1mo ago
Over the past few years. I have been trying to become more and more environmentally friendly. This means that I will thrift instead of buying new, bring my own container for leftovers at restaurants, and of course, use a metal water bottle when possible. This last one has actually proven to be quite the challenge as reusable water bottles present two big obstacles with my current lifestyle. 1. They are typically quite big and heavy. As someone that constantly likes to sip here and there, I cannot fit most water bottles into my mini backpack and have to bring a separate bag to carry one in. 2. Reusable water bottles require cleaning, and I believe it is even recommended to clean them every single day. I hate to say it but I am very lazy when it comes to cleaning and washing a bottle out daily is not yet part of my routine. So because of this I have stuck with plastic bottles. I do recycle them but not only are plastic bottles not truly recyclable (they get upcycled at best), I keep hearing more and more about the microplastics that enter your body because of them. With these things in mind, I have a renewed drive to stop my old habits. I have many reusable water bottles and sadly they do end up smelling and even with cleaning tablets and lots of scrubbing, the smell does come back relatively quickly. Then along came my discovery of LARQ. This brand claims its bottles neutralize odor causing batería with its UV-C light. I’ve heard a lot about these lights but have never owned a product that uses it. Like a lot of other good quality bottles it is vacuum insulated to keep drinks hot or cold for a long time. Immediately it was clear to me that this bottle was really well made. You do need to charge the bottle every once in a while and give it a rinse, but that’s basically all the maintenance required. After using this bottle for a few months I am happy to report that it still does not smell at all! I will say that the cleaning cycle is supposed to happen every two hours, but as it is super quick, I rarely catch it doing the cleaning, and I like to manually press the top to make the cleaning cycle run just in case. So as far as I can tell this bottle is really doing its job. While it does not solve the issue of fitting into my backpack, not having to clean it every day makes it worth lugging around. That being said, this convenience does come at a pretty steep price. This is definitely the most expensive water bottle I have purchased. But it was a worthwhile investment. I will say I am now tempted to buy a sipper cap or a travel sleeve. I love this bottle and hope to use it for many years to come!
