Comments on: Why Does Bottled Water Have an Expiration Date?

By: Canada Guy

Canada Guy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:42:44 +0000

We all know disposable water bottles are wasteful and bad for the environment, yet their production is growing rapidly everywhere. Just 20 years ago the market for plastic water bottles was practically nonexistent, but today we produce billions of these completely unnecessary products. There can be only one sane response, plastic water bottles must be banned! http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/10/water-bottle-manifesto.html

By: Brady

Brady — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:47:39 +0000

Does toilet water have an expiration date? ‘Cause mine tastes funny.

By: Bellton

Bellton — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:27:37 +0000

There is NO need to insult New Jersey!!!! “Dirty Jerz…”

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:25:34 +0000

Your story has recently been linked to Yahoo’s home page news stories. Contratulations. Maybe some new viewers will discover this fun site.

By: Colby

Colby — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:15:34 +0000

The bad news is that I’ve experienced the “hint of kitty litter.” The good news (for me) is that now I know it was just the smell leeching through the PET and not actual sand in the bottle. Thanks mental_floss!

By: Marty

Marty — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:54:58 +0000

After my mother died a few years back, my siblings and I were cleaning out her house, we found water that had expired in 2001. On a whim and arguing the idea that “water doesn’t go bad,” I tried it, and it did have quite the odd taste to it…something akin to leaving a glass of water on a nightstand for a night or two. Needless to say, the rest went promptly down the drain!

By: Jeneva

Jeneva — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:50:52 +0000

Last year I saw an ad in the paper offering free pallets of water to organizations. I called on behalf of my fire department and it was a Coke distributer trying to get rid of expired water. I told the man that my firefighters (i’m the fire chief) were not above drinking form the fire hose after working on a hot call and water that had gone past it’s date would surely not be a problem. He was happy because he got to donate water away instead of sending it to a landfill, my guys were happy because they got water and when the firefighters are happy, then so is the chief – so I was happy too!

By: Witty Nickname

Witty Nickname — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:18:54 +0000

I found out about the taste and smell thing during Hurricane Ike. Last year, we had 5 year old ‘Sam’s Choice’ bottled water from our hurricane survival kit that had been in our garage.

It just wasn’t right. We heard the newscaster say on the radio that it would not do any damage to our system to drink old bottled water, it may just taste funny. Their advise was to drink it anyway. I guess we did not have much of a choice!

By: holly

holly — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:26:48 +0000

I knew it!
When I was a young sailor, I asked this question to my First Class Petty Officer. He said “Water DOES go bad.” and I thought he was full of beans all these years and I thank you now for confirming that he was a moron.

Makes me wish I had his email address.

By: Steven Buehler

Steven Buehler — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:13:41 +0000

My understanding is that it’s not the water that goes bad. It’s because of the type of plastic used for the bottle.