Photo: wideopeneats.com
Add another item on your to-do-when-you-leave-the-car list: take all plastic water bottles with you, unless you want to run the risk of having a fire starting.
Leaving a plastic water bottle inside a parked vehicle on hot weather can pose a fire hazard, because the clear plastic and the liquid can create a focused beam that could start a blaze. Because hot days are coming, the Bainbridge Public Safety department in Georgia is here to remind you to take your water bottle with you when you leave your parked car.
If that’s too much of a hassle, you have to make sure to place the bottle out of the sunlight, as Julie Harris, the public information officer with Bainbridge Public Safety, tells WALB.
“Whether it’s putting it underneath the seat or covering it with a towel or a shirt or something that may be in the vehicle. So it potentially can be very devastating, you could loose an entire vehicle, but yet it’s so easy to prevent,” Harris explains.
The media outlet notes that a fire like this has never happened in Bainbridge, but that doesn’t mean it will never occur: water bottles left in direct sunlight can reach temperatures of up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit / 121 degrees Celsius, so the risk of a fire is very high. It’s actually too high to be worth it.
Another argument against leaving plastic water bottles in hot cars is that drinking the water after it’s been exposed to such high temperatures isn’t safe. Studies have shown that trace amounts of BPA can seep into the water if the plastic bottles are left in the sun for longer stretches.
At the same time, if you drink from the bottle and then leave it in the sun, you’re giving bacteria ample time and proper conditions to grow and multiply, so you could end up getting sick.
If these two arguments aren’t enough to convince it, think of this: how yucky and unsatisfactory is a sip of tepid water on a torrid summer day, drunk inside an overheated vehicle?
If that’s too much of a hassle, you have to make sure to place the bottle out of the sunlight, as Julie Harris, the public information officer with Bainbridge Public Safety, tells WALB.
“Whether it’s putting it underneath the seat or covering it with a towel or a shirt or something that may be in the vehicle. So it potentially can be very devastating, you could loose an entire vehicle, but yet it’s so easy to prevent,” Harris explains.
The media outlet notes that a fire like this has never happened in Bainbridge, but that doesn’t mean it will never occur: water bottles left in direct sunlight can reach temperatures of up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit / 121 degrees Celsius, so the risk of a fire is very high. It’s actually too high to be worth it.
Another argument against leaving plastic water bottles in hot cars is that drinking the water after it’s been exposed to such high temperatures isn’t safe. Studies have shown that trace amounts of BPA can seep into the water if the plastic bottles are left in the sun for longer stretches.
At the same time, if you drink from the bottle and then leave it in the sun, you’re giving bacteria ample time and proper conditions to grow and multiply, so you could end up getting sick.
If these two arguments aren’t enough to convince it, think of this: how yucky and unsatisfactory is a sip of tepid water on a torrid summer day, drunk inside an overheated vehicle?
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