Most of us don’t think twice about refilling our plastic water bottles. To save money and help conserve resources, you may be tempted to reuse your plastic water bottle.

Would you clean the bottle before reusing? Most of us would not think about it and as plastic water bottles are often hard to clean.

Plastic bottles may leak chemicals into the water when reused, especially if cleaned in a high-heat environment like your dishwasher.

Single-use plastic bottles are mostly made of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is safe to use, but not reuse; these plastics can leach chemicals into your water if heated or scratched. All of those grew lots and lots of bacteria that could make you very sick almost like having food poisoning. That can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.

Of course, it does not mean that you should never reuse a water bottle (after all, we only have one Earth, and we need to take care of it). But you can be strategic and take under consideration what kinds of water bottles you buy and reuse.  You can use glass bottles with protective frames, as well as stainless steel bottles. If you need a plastic bottle, how about a polypropylene bottle, typically a white plastic?