Our Journey for a Made in USA Water Bottle

We seem to have a lot of water bottles at home, but haven't found one that is suited for everyone....until now.  This is how we got here:

Phase 1. There seemed go be a plethora of sustainable baby bottles, but when it was time to move to a toddler version, the market seemed to have less choices.  I found Bobble, which I thought was going to be my answer to this water bottle dilemma. Bobble was a water bottle and filter in one, plus it was made in America to boot!  Bobble's sports cap ended up being difficult for my son to open, and for me too.  Otherwise, it was great to have a small refillable bottle with a built-in filter to clean your drinking water!  When I looked them up to include Bobble in this post, I saw they now manufacture in China. I will say that we still have this one and after almost five years, it is still in good condition.  

Phase 2. It became time to replace my son's Bobble when he proudly showed that to open it, he needed to use his 'strong teeth'!  On the way home from work the next day, I picked up a prescription at the drugstore and ended up buying a new water bottle that was plastic and not made in the USA!!!  Yes, I could have, should have waited, but I bought this water bottle out of convenience :(  Yes, of course I would have bought a recycled MiUSA bottle if it were there, and I think a lot more consumers would do the same, but the convenience is not there for them, which is why a big onus should be on the wholesalers and retailers to put choices in front of consumers to make it easy to make conscious buying decisions!  

Phase 3. Shortly after buying the drugstore bottle, I bought a S'well bottle for my husband, who was crabby that I still hadn't gotten him a water bottle.  I loved that drinks would stay cold all day, but wished the bottles were made locally.  I didn't like that S'well said they were trying to save the environment by eliminating plastic bottles from being used on the earth, but then using up so much fuel to transport them from China.   It made me uncomfortable, especially after I did that math. On the bright side, the S'Well held up great after four years later my husband still happily uses his. 

Phase 4. We weren't really in the market for a water bottle when we found Liberty Bottles, so we read everything about them, and saved them into our madeLOKAL spreadsheet.  When my son's drugstore water bottle broke, we knew exactly where to go!  We loved the local and sustainable story of Liberty Bottles and were definitely willing to forego a few little things to support this company.  We are spreading the word so that companies doing the right thing succeed!!!  

LIBERTY LOVE. 

Our top 10 reasons why we love Liberty Bottles so much:

• Product is 100% made in the USA of recycled post consumer and industrial scrap, aluminum is sourced 100% from the USA and caps made of recycled milk jugs 
• Bottles compatible with Liberty's reusable straws, also made of recyclable material 
• Machinery at Liberty Bottleworks also is made in the USA
• Liberty strives to be a zero waste manufacturing facility (now at 96% diversion rate)
• They filter and reuse their own water THREE times, they recycled their own scrap, they use IR light ovens to save 800% energy, they avoid solvents + VOCs, and they only use BPA free powder inside and outside of their bottles
• They look great as is with lots of choice, you can customize or even upload your own artwork onto a bottle 
• Bottles are light (large is 6oz without water, 31.4oz with water)
• Liberty bottles can hold a lot of water (large is just under 3 cups!)
• Bottles have interchangeable Sports and Cup cap options, ice cubes fitting all
• They pledge 1% of sales and 1% of their working hours to help large, local and grass roots charitable efforts

If you need your liquid to stay hot or cold for the entire day, consider buying a bottle cover or choose another bottle all together.  If you are buying a bottle for someone under 10, buy the sports cap for ease of opening.

Speaking of water, we've been on a kick to drink lots and lots of water! We are tracking our water intake using the iHydrate App.   How many ounces or cups of water are you drinking per day, and how do you manage it?  Do you have any favorite water apps to recommend?