I have notice a smell in my 1000ml and 500ml Nalgene water bottles it is not a plastic smell. It smells kind of weird for a day or two then it starts to smell a little like feet. At this piont I give it a good wash (soap and hot water) I do not mind the smell and have not noticed a taste. My question is this
Should I wash it out more often? Is anything bad going to happed if I continue my washing cycle?

I dunno... but I noticed the same thing. I can't get rid of mine, though. I'm going to try some bleach soon, I think.

If you have a REALLY big pot, like for canning, try boiling them. If you do that after an hour of soaking with a tablespoon of baking soda in a quart of water, you will get rid of the smell.

And so that people are among the informed, it won't hurt you. Notice that no detergents, or even soap, were used in the above instructions.

I wash my Nalgene bottles in the dish washer. Nalgene's site says it's ok as long as you don't place them near the heating element. (I've never actually worried about where I put them in the dishwasher, and haven't had trouble.)

I have done this with the Lexan version of the 1L widemouth bottles. They've been used to hold water, Gatorade, bug juice, coffee, soup, whatever, and they don't seem to retain any smells/flavors after going through the dishwasher.

Nalgene also recommends trying soaking in warm water and lemon, water and baking soda, and they even suggested you could put a charcoal briquette wrapped in newspaper into the bottle, seal it up for a few days, and then remove it and clean with hot soapy water.

Are they the plastic bottle or the polypro type? If I have a bad water bottle, I usually put some bleach in it and fill it up with water and let is sit awhile. Then rinse throughly. If it persists, I replace the bottle. It sounds to me like bacteria is causing the odor and soap will not necessarily kill it. Try a little bleach and water. Afterall, chlorine is what they use to clean the water anyway. Hope that helps ya!

This method of destinking plastic came as a real shock to me when a Tupperware distributor told me about it. Too simple, says I.

Wet some B&W newspaper, crumple into the plastic container, apply lid, set in sun for several hours. Remove newspaper, wash with soapy water.

Try to imagine the stench of tuna, trapped in a Tupperware container, accidentally left in the trunk of the car for a week or so, in summer, in SoCalif. It was so bad it would curl nose hair or make it fall right out. <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> First, I soaked a strong bleach solution in it. Not much change. Then, I thought this would be a real test of the paper/sun method of stink removal, and I was sure it wouldn't work, either. When I took the paper out in the afternoon, there was still a bit of smell left, but I had to stick my nose into the bowl to smell it. So I repeated the treatment with fresh newspaper the next day. The smell had completely disappeared and never showed up again.

Sue

I'll second the chlorine bleach recommendation.

1 tablespoon bleach per gallon
3/4 teaspoon bleach per quart (1000 ml)
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon bleach per pint (500 ml)

First clean the bottles with hot soapy water. Rinse well.

Add warm (not hot) water, add chlorine bleach, cover, and shake. Turn the bottle over and unscrew the lid just enough to let some chlorine solution cover the outside thread area of the bottle. Screw the lid back on and then allow solution to sit for 30 minutes - though most of the sanitation will happen in the first 2 minutes. Poor the solution into the next bottle and repeat. Rinse the bottles with clean tap water and then air dry on a clean surface.