BPA-Free Water Bottles

This is my favorite water bottle in my favorite angled water bottle holster. The Ultimate Direction water bottle is made of polyethylene plastic. The Kicker Valve allows easy access to your water without leakage. The mouth of the water bottle is big enough to add ice cubes. Ultimate Direction sells a variety of holsters. The Access Plus has a small zippered compartment for essentials and a mesh pocket to hold a gel flask or other items like your cell phone. The Groove variation is designed for MP3 players, and the 2X has two angled water bottles.

My walking buddies all went nuts for the Camelbak water bottles. Why? Because you don't have to tilt them up to drink out of them. You just suck on the bite valve and the interior straw draws up your water. That means you don't obstruct your view while walking, biking, driving, keyboarding, etc. The Performance Bottle has a valve you dial to open or closed for extra leakage protection. It has graduations on the side for 8, 12, and 22 oz. and 150, 300, and 650 ml so you can judge how much you are drinking. The lovely colors are also nice. You can wash it in the top rack of your dishwasher. But no carbonated beverages allowed. Original Camelbak Better Bottles were made of polycarbonate, but now they are made of BPA-free materials.

Nalgene was one of the companies hardest hit by fears about polycarbonate bottles, as they have long built their excellent line of outdoor bottles and containers on the clear plastic polycarbonate Lexan polymer. They swung into action to replace Lexan with Eastman Tritan copolyester, which is BPA-free. The OTG Tritan Bottle has a flip cap to close off the drinking lip that I find easy to drink from. The side has graduations in ounces and milliliters to help you keep track of your intake. It still is clear, hard and impact-resistant plastic, and it's dishwasher safe. Don't fear your Nalgene. It has a 7 in the triangle on the bottom as that denotes its recycling stream, but you can look for the BPA-free or Tritan designation.

Klean Kanteen produces stainless steel water bottles, and they were quick to market their product as safe. The interior is unlined, highly polished food-grade stainless steel. They promise it is non-leaching and toxin-free. However, some users claim they get a metallic taste in their water, especially after hours in the sun. One big drawback to metal water bottles is that they heat or cool seemingly faster than plastic. They also tend to sweat in humid climates. Look for the sports cap. Otherwise, you'll need to remove the loop top completely to drink. The mouth is big enough for adding ice cubes. The pop-up drinking spout comes with a cover that doubles as a finger loop.

SIGG specializes in aluminum bottles lined with a resin to protect you from off-tastes in the water and any stray aluminum molecules. Before the plastic fears, there were fears about aluminum. SIGG bottles were rated as the toughest water bottle in a 2006 Backpacker magazine test. The mouthpiece has a "mud-cap" and you depress it to drink or twist it to seal it off. One drawback of metal bottles is that you can't squeeze them to improve the water flow, which some users find to be a flaw. Aluminum is very lightweight. But it is also prone to quickly heating up or cooling down and sweating in humid climates.

Amphipod water bottles all have the recycling symbol #4 and are BPA-free and phthalate-free. They are cleverly shaped to be low profile, so they don't project out as far out as cylindrical bottles. The Amphipod Full Tilt system is contoured to fit snugly into your lumbar area with no bouncing and is easy to wear under a jacket. The 20-ounce water bottle is contoured and fits securely in its sleeve. In other versions, the bottles hook onto a belt for quick access.