This might seem really simple to you, but honestly I wasn't sure how to do this without his instructional guidelines. These bottles had been with us through dirt and grime and slobber, possibly hantavirus exposure, but yet we want to get the most out of them since they are not "disposable" water bottles. I wanted to get them clean enough to use again, yet not so clean that I felt like I was drinking cleaning solution and not so grimy I felt I was still tasting Yosemite on our next trip.
So here's the run-down. What you need to do this:
- Dirty water bottles (shown: 1 Party Platypus, 1 Platypus water tank, and 2 Nalgene Canteens)
- A scrubby brush (shown: Platypus scrubber brush)
- Dish soap (shown: Dawn Direct Foam)
- Bleach (Clorox Bleach)
- A sink and drainstopper (kitchen)
I made a video of this process but since no one else was home I tried to tape it and act it out one-handed and, although I may be very talented, it was a pretty poor video. Instead, for your listening pleasure you can listen to the instructions and the sound effects of what it's like to clean your water bottles.
At the end I mention we're going to let it sit for 10-15 minutes. My husband actually instructed me to let it sit for 5-10 minutes before using the scrubby brush. And actually in the end I forgot about them in the sink and left them sit for more like an hour before remembering to go back and scrub them down. Now they are pretty clean and drying on the rack.
Here's the step run-down one more time:
- Collect your supplies
- Insert drain stopper in sink
- Start filling sink with hot water
- Squirt liberal amounts of dish soap in the water
- Pour in 1/2 a cap full of bleach, no more than that (refer to picture to know how large a cap I'm talking about -- not very big, less than 1 inch) -- I think I put in 1 cap of bleach, so hopefully I haven't degraded the plastic or the drinking pleasure. I think I'm okay though, there was a large water to bleach ratio.
- Take caps off water bottles
- Throw water bottles and caps into soapy water being sure to get submerged in the water
- Walk away for 10 minutes
- Come back, fish out the lids, rinse them off and dry them
- Unstop the sink to allow for draining while running clean water
- Use the scrubby brush on the inside and out, in the nooks and crannies while rinsing
- Dry on rack
- Pack up, get dirty and do it again.
This process can also be used to clean water bladders that are inserted into your backpack. There is a longer skinnier scrubby brush you can use to clean the drinking tube.
