The good old drink bottle, it’s been around for years but only fairly recently you have probably heard phrases like BPA Free floating around and conflicting information on the internet. But fear not, we are here to point you in the right direction!
What size do I need?
That depends on what you are using for but a good rule is something between 600-800ml for sporting and general use and around 500ml for use by kids. For sporting use, look for wide lid openings so things like sports supplements can be added easily.
What type of plastic?
The best sports bottles are made from LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) which is nice and soft. Cheaper, but still good quality options can either be made from HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) or a mix of HDPE/LDPE or for hard plastic Tritan, which is a polycarbonate substitute. We don’t recommend buying bottles made from cheaper material like PVC & Polycarbonate. All decent drink bottles will have a recycling code moulded in to them, #2 is for HDPE and #4 for LDPE for quick identification. Oh, and Australian Made is always a good one to look for.
What is BPA Free?
BPA, or Bisphenol-A is an endocrine system disruptor that mimics estrogen. It is linked to breast cancer, decreased testosterone, and imbalanced hormone levels, among a host of other bad stuff for the human body. The good news is that these days there is very little on the market that has BPA and the plastics we recommend above are all BPA free and in fact LDPE and HDPE never had any to begin with, even before no one knew what it was!
But I need my logo on it!
This is where we really specialise, we can help tie in your logo/branding with a complimenting bottle/lid colour to get the best out of the product. There are many ways of printing drink bottles but rotary screen printing is still the best and gives you the largest print areas as the bottle is rotated in the printer. Avoid drink bottles that are pad printed as they all have very small print areas of usually around 5cm x 5cm. We can do digital mock ups before production to visualise the end product or even pre-production samples if the budget allows.
Other alternatives?
Beyond what we’ve listed here, there are a few other alternatives to consider which are metal bottles (Stainless steel and Aluminium) and glass. These are great materials but not great for sporting use or if they are going to get knocked around as they dent or break easily and can be very expensive.