Plastic water bottles or water filter pitcher?

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Soooo, after staying in a couple of Airbnb’s this summer, I truly appreciated cold water offered in refrigerator upon check-in.

So, my dilemma is: would the guests prefer individual water bottles or water pitcher with filter? What would you, guys, prefer?
Most of my guests are from the United States.

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My preference is water through the door. But if not possible, then a pitcher with filter. I always have my own safe refillable bottles with me.

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Water pitcher. Bottles are pollutant.

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I buy filtered water from a dispenser in bulk and I use it in my part of the house. I reuse glass bottles and I re-fill them and put them in the mini fridge. Also I provide cups and glasses. I don’t really have room for a water pitcher. No one has complained and the water is used about 70% of the time. Some people are still bringing in those plastic water bottles and I can’t stop them. I’m in the US but I have a lot of one night road trippers and not tourists.

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Obviously I wash the bottles and sanitize before refilling.

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Being on the Southwest Florida coast, plastic pollution killing marine life is a serious topic. We originally used bottled water but changed over to a filter pitcher, and we have loaner re-fillable bottles for guests to use.

Most guests seem to appreciate the pitcher and loaners.

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How often do the guests take loaner bottles with them? We do have cups and glasses in our rental.

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I used to use plastic bottles but switched about two years ago to reusable glass water bottles that i keep in the fridge. They are available on Amazon. I have a filtered water dispenser on the front of the fridge and show guests how to refill them. Almost everyone uses them. Many guests comment how much they like them and appreciate that I don’t have single use plastic ones. I live on a small island that is a turtle sanctuary so there is a lot of awareness of the issues with plastic.

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I had two taken so far, but early on.

At first my guest guide said “complimentary water bottles” because I hadn’t changed the wording from when I supplied plastic ones. When I asked a guest if they had inadvertently walked out with one of the two bottles they wrote back immediately saying the guide said… Okay, at $50 a night I’m giving out two $4 water bottles with each stay, but whatever. So now my guide explictly says please don’t take the bottles, cups or glasses that I wash and reuse them.

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San Pellegrino in glass bottles plus a Brita-type filter jug (the latter hardly ever being used).

I hope that the glass bottles are more recyclable than plastic ones.

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Brita filter jug in fridge plus glass water bottle to borrow. Though people are addicted to plastic bottles, aren’t they? I accidentally left 8 water bottles and 2 gallon jugs of water in the closet, from a time when I had guests and the water main was shut off, and I broke my no-plastic rule so they could flush and had lots to drink. A subsequent guest found 'em & used 5 of the water bottles and one of the jugs. My bad.
Just read an article about how much particulate plastic there is in the water inside those plastic bottles!

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I had one of those for years but at least here, the water just didn’t taste as good. What I buy in bulk is excellent, I like it better than the cheap bottles. There are many places where the water right out of the tap is fine to my palate: in the last year Seattle, Boston and Portland ME all had perfectly good tasting water.

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I actually have a Brita for guests and they have all used it. I just change the filter often. Sometimes you can buy them cheaper on Amazon’s prime pantry.

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I do both. One disposable water bottle per guest plus a 5-gallon cold water dispenser which I refill the water dispenser if the guests runs out. My listing is for up to 8 people, and it’s in the Arizona desert, so hydration is extremely important.

And it gets worse over time, so your guest using what you left in the closet did you a favor.

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And all those microfibers we wear are dumping microplastics into the ocean too. So another reason not to wash microfiber duvets between guests (or sheets or your hoodie or…)

Edit to add: I’m kidding about the washing, but not the microplastics.

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We provide Brita pitchers in the fridges with the extra heavy duty (and expensive : ( filters that also filter lead (cause our water sucks). We also have a 5-gallon of spring water in the hallway with a pump dispenser and guests are welcome to fill their bottles or any of the regular pitchers we provide. We do have some water bottles they can fill and use. I just had too many and so donated them to the apartments. I fully expected for them to “walk” but they haven’t. Not sure if they’ll be replaced when they do. Most of our guests tend to bring their own refillable bottles. We also provide a local brand of sparkling water that is in glass bottles. They get recycled.

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Single-use plastics are horrible and in my opinion, unless the water is actually contaminated to the point of being undrinkable (like in Flint, MI) nobody should use them. When I stay in AirBnbs that provide single-use plastics, it pisses me off, because I can’t open the fridge without having to think about the ethical problems associated with single-use plastics (not to mention the ethical problems of how some bottled water is sourced or the horrible companies behind them). Even when I traveled in Southeast Asia, where westerners are cautioned to not drink anything but bottled water, I carried a Lifestraw bottle and a water purifier with me so I could drink tap.

That said, not everyone is willing to go that far. In my rental, the water is pretty bad-tasting and neighbors have said it’s not the safest to drink long-term. To combat this, we installed a reverse osmosis filtration system to remove impurities and improve the taste. It attaches to the plumbing under the kitchen sink and pours from a separate side tap than the dishwashing/hand washing water (the side tap is placed where a spray nozzle otherwise would be placed).

We fill glass bottles with water and leave them in the sink, and our house guide tells guests to drink from the filtered tap only.

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I have tap water and glasses in the cupboard, ice in the freezer. Works great for a bourbon and water, but you will need to bring the bourbon. You can leave the bourbon unless it is the cheap stuff my 95 year old MIL drinks, Ancient Age… Hey wait, she is ancient and she lives on that and Cheetos.
Maybe she is on to something…

RR

Edited to add: I started out with plastic bottled water, then went to the reusable glass bottles AND THEY DID NOT GET USED I think people thought they were not clean or something, not sure. So then I just stopped, we have great tasting tap water here they can drink that.

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We supply a quart glass bottle of San Pellegrino and an unopened gallon of Crystal geyser h2o. We got a cool water filter, and might figure out a glass alternative, but I think the guests who open the water (it’s new one each time) like the “unopened” feature. The waters are not used each guest; they last about 2–3 times unopened.

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Water filter pitchers here, too.