Sigg bottles; any point to them?

[big_swede]

What keeps you from keeping plastic bottles? And again, it's not sure you'd be on the plus side of the energy account even if you're alu flasks are 10-20 years. Plastic last a long time too.

I'm not saying to waste, I'm saying that if you manage to break one it can be recycled with very little energy, as opposed to alu, which have a high manufacturing cost in terms of energy, and still higher energy cost to recycle..

The choice between plastic or alu has nothing to do with cheap throw away culture, it's just sound energy conservation ethics.

 

[BorderReiver]

What keeps you from keeping plastic bottles? And again, it's not sure you'd be on the plus side of the energy account even if you're alu flasks are 10-20 years. Plastic last a long time too.

Plastic tends to denature with time and get brittle.Micro cracks form in the surface and make nice homes for bacteria.

 

[big_swede]

Plastic tends to denature with time and get brittle.Micro cracks form in the surface and make nice homes for bacteria.

The plastic layer inside the sigg bottle would then probably do the same?

 

[BorderReiver]

Not as much,it's not exposed to UV light.

 

[Karl5]

The plastic in pet bottles is petroleum based. That's a waste of oil if you ask me.
The coating in a sigg bottle is water based.

The pet does crack and break after a certain time. It's in the nature of this plastic, it's just a matter of time.
The coating in the sigg bottle is on purpose chosen and design for longeivity. It's not uncommon to see 20 year old, well used bottles still going strong (that includes the inside coating).

With the pet bottle breaking, it's got to be replaced with another pet bottle. That second bottle (just as well as the first one) has been transported using more oil. And normally containing beverages from somewhere far away. And when the second one breaks it's the same thing again.
The sigg bottle gets transported once, and then filled up with the local beverages. It too, will break with time, but by then it's outlived a lot of pet bottles.

The pet gets recycled, true. However, the vast majority gets recycled to lower grade plastics used in, for instance plastic bags and the likes. Also, except for in a few european countries, most pet bottles do not get recycled but just end up as litter or garbage.
The aluminium bottles also gets recycled, unfortunately at a higher energy cost. That's bad. They can, however, get recycled again and again and again.

The sigg bottle requires more energy when being manufactured. Not good.

I don't know which of these bottles is the most environmentally friendly. There are good sides and bad sides with them both.
I do know that I like my sigg bottle, though, as it's served me for quite some years now, and it'll surely serve me many years to come. It's gone from being "just a bottle", to more of a regular companion.
I admit it, I'm a sensitive guy...

No, if I was to swap my sigg for another bottle, it wouldn't be for a plastic bottle.
I'd then go for a stainless steel one. Surely better for the environment, and long lasting as nothing else.
And bu..ger the weight.

/ Karl

 

[Jared]

.. snip...

No, if I was to swap my sigg for another bottle, it wouldn't be for a plastic bottle.
I'd then go for a stainless steel one. Surely better for the environment, and long lasting as nothing else.
And bu..ger the weight.

/ Karl

Good post.

Of course SIGG do seem to make stainless steel bottles.
The SiGG Retro with cup, and the red oval 0.6L seems to be stainless too.

 

[bushscout1]

It's amazing that a thread debating the attributes of sigg bottles can come round to how 'green' (and I'm not referring to algae this time Big Swede ) various types of water container are.

What is very encouraging is how concious we all are becoming of our impact on the environment and the need to recycle things. :You_Rock_

At the end of the day, we're all different and have our own preferences - so therefore we need choices for aesthetic appeal and the like - and be honest for those that like shiney kit - a nalgene bottle just doesn't buff up quite the same !!

 

[Jared]

If want to greener...

http://www.guyotdesigns.com/stainlessbottles?sc=11

Stainless steel, wide mouth, and carbon negative.

 

[Jared]

Just to try and scrape the tone back out of the gutter , the bisphenol chat was interesting (though slightly off-topic so sorry).
Anyone else interested might like to know that all baby bottles are polycarbonate and there's probably more evidence that they're safe than otherwise.
Look here: http://www.bisphenol-a.org/whatsNew/20080205.html for the latest. You might consider not heating them up and changing them every couple of years, though even the data to support that is scetchy.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/01/30/bisphenol-study.html

Suggests that new and bottles leech the same rate. Putting boiling water in a polycarbonate bottle increases the leech rate 55 times. So boiling water as a method of purification and putting it into a polycarbon bottle doesn't seem a good idea.

 

[rik_uk3]

I've got a US Army water bottle, dated 1968 or 69 can't remember, but its still fine, works well after 40 years, and its plastic

 

[big_swede]

The plastic in pet bottles is petroleum based. That's a waste of oil if you ask me.
The coating in a sigg bottle is water based.

The base for plastic is the rest product after refining crude oil. To quote wikipedia:

Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics; the 16% not used for energy production is converted into these other materials.

To not make plastic would be a waste of oil. Wether we like it or not, our way of living WILL be dependent of oil for an unseeable future, so why not try to use the little remaining oil to its full potential?

Furthermore, plastic doesn't have to made from the residues from the crude oil refining, they can infact be vegetable oil based. There are hemp and bamboo oil plastic, and stuff made from both plastic and starch from corn that has equivalent properties to some of the oil based plastics.

Aluminium on the other hand, scarce in the earths crust, is being mined in giant open mines leaving the ground devestated and infertile for really long time. As that wasn't enought, refining the bauxite demands, as said, enormous quantities of energy and the only concievable source of that energy today is nuclear power, which in turn also demands even larger mining projects, for a metall that leaves the earth even more f*cked up than aluminium, namely uranium.

Sorry for goint OT, but this ecological consequences debate is being far too single-sided. We have an oilbased culture, and not to use the residues of that petroleum industry would be stupid. And as said, there are even alternatives on the plastic side, whereas aluminium has none. Use what you will, but don't come rubbing 'waste' or 'ecological' arguments on my big swedish nose, because the two options are really just as bad probably.

A sigg is a sigg, which is a sigg, which is a bottle. And really no different from any other.

 

[Karl5]

To not make plastic would be a waste of oil. Wether we like it or not, our way of living WILL be dependent of oil for an unseeable future, so why not try to use the little remaining oil to its full potential?

I agree.
But why do we have to use it for pet bottles??? Why not in that case use it more in the medical industry? Surely cheaper medical products (which they would be if the "raw" material would be cheaper - no competition with pet bottles - the old supply-and-demand thing) is a good thing for everyone.
This can of course also be argued for aluminium.
However, it is my belief that one aluminium bottle will have the upper hand on a pet, as it will outlive many pets.
The only reason to take a pet would be because its cheap, and the reason for that, is that pets are made in enormous amounts. And then transported filled with beverages from far away...

Furthermore, plastic doesn't have to made from the residues from the crude oil refining, they can infact be vegetable oil based. There are hemp and bamboo oil plastic, and stuff made from both plastic and starch from corn that has equivalent properties to some of the oil based plastics.

Pet bottles, however, are based on oil.

Aluminium on the other hand, scarce in the earths crust, is being mined in giant open mines leaving the ground devestated and infertile for really long time. As that wasn't enought, refining the bauxite demands, as said, enormous quantities of energy and the only concievable source of that energy today is nuclear power, which in turn also demands even larger mining projects, for a metall that leaves the earth even more f*cked up than aluminium, namely uranium.

Yup, that's the bad thing about using aluminium.
Nobody is denying that.
That's also the reason why it's near impossible to say if one thing is more ecological than the other.
In the end, it all comes down to what each and every one of us believes is the ecologically soundest.
I still have to hear any arguments that to 100% (or even less) gives the ecological upper hand to any one of these products.

Use what you will, but don't come rubbing 'waste' or 'ecological' arguments on my big swedish nose, because the two options are really just as bad probably.

Exactly my point.
So, as said, it really comes down to personal preference, believes and choice.
And personally, I prefer the sigg...

A sigg is a sigg, which is a sigg, which is a bottle. And really no different from any other.

If all bottles are equal, then this whole discussion is moot, isn't it??
But that's where I, based on personal preference, don't agree...

And maybe that's where this whole discussion ends up - one agrees to disagree...

/ Karl

 

[big_swede]

Again, using residues for plastic doesn't infringe on the part suitable for other uses. The part that is used for plastics isn't suitable for anything else.

And I agree to disagree

 

[Karl5]

Again, using residues for plastic doesn't infringe on the part suitable for other uses. The part that is used for plastics isn't suitable for anything else.

And I agree to disagree

Oh, but it does.
Lets look at your wikipedia quote again:
"Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics; the 16% not used for energy production is converted into these other materials."

To me that means that the same 16% are being used for medical purposes AND for plastic bottles.
And my point is that it would be better to have less raw material competition in this sector - i.e. don't use this stuff to make bottles - so that it, in the end, can give cheaper pharmaceuticals. Supply and demand...

Agree to disagree...

 

[shep]

Well when you hit a Sigg it goes 'tink' and when you hit a Nalgene it goes 'bonk'.

I prefer 'bonk'.

 

[Karl5]

Well when you hit a Sigg it goes 'tink' and when you hit a Nalgene it goes 'bonk'.

I prefer 'bonk'.

 

[big_swede]

To me that means that the same 16% are being used for medical purposes AND for plastic bottles.
And my point is that it would be better to have less raw material competition in this sector - i.e. don't use this stuff to make bottles - so that it, in the end, can give cheaper pharmaceuticals. Supply and demand...

Agree to disagree...

Your opinion doesn't really matter here, check with any petrochemical engineer...

 

[Karl5]

Your opinion doesn't really matter here, check with any petrochemical engineer...

I already did...

And thereby, this thread is now a moot and ended discussion to me.

 

[fast but dim]

this thread sent me on a search for my sigg, purchased circa 1986? for camping with scouts. from 1988-1998 it was used daily for work on site and in the gym, then i got in the fire brigade and used it when walking till i got a camelback.It has never leaked,cracked or been cleaned.The mouth design is perfect, never dribbling when you drink out of it, and every dint tells a story.
I've just found it, rinsed it and after a good five yrs of storage there was no funny taste.
It's just gone back in my gym bag.

 

[Mikkel]

The amount of energy wasted by your computer by sitting and argueing about the enviromental impact caoused by plastic bottles, is vastly greater than the amount of energy used on producing a pet bottle.

Unless someone does a comprehensive analysis of the total amount of energy consumption in a sigg bottle vs. a pet bottle. The argumentation here is just pure biased speculation.