Saturday, November 29, 2008

Was this beta tested? With, like, people?

I bought some Arrowhead bottled water. In their "eco-shape" half-liter bottles. These bottles claim to use 30% less plastic than normal half-liter bottles.

Which sounds good for the environment.

Except, this is what happens every time I open the aforementioned eco-shape bottles: The caps are, y'know, tightly attached, like a good water bottle cap should be. So you need to grip the bottle tightly in order to get a good grip and twist the cap off.

This operation can be performed fairly simply with a normal, bad-for-the-environment water bottle. But the eco-shape bottle is made of a thin, flimsy plastic. So, when you grip it (to take the cap off) it squeezes inward. You then remove the cap and, since you are pressing the bottle inward, water gushes up and out the top of the bottle.

Every. Freakin. Time.

So you waste the water you spill from the bottle. Not to mention the paper towels you use to clean it up, and to dry your hands.

All tolled, I think the eco-shape bottle is, at best, a wash for the environment.

It does make you wonder whether, in all the testing as to whether a thinner water bottle could hold the water, sit on shelves, and be sold to consumers, they ever bothered to have some consumers actually open them.

1 comment:

Wil said...

Try grasping just below the cap as though you were holding a ... umm ... wine bottle neck with one hand, first tighten the cap slightly then remove. Second, try grasping across the base of the bottle.

Reasoning is thus. Mechanical bottling equipment manipulates the container only at the base and by suspending the neck from the bottle cap shoulder ridge. Never in the middle of the bottle. Seems to my pea brain that the only way to handle said stupid container with any hope of avoiding a bath would be to mimic the machinery that does the heavy lifting and filling.

Your mileage may vary and yes, I do have a financial interest in Bounty towels. Why do you ask?