Had a conversation with a chemist from a pharmaceutical company recently. his report: the expiration dates placed on medications and consumer chemicals are placed there, not by scientists, but by marketing departments. These dates are designed to encourage folks to discard useable products and buy new ones. Loss of effectiveness, chemical decay, loss of sterility, too-is event related, not time related. If drugs, chemicals, are stored in intact packaging in a cool, dry, dark place-that is away from IR and UV light, water and heat-things that cause chemical reactions-the drugs will remain unchanged for a very long time. If the package is not intact, if the drugs are directly exposed to heat or light or water, they will degrade very quickly-doesn't matter what the date on the package says. If sterile water is stored in sterile containers, it will remain sterile until you open the container and put some bacteria in it: event related, not time related. The place where folks seem to worry most about the outdates here is in the chlorine tabs used to disinfect water in the PSK. Simple solution: a plastic dropper bottle filled with clorox or another sodium hypochlorite bleach. 8 drops per gallon and 30 minutes is recommended. (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/faq/emerg.htm). store it in a ziploc bag to foil the inevitable leakage. Worried about it outdating? replace it weekly, it is really cheap. Worried about drinking chlorine? you do it every time you swallow municipal water. Think bottled water is the answer? Most bottled water is made out of local tap water that has been run through a reverse osmosis process (a process of uncertain result and value) and then popped into designer containers. It is tap water. It is processed in a plant that is inspected much less frequently than your local water works, and it is all okay because our tap water is so incredibly safe compared to the stuff that the rest of the world is drinking. And we pay more for a gallon of Evian water than we do for a gallon of gas. oi. next rant: dumb stuff in FAK.

Chlorine bleach does lose its potency over time--time-related, not event-related (i.e. it doesn't matter if the bottle is unopened). However, here is the mysterious thing--ever see an expiration date on a bottle of household laundry bleach? I've never seen one. I still scratch my head about that. If the manufacturers wanted to sell more bleach, you'd think they'd put an expiration date on it, don't you think?

I agree that bottled water is a big racket. Not all bottled water is just purified municipal water, though. But major brands like Dasani are. Ironically, after reverse osmosis removes all the minerals, certain minerals have to be added back by the bottler to make it palatable and unique tasting from its competitors.

There are enough empty water bottles in landfills to circle the earth some 226 times. Out of some 5 billion produced @ 25% have been recycled in a usually one time new product that itself winds up in a landfill.The energy needed to make the bottle and then transport your designer Azerbaijani mountain mineral water futher equals @ 4 oz of petroleum. Gives one pause, seeing pristine mountain glaciers on the label, and what our mountain glaciers are doing.

*laughs*

The dropper of hypochlorite will be inneffective after about three days, tops. The release of chlorine dioxide is limited by blocking air, but that isn't going to happen with a ziplock. But you will have the whitest white PSK in the world.

Assuming that the chlorine doesn't scar, pit and corrode everything to the point of worthlessness.

It seems like we are drinking our glaciers. Here's an interesting product that will make survivalists out there proud: Tasmanian bottled rain water

"... Most bottled water is made out of local tap water..."

I have always suspected that. Every day I watch people pay good money for "designer" water, while I fill my nalgene from the tap for free. Wet and cold, that is all I want...

I have a unique observation about water and teenagers.

I have 2 teenagers at home and a third child who desperately wants to be one; I cannot recently remember ever seeing one drink water from the tap. They consider it "bad or un-cool" and will go for juice, soda pop, milk or ice tea in the fridge.

The really odd thing is that if there is bottled water in the fridge (or even stored in the garage) they will drink that and are happy. They must figure that since you buy it and that it is in a bottle, it must be "good".

So I tend to buy bottled water (in large amounts, on sale) and have it available just to keep my kids from loading up on sugar that they do not need.

We do recycle all the plastic bottles, but I am constantly remind my kids to pick up the empties and put them in the bin!

Mike

You could just refill them from the tap and put them back in the fridge when they aren't looking.

Hi Eugene,

Been there, done that, got caught by my middle daughter!

She noticed that she did not have to break the cap seal on a "new" bottle and thought it was a manufacturing or tampering problem? BUSTED!

Mike

I actually will buy a case of botteled water in the spring and we re-use those all through the summer. A half dozen bottles of water are so easy to pack in a cooler of ice when you spend the day out at a park or something. We've bought all kinds of water bottels over the years and nothing is as easy to fill and store and drink from as a simple bottle. So were pretty much buying them for the containers.