly and silly.  I generally don;t find it very pleasant and I can get silly anyway.


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## capsaicin (Jan 16, 2011)

I believe the smell is from microbes that have found their way into the bottles.  Residues can build up from the microbes themselves literally piling upon the dead carcasses of their brethren -- ewwwww, I know -- which provides both living space and food -- ewwww again -- for more microbes.  You need to do more than "clean" the bottles until they look clean -- you need to remvoe the (often invisible) residues and microbes.

I am an occasional home brewer and also own a Sodastream, and so have cleaned more than my share of bottles of every description in my time.  The easiest method I have found is a bottle sanitizing chemical called B-Brite, which comes in a white powder.  You dissolve some of it in water, and then soak the bottles or pour the solution into the bottles.  It cleans and sanitizes in a few hours (overnight if you'd like), and you just rinse the bottles off and you're good to go.  A 3-pound bag of this stuff will last you a *very* long time because you only use about a half teaspoon for each bottle.  Oh and yes, it deodorizes.
 

If you use the Sodastream for soda (I just use it for seltzer), there might be some gunk stuck to the bottom if you didn't rinse it immediately after use.  If it's really stubborn, you might consider getting a $5 bottle brush from a home brew supply store or hardware store.  I have never seen anything that B-Brite hasn't successfully removed with an overnight soak though.

There is also a C-Brite cleanser which is supposedly rinse-free, but I stick with the B-Brite because it is better at getting stuck residues off.

Just look at various home brewing and wine-making stores online and find the best price, then either order it directly or have someone mail it to you from the States.


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

I tried to reply while i was away but i guess it didn't work.  Thanks for the suggestion Capsaicin, I don't know if they will ship abroad but it always is complicated to order from the states because last time i tried it i had to go all the way to the airport (a 45 minute drive) to pick it up at customs and pay double what the thing cost just for the customs fees!  never tried that again.  But if you tell me the ingredients i can pobably find something similar in a wine supply shop - many people buy casks of wine and bottle them at home. 

Thanks again


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## capsaicin (Jan 16, 2011)

If you know people who deal regularly with vineyards, just have them ask.  Winemakers also need to sanitize stuff.  For all you know they can sell you B-Brite or something similar.  The active ingredient is free oxygen.  B-Brite is pretty cheap -- it's just 3-4 bucks a pound if you buy it by the pound, and a pound goes a long way because the proportion is one tablespoon per gallon.  If someone can bring you a 3- or 5-pound bag from the US on a visit -- just stick it in the luggage and let them know it's a cleanser if they ask -- it should do for a year or more.

If they sell OxyClean where you are, that works too -- but in addition to being several times more expensive, you have to get the kind without the blue crystals.  The blue crystals are detergent, are kind of difficult to rinse out, and tends to leave a scent.

If all else fails, you can soak them in a chlorine bleach solution every now and again.  But that would really take many, many rinses to rinse out completely, and in any case does not remove residues as effectively as either B-Brite or C-Brite.

Anyway good luck to you, and enjoy -- life is always better when it's bubbly...


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

So if it contains oxygen, it would be equivalent to peroxide?  I can get liquid peroxide.  It also eats away at organic matter (if you ever put it on an abrasion you would see it at work) so i'll go with that.  When i do go to the states, i bring back so many things, i don't want to waste 5 of my very precious kilos on detergent!

thanks


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## capsaicin (Jan 16, 2011)

I've never tried peroxide...  Powders have always seemed easier to handle and store to me, and peroxide would be prohibitively expensive for a home brewer.

But that's a good thought...  As long as the residues are removed and the microbes are killed, it should work.  I have no idea whether or not it would work for deodorizing, whether or not it might leave an odor of its own, or how easy it might be to wash off, but I imagine it should work for cleaning and sanitizing at least.

Good luck!


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Thanks

i tried it last night and it seems to have worked well.  In italy they call it oxygen water - which is what made me think if your stuff had oxygen in it, maybe it was peroxide - and it has no flavor to speak of (i remember when our dentist advised using it to rinse the mouth, though they don't say that now, and it had an extremely mild taste, and anyway, couldn't have been poisonous like chlorine is) and rinsed out without leaving any scent.  Not what a brewer would use but for my uses it's fine.  I think it would cost more in the end to go around town looking for a wine supply store.


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## capsaicin (Jan 16, 2011)

Peroxide out of the bottle always smelled kind of sour to me.  It seemed to wash off readily enough, but since as a home brewer I worked with 5-7 gallon containers, peroxide was never practical.

I'm glad it worked for you.  Enjoy your SodaStream in lovely Italy!


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Thanks very much


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