Hi - I know the green thing is for my son to use a reusable water bottle on campus. I just don’t know how he can clean his water bottle properly like we do at home with the dishwasher - worried about getting germs/ sick which is already common in dormitories. What do you seasoned parents suggest?
Thanks.
Get a wide mouthed water bottle. There are multiple ways to clean - boil, brush and hot, soapy water, bleach, vinegar, baking powder, tablets especially designed for cleaning water bottles. You can find all sorts of methods online. It’s up to your son to be responsible enough to clean it. Part of the independence process. Nothing like a bout of stomach grunge to teach one to be more hygienic. 
I washed mine in the sink- hot water and some dish soap. Good as new.
You can also get a water bottle like camelback with a bite valve and replace the bite valve every few week.
If this were a concern for me, I think I would provide a bottle brush and a small bottle of dish detergent. I will leave a tiny travel size with my DS in case he actually intends to was something.
Reminds me of this: Define “sterilize.” What I did with my first child’s pacifier by placing it in boiling water for 15 minutes. What I do with my second child’s pacifier by blowing on it.
Maybe we are reckless, but unless the water bottle has been sitting around for a while, used by someone who is sick, or is visibly dirty, we just rinse them with water. Pretty sure my daughter did little more than that at college. Doesn’t seem to have done us any harm yet. Sorry if this grosses people out:-)
Don’t they still have water fountains to drink out of on college campuses?
My HS daughter is responsible for cleaning her own water bottle. If I see mold around the seals, I will take them apart and clean them, but otherwise … well, she’s still alive so I guess her methods aren’t too hazardous.
Not really helpful if you’re in the middle of class and get thirsty.
I used to do the rinse only thing as a kid but I got sick quite a bit in undergrad so I started being a bit more careful.
I bought my son a water bottle washing kit at Bed Bath and Beyond. It had three brushes, one for the bottle, a smaller one for the cap, and one that fits into the straw. I also got a bottle of soap made specifically to sanitize water bottles (it doesn’t leave a scent). He did use it.
FYI, there was a study done on water bottles in gyms, and of course, it found that most people had disgustingly unhygienic bottles, with enough bacteria to make a person ill. The fact that water-bottle borne illness doesn’t seem to be that common suggests that most people have pretty good immune systems. I’d just buy the brushes and hope for the best.
Actually not as common as they once were. In the building where my office is located, there is only one, on a different floor. In addition, the water in the building has problems and I don’t trust it to be drinkable on any given day. I keep a supply of bottled water in my office.
One of my students carried a one-gallon milk jug around. It was rather disturbing, to be honest.
Could be that the microbes in someone’s water bottles are the same ones that the person already has and is immune to. They might make someone else sick, though…
I think the concern about this is vastly overdone. I’ve had three instances of “stomach flu” in the past … uh, 10 years maybe? And it was a salad in two cases and a burrito in another. And I reuse store-bought 1L bottles for about a week, or wash a reusable once a week unless it got dirty somehow. I do this at home and when out camping and backpacking in the wilderness.
Despite what the TV says, unless someone is immunocompromised, this is just not a problem. Certainly not to the level of special water bottle cleaning tools (for real? of COURSE somebody invented those and is now raking in the profit)… Human beings do things like go backpacking for weeks without bothering to boil their water bottles for 15 minutes or whatever, and do not get sick from it. Foodborne illness is far more likely to be a problem.
If you prefer to wash more often though, a wide mouth bottle that can have the rim wiped and then be shaken with a little dish soap and thoroughly rinsed, is good. Get two of them so they can be “in rotation” and it’s more likely there’ll be a clean one when it’s time to run out the door.
One of my rental properties doesn’t have a dishwasher. The tenants, having lived there for 15 years and probably many more, are a very active couple in their 80s. They must be doing something right. Let me ask them how they clean their dishes, glasses, bottles,… and get back to you.
Umm, rinsing with hot water isn’t enough? I guess I have dodged a bacterial bullet for years.
I just use dish soap and hot water - shake hard and rinse.
When did we all get so thirsty? When I was in college water was not sold in single serve bottles (or maybe it was but I did not buy it) and I survived 4 years !!!of college without a water bottle. Come to think of it, I dont know if my still-in-college son has a bottle or not. But I get it. I am wondering how often he washes his sheets!
Seriously folks?
If your kid is attending college in a first world country and is just drinking water out of it, he’ll be able to make it through all four years of college just fine without soap, brush or dishwasher for his Nalgene or Hydroflask.
Empty/rinse it out every once in a while and let it dry off without the top on and he’ll be good.
@northwesty , that’s what the study I referenced above seemed to suggest. We all consume a crap ton of bacteria every day, but it doesn’t make us sick.
Oh my I have never worried about this. The kids never got sick after about age 3 so I never think about this. Honestly I wash my water bottle with bleach water a couple times a year.