Is Your Reusable Water Bottle A Hotbed For Harmful Bacteria & Mould? | Talking Point | Full Episode

You know it's been really hot lately and if you're like me and want to stay hydrated, you probably have a

reusable

water

bottle

like this one in recent years, these handy

bottle

s have become a viral sensation, this

water

bottle will make you want to drink water all the time and a particular brand even becomes the fashion accessory to flaunt. Here's why people are obsessed with Stanley mugs, but this made the news recently. People were surprised by the amount of mole in their

reusable

water bottles and one user even claimed to have gotten it. If you get sick because of the mole on

your

water bottle, a US study goes further to suggest that our reusable water bottles can accumulate more

bacteria

than the computer mouse in

your

kitchen sink and, believe it or not, even the toilet seat, so in this

talking

point

episode

, I'm on a mission to find out how clean our reusable water bottles are here in Singapore and whether we should be worried about what might be brewing here to begin with, this group of regular reusable water bottle users will give up their bottles. for the lap test i use my bottle when i go to work i use my water bottle every day every day at school and at work i use my water bottle every day this is my water bottle and this is my water bottle water from my 5 year old daughter.

I mainly drink water from my bottle, but from time to time I also put Rina in it. I usually keep mostly water in my water bottle, but on rare occasions I have other drinks, like iced lemon tea, other flavored sodas, even just generally water. Cain water, do you think your bottle is clean? I think our water bottles are pretty clean. I think it should be pretty clean. It must be clean. Decently clean. In total, I have 10 reusable plastic water bottles and I will send them to a laboratory to find out if they are really as clean as we think.

What we can say from a real-time sequencing analysis is that all of the water bottles had some levels of

bacteria

and which one had the highest bacteria count for the bacteria category, this one had the worst. I noticed there was quite a bit of dirt on the inside of this one. I don't know if you can see it, oh wow, yeah, actually now that I look at it you see it everywhere, okay, but guess what these guys had too. mold, oh, so these six bottles had bacteria and mold, that's right. I noticed there seemed to be quite a bit of mold visible, yes I can see the black stuff and in fact I just noticed this here too, even here, there you go.

This bottle, as I understand it, no one was drinking from it, it was stagnant in the refrigerator. You know you pour it when you need a cold drink, so maybe it's surprising since it was stored in the refrigerator, but things can still grow even at lower temperatures because you're going to take it out, it might stay on the bench or in the counter for a while to let things grow, but maybe at a slower rate, so it was the L that had the most bacteria, so it's actually in line with the ones that had the most amount of bacteria and the lowest bacteria, so this one had the most bacteria and month MH and this one had the least amount of bacteria and more, yes, of the 10 bottles we tested we found that they all had bacteria.

Well, it's not entirely surprising, but six out of 10 of them had bacteria and moles, that's a little worrying. We are presenting the results to our viewers, who handed in their water bottles for testing. I rinse them every day, so I was quite surprised. I have found that our reusable water bottles harbor bacteria and even more so, six of the 10 bottles we tested had total bacteria and mole scores between 70 and almost 100,000. Anything over 55,000 is considered high numbers that can potentially be dangerous if we don't wash. one bottle is enough. I made a call on Instagram asking how often you clean your bottles and wondering if I'm cleaning them the right way.

We have more than 1,100 sponsors. Only 52% say you wash your bottles daily. 19% say. you wash it two or three times a week, almost a similar number, 18% say only once a week and 11% say only once a month, that's how often you wash your bottle. It really matters, we are revealing the results of our laboratory test. I wash it. every day with water and then every other day with soap, I unscrew my bottle and then use soap and a sponge and clean every part of the bottle, especially the mouth area, so our test will actually show that your water bottle had the lowest levels of bacteria and F is among the cleanest oh oh yeah that's great that's great your water had relatively high levels of bacteria compared to the other one and mold was also present in the mold.

I am surprised that there is a high level of bacteria and moles because I rinse it every day and then clean it thoroughly once a week. I wonder where the mole would come from if I hadn't washed it thoroughly, so I actually rinse my water bottle every day, but only with plain water and I wash my water bottle with soap and water or so. once every 3 weeks to once a month I expected some levels of bacteria in my water bottle, but I was surprised to find that more were detected in my water bottle as well. I clean my bottle once a week, usually I just rinse it, but once. every two weeks I would add soap to the bottle, your water bottle has one of the highest levels of bacteria and oh actually, I'm not that surprised because I don't clean my water bottle regularly.

I wash my water bottle once a week and not daily because I store mostly plain water so I don't think it's necessary to wash it every day. Their water bottle has the highest levels of bacteria and mold of all the bottles we tested. I didn't expect my bottle to have the highest levels. amount of bacteria and more because I only drink plain water, it turns out that simply rinsing daily can lead to high levels of bacteria and mold in your water bottle, but the ones that had the highest scores among all the bottles we tested were rinsed with water. only once a week, so how often should we clean our bottles?

Water quality expert Quchenko is going to show me. So how do our reusable bottles become so hot for bacteria and moles? When we consume food, we have food particles in our mouth. and once we put this water bottle to our mouth to drink, the food particles actually transfer to the water bottle and some of them may also get stuck inside the water bottle, these food particles actually They serve as food for bacteria and Mo and this Mo bacteria starts to grow inside a water bottle, so even in those bottles that were washed daily there were still bacteria and mold in them, why is that so?

Well, I would say that daily washing is still not good enough because it depends on how well you wash it. and I would recommend a thara wash and what do you mean by thara? It involves at least using a brush with detergent. I'll show you how we do it? Yes, of course, we have different bottles of water here, as well as brushes and detergent, so let me. I'll show you how we wash aara. Well, let's take this water bottle for example, which part do you think will be the dirtiest? Well, I'm sure inside the lid, like around the edge, you're right.

I would pay special attention to this part here. as well as inside the lid itself, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to brush this part very, very hard. I'll do the same with the lid too. Now for the inside of this water bottle, I'm going to do a bunch of rubbing with hot water. of our respondents don't wash it every day because it's just water so it should be fine, we eat every day and our food stays in our mouth, it transfers to the water bottle and over time the food can actually They build up in all these corners here, okay, and in this part too, so over time bacteria and mo will continue to grow there, even if it's just water.

Yes, even if it's just water. This one has a straw. I would say it's definitely a lot harder to clean. you would need a wire brush like this okay all the way and I think for this case there is a part that can be removed you have to remove them and clean them separately. This one, personally, I wouldn't recommend a narrow mouth because it's harder for this brush to get in here, so in this case I still try it and in the same way you have to do an eighth job now look at this bottle here, it has this place right on the top part, okay and this is the part where your mouth comes in contact, that's why the foot will get stuck here and when you close this lid the foot will also transfer to the top, so when you wash it you should pay special attention to these two parts and do the same.

Make sure you're also cleaning the inside of the stain, so does it really matter what kind of drink you put in the bottle? Certainly yes, if you put sugary drinks inside tea and coffee syrups then I would say the challenge is much greater, the reason is that there are sugars and some of the drinks can have fats inside them, they tend to get stuck more easily in their interior and of course that presents a lot more food for bacteria and more for them to grow, ah, okay, and in those cases, we strongly suggest that you clean every day, over time, these bacteria and mo will form bioforms and This biofilm tends to impart an unpleasant taste and odor to your drink and what exactly is bofilm?

It's basically a layer made of microbes including bacteria fungus moles a biofilm of bacteria and moles can form inside my reusable water bottle if I don't rub it. I'm about to see what this looks like, oh wow, it smells pretty bad and what all those bacteria and moles are doing to it. our bodies, so these are the ones I'll be most concerned about. Of the 10 bottles we sent to the lab, the one with the highest bacteria count, which was used only for drinking water, was rinsed only once a week and was never rubbed. with soap, this bottle was stored in the refrigerator and never drank, but it had the highest mole count because while bacteria comes from food, moles simply thrive in moist environments and this bottle is rarely washed.

This is professor andison won, he spent the last week growing up. Something to me is what we can expect to see on our bottles if we allow bacteria and moles to build up, so what we have is a bofilm. This is the kind of stuff where you'll see microbes moving around like they're forming a city. a layer that protects the microorganism against antimicrobials is a kind of shelter for the microbe to enter and grow freely oh wow, that smells pretty bad. We have them in our water bottles most of the time we won't be able to see it? at first glance it's fine, but if you let it grow and it builds up in layers then it can grow to this thickness, so in most cases you're saying we won't even know it's in our water bottle, it's largely invisible measurement, but you can feel it.

It feels a little sticky and sticky, however, here I have prepared a sample to see that this is H dyed with a purple dye. You can see it's more obvious by giving it a very deep purple coloration, oh, so this is all actually that bofilm it is. growing inside, that's right, biofilms are largely invisible, so it might actually look like this, but that's right, yeah, I sent a bunch of water bottles to a lab to test, they told me they all had bacteria and six out of 10 had bacteria. bacteria and more, help me understand because the list is long and seems scary.

I believe that most of them are harmless, exist naturally in the environment and are present in very low relative numbers, well, those I will pay special attention to. It's ponas and cyanobacteria, so these are the ones I'll be most concerned about. Cyanobacteria actually produce a toxin called cyanotoxin and then when ingested can actually cause abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, and pseudomonas is commonly found in the environment, but the fact that they are found in the water sample shows that They can actually be transferred from the environment to the water sample and are also well known for developing bofilm, which gives them a certain form of violence against humans.

Beings, so you know, our gastrointestinal tract and our oral cavity actually connected at some

point

, so there is a risk that the ponus can enter the lung in this way, it can cause a respiratory tract infection if it enters the lung . oh, okay, and if I look at it, if I draw a line through these numbers, is that considered a pretty high number? I mean, should we be worried about these numbers? At this point, I would think that certainly bottle two, uhhuh and bottle 8, are much greater in number relative to the other bottles and that H should worry about thebottle two belongs to tiquan and bottle 8 Jethro had elevated levels of sud Dominus a bacteria that can cause respiratory tract infections these bottles were rinsed with water only once a week the bottle that has traces of cyanobacteria belonged to tian's daughter la bottle was washed with soap and water but only two or three times a week I was trying to use more soap and wash it more frequently because I am afraid of the long term Effect on health I would like to give myself a goal to wash my water bottle once every two days and also wash the bottle with soap once a week instead of what I'm currently doing where I give the water a quick rinse and wash. the bottle is soaked once every two weeks or so when it comes to water bottles we have many to choose from you have these they are made of plastic they are lightweight and affordable and a popular choice there are also these Other durable stainless steel ones now usually They are insulated to help keep the water cold for hours, less popular on the other hand are these types that are made of glass and often come with a little protective sleeve, but I wonder if the material of my water bottle can affect the amount of bacteria that can accumulate.

Lim has been running a test on us for the past few days and I'm heading to a lab to find out what he discovered we have. Here are four different bottles made from four different materials that you would normally find in proper water bottles, so the first one here is made of MH polycarbonate and this one here is made of polypropylene and here we have a white one made of steel and this one here made of glass, okay, translucent or opaque polypropylene is a cheaper and more flexible type of plastic compared to polycarbonate, which is more sturdy and transparent, so what we did on the first day was fill it with about 200 ml of a medium called lb and lb is a very nutrient medium that allows any bacteria, mole or any microbe to grow and the next day we removed the microbe and the medium and then we slide the inside of the wall of the bottles.

Oh, and what did you actually find? Here what we saw is a lot. of bacteria remain and then have been growing in the pitri dish. Wow, all those little dots there, yes, every one of the little dots is a colony of bacteria, so what we found is that glass has the least amount of colony forming units, followed by polypropylene stainless steel. and then polycarbonate has the most bacteria, I'm actually quite surprised. I mean, for example, I thought that stainless steel would have less bacteria, so bacteria like to grow on certain types of surfaces, yes, and few factors that affect bacteria growth on surfaces are wettability, so that wettability is the property of Sur that water likes, so when you put a drop of water on it, it spreads, so bacteria like to be on those types of surfaces.

Yes, there are textured surfaces too. Bacteria like to hide in the crevices on the surface. Porous materials would normally also be a home for bacteria to grow, so they are both plastics, but why are the results so different? Because they are different types of plastic, they are made of different materials and different materials have different properties, for example, polypropylene. It has a lower wettability compared to polycarbonate, meaning that polypropylene will repel more water, while polycarbonate will attract water. If we look at other types of materials, for example glass, glass has less texture and is also less porous, so it is typically less prone to bacteria growth.

Seal is generally not the type of material that bacteria like to grow on; However, there may be other dominant factors that result in the final property of the materials that make up these bottles, so it says that at the end of the day it's not just the material of the bottle, but I guess all of these other factors, such as the cap here, they could have contributed to the bacteria count and therefore this final result is correct and if we really want to know more, we need to do more experiments, so I have learned that. No matter what type of reusable water bottle, you may find that the only way to get rid of bacteria and moles is to give it a good clean, which means scrubbing it thoroughly with detergent, simply rinsing it isn't enough or you can also use one.

Of these brushes, this one helps you dig into the edge to give it a good clean there. Alternatively, you can also try popping in one of these cleaning tablets once a month to give your bottle a deep clean.