I saw this article, and thought “Cool. Canned water from preparedness companies is overpriced, maybe this stuff will be cheaper for stockpiling”. Then, I thought about it a while and realized that, IMHO, the evil plastic bottle is, in my experience, a better choice for water that needs to be stashed away in cars, backpacks, etc.
I drink way too much Coca Cola and my preferred delivery vehicle for the pancreas-killing sugar-slurry is the classic 12 oz. aluminum can. And, over the years, I have had those cans explode when frozen, explode when overheated in a car, develop pinhole leaks if dropped or handled roughly, and just generally be a bit less resilient than you would expect from a metal can.
On the other hand, I cannot recall ever accidentally puncturing a plastic water bottle, having one explode from being frozen, or otherwise fail from rough handling. To my way of thinking, the plastic bottle (especially those lovely small hand grenade sized ones) are ideal for the survivalist who wants something they can throw in a bag and not worry about. Heck, remember the news footage from Katrina and Iraq where relief workers would throw plastic bottles of water from trucks into thirsty crowds? I don’t thik you could get away with that with aluminum cans.
The drawback, of course, is that the plastic bottles are transparent and I suppose that, in theory, you could get something start growing in a bottle. But, most water is treated and, assuming the bottle was clean to begin with, it shouldn’t be an issue. Where those plastic bottle really shine is in the winter. I have bottles of water in my vehicle that have gone through a dozen freeze/thaw cycles and they hold up just fine. But, it’s easy enough to test that out for yourself….grab a bottle of water and heave it into the freezer. Once frozen, take it out to thaw. Repeat process several times and I’d be surprised if you have any failures.
The gist of the article is that the aluminum cans are far more recyclable than the plastic bottles. That may be true, but for my purposes it makes no difference. Something that my be called upon to keep me safe and healthy has one guiding rubric – does it work. Little niggling things like ‘is it environmentally friendly’ are way, way, way at the bottom of the list.
So, I suppose I might pick up a six-pack of this canned water if I come across it just to test it against the plastic bottles, but I think that I am far better served with the plastic.
Can this product burst if frozen ? At least the pop top lid ? I’ve had a few Cokes left in the freezer for quick cooling and forgetting do that to me.
Whenever we would go camping or to Canada for an extended hunting/fishing trip we would freeze cases of plastic water bottles to use as ice packs in the coolers. The unused ones would go back into the deep freeze upon return. Not too many of them got used for drinking or cooking, so most were brought back home. I imagine that a lot of them went through many freeze/thaw cycles. Never had one fail……..
As to being clear, that’s a good thing. Set them out in the sun to help kill bacteria with UV light………….
I use frozen water bottles as my chill pack for the lunch bag. Keeps it cool, and I have a cold water to drink on the way home if I want. I’ve found that frozen water bottles certainly do have a cycle limit til they crack and begin leaking, but it’s at least 10 times with handling in between. I just rotate them in duty.
I can’t imagine cans handing that treatment even once.
All your points are valid, but one you may have overlooked:
plastic, over the long-term, is gas- and vapor-permeable.
Water in plastic bottles will have molecules absorb into the contents over time.
Aluminum, not so much.
(Rx medicines in glass vials are capped with a breakaway aluminum crown surmounted completely over the rubber stopper, for just that reason: impermeability for years.)
Thus potable water in plastic anything, stored near chemicals or petroleum products is a really bad idea.
Short-term, you run the risk of off-putting odors in what you’re going to drink or cook with.
The other points nonetheless apply fully.
If I lived where freezing was a possibility, plastic is better.
Down here in the hot-temperate zone where snow is found only in photos of the horizon, a couple of cases of aluminum canned water are wizard.
And for anything buried below the frost line, e.g. in a cache, it stays at a near-constant 55° F., so either one goes.
my limited experience has been with water stored in traditional “tin” cans. I was in the Air Force and was given the additional duty of “radiation exposure control monitor” on a shelter team in the late 70’s. I started looking into various aspects and found all the water for the shelter had leaked out of the rusty cans years before.
Tsgt:
Tha was ’70s tech.
Cans now are aluminum, not tinned steel, and they’re lined with a thin plastic membrane, so that is not possible.
Unless you freeze, squash, or puncture aluminum cans, they will outlast cockroaches after a nuclear exchange or anything else.
I’ve accidentally frozen non carbonated energy drinks with no ill effects. Depends on the can and the fill. The impact resistance is a concern though.
Another quality the plastic bottle has going for iti is one may fill it with questionable water, then set it in the direct sun which after a few hours will allow one to drink it safely.
Aquafina water has added minerals and thus is more resistant to freezing. That said, the other pitfalls of the aluminum can still remain
I was down south after Katrina for 18 months. Anheuser Busch had sent in water canned in aluminum cans. It certainly wasn’t Bud. Matter of fact tasted like s**t after being stored for awhile. Of course we all know aluminum helps the brain, maybe even more than BPA. BTW is Pepsi still using fetal cells as “flavor enhancers”?
Living in rural extreme northern New England, winter can be brutal. Below zero for more than a straight month. We lose power regularly, so I keep about 8 two-liter soda bottles filled with water and frozen in my refrigerator, and a few more in my freezer.. I keep 8 more just outside to stay frozen. It takes about a week for the ones in the fridge to melt, and then I swap for the frozen ones outside. I’ve had the power out for 4 days, and the fridge never went above 38 degrees, and the freezer never defrosted. This is with an indoor temp of about 75 thanks to the wood stove. In the summer I use 4 bottles and use the freezer to cycle them. They last about two years of continuous freeze-thaw cycles. The trick is to squeeze them ever so much when sealing the cap, such that the bottle has a small vacuum. This accounts for the expansion when the water freezes. A couple of frozen two-liter bottles in a cooler stays cold ALL day in July, and there is no water in the cooler to make sandwiches mushy.
I say forget the cans.
Yeah, I’d go with plastic for storage unless you have a specific reason why plastic won’t work for you. I’m in Wisconsin and have had only one plastic bottle break from freezing. The bottle was sliding around in the trunk of my car and just happed to hit the bottom corner just right on something and since it couldn’t flex it cracked open.
I usually have a water bottle on me and for day to day use I use a stainless steel bottle, no plastic taste or feel, lasts forever, easy to clean, and if I ever needed to smack a sucker with it it would hurt.
In line with Aesop’s comment, I have a 2.0 year limit on water storage in plastic, so the 5 gallon jugs get dated when they come through the door, stored at slightly below room temp in the coolest room, and used in sequence.
I think he’s wrong about one thing, though – aluminum beverage cans have a plastic liner to keep the acid soda pop and aluminum apart. Doesn’t extend to the underside of the pop-top lid, though, which is why the packaging (pasteboard 12 packs) keeps the cans vertical and top up when they’re stored “readable” on the supermarket shelf. If you store them “handle slot up” when you get them home it puts the cans on their side and they’ll start leaking near the top-to-cylinder joint in about 8-12 months.
The big breweries (aka “Anheuser Busch”) have the ability to run their canning lines with plain water and paint the cans differently, all as part of their “corporate responsibility” – aka “advertising” – mode. Never handled one so no idea if they cheap out by not doing the plastic liner; I’d guess it’s figured that water is very much less acidic than whatever’s usually in the cans and they’ll get used up pretty quickly after delivery, so 10-20 days is probably considered a full life cycle.
Actually, the liner goes all around.
There’s a vid on YouTube where a guy dunks a soda can in an acid bath to eat away the can, then they lift the beverage inside, now encased only in the plastic membrane, up by the top inch and lid.
Look closely at the hole when you pop the top and you’ll see the membrane at the hole’s rim.
And I have a couple of cans of souvenir canned water from the ’94 Northridge Earthquake canned by A-B from their plant a couple miles from the epicenter in the aftermath. They flip a switch, and the cans are printed in blue and white and just say “Water”. And they’re doing fine 25 years later. Water inside’s probably a little flat though. 😉
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Can-Premium-Emergency-Drinking/dp/B00M9O9HTK/ref=asc_df_B00M9O9HTK/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198068550617&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11791167406163861305&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1014218&hvtargid=pla-381401278537&psc=1
BTW, Blue Can currently advertises 50 yr shelf life, goes for $2/can, and notes not to store below 33°F.
Hopefully Pepsi’s Aquafina decision will bring the Blue Can prices back to reality.
It is specifically because of Blue Can that I was attracted to the Aquafina possibility.
One difference between this and soda is pressure inside the can. Water is not pressurized, the soda is. That can make a big difference for longevity. Still I prefer the plastic.
Modern soda cans are very thin. I’ve had cans with coke in them fail on the shelf after a year. I’ve had plenty of ginger ale cans fail quite dramatically due to bad handling (dropped) or punctured.
I do keep a couple of six packs of canned water in the truck in addition to the plastic bottled water. I like the compactness of the cans. I have noticed wear on the cans where they rub against one another over the miles. I haven’t had that failure mode yet though.
For me the biggest plus of water bottles is their re-sealability and then re-usability. As I’m scrambling across the wreckage of our world, I can refill my bottle and continue on…..
nick
Soft drink cans are specifically engineered to use as little aluminum as possible, and one way this is accomplished is calculating the internal pressure provided by the carbonation and utilizing that as part of the structural strength of the can. I’d be very interested to know if the Aquafina product will be in standard cans or if they will use packaging to make up for the loss of internal pressure for stacking and shipping, etc.
In my experience, non carbonated beverages in cans are much more durable and less susceptible to temperature related failure than soda.
I would imagine that it would make more sense for them to use their existing can parameters and production setup rather than redesign or retool the existing setup for a differently constructed can. Whatever savings might be achieved by reducing the materials cost probably wouldnt be enough to offset the changeover costs.
The can makers got the idea to reduce the wall thickness of aluminum beverage cans about the same time the plastic water bottles got thinner. Maybe 10 years ago, or less? They are approx 1/3 as thick, which is why they are now so delicate. What really gripes me is they made the water bottle screwtops so short, there isn’t enough there to grab to unscrew.