It’s not exactly breaking news that reusable water bottles require regular cleaning. It’s a small price to pay for the benefits of saving plastic and staying hydrated. But, do you know just how much bacteria is on your specific water bottle’s lid? TreadmillReviews.net conducted a study on 12 water bottles with four types of water bottle lids—slide-, squeeze-, screw- and straw top—to find out which water bottles harbor the most bacteria.
First, let’s start with a broad statistic: The average athlete’s water bottle contains 313,499 colony-forming units (CFU) per square centimeter. By comparison, the average pet toy has 2,937 CFU.
Now, moving onto the specifics. The swab study found that slide-top water bottles had 933,340 CFU, squeeze-top water bottles had 161,971 CFU, screw-top water bottles had 159,060 CFU and straw-top bottles had 25.4 CFU.
To compare, the study found that a toothbrush holder had 331,848 CFU, a pet bowl had 47,383 CFU, a kitchen sink had 3,191 CFU and a cutting board had 6.8 CFU.
Not only did the study focus on how much bacteria is on the lids, it looked at what kinds of bacteria were on the lids.
The squeeze-top, which the study found to be the second-most bacteria-ridden, contained 99 percent gram-negative rods, less than 1 percent of gram-positive cocci and 1 percent positive rods. For those unfamiliar, negative bacteria can cause infections, such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, wound infections and meningitis, in health care settings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. Gram-positive cocci can cause staph and strep infections, and gram-positive rods are mostly harmless.
Straw-top bottles, which were the cleanest, according to the study, contained 8 percent positive cocci and 92 percent positive rods.
So, for those looking to provide water bottle promotions to clients with health in mind, like hospitals or schools, it might be worth looking into straw-top bottles first and foremost.
