Comments Seansm has made

Stainless steel water bottles

Hello,

In light of the lively and passionate discussion about the benefits and concerns around single use plastic water bottles versus stainless steel bottles, I want to get to the nitty gritty details of the issue.

Foremost, not one publication, discussion, comment or argument has included a complete life-cycle analysis of the two options.  Yes there are a few obvious arguments in favor of stainless steel bottles, but without knowing the total inputs through a single bottles life-cycle we can't make a completely conclusive and compelling argument for the switch.  

With the current discussion I could - while playing the devils advocate - argue that since stainless steel bottles are bigger and use more materials they likely use more energy and materials than plastic bottles.  So the most appropriate action for communities to take is to improve recycling frequency of plastic bottles rather than banning them all together.

So what I want to find out is: what is the complete life-cycle of a stainless steel water bottle.  More specifically, how much water, minerals and energy are necessary for creating one stainless steel water bottle. That should include everything used for mining, manufacturing and shipping.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my request.

All the bestOn Umbra on plastic water bottles, again posted 1 year, 1 month ago 10 Responses