A bottle is a round, glass or plastic container in which drinks and other liquids are kept. Bottles may be curved at the top or have straight sides. A baby bottle has a special part through which babies can suck their drink. There are many different types of bottles. A wine bottle is usually round with straight sides and a narrow top.
A figurative sense of the word is used in cockney rhyming slang. If someone has lost their bottle (meaning they have become so fearful of losing control of their bowel function that it becomes uncontrollable), they are said to be bottled up. The phrase is also used in a naval reprimand.
The earliest recorded use of the word as a noun is in a 1611 print of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130: “My bottle is empty, / And yet my love is full”.
In chemistry, a bottle refers to a container that holds a liquid such as water or milk. It can also be used to describe a container that stores a gas such as carbon dioxide or nitrogen. Bottles can be made of many materials including glass, plastic, or metal. Bottles are used in a wide variety of applications including drinking containers, mirrors, windowpanes, telescopes, barometers, and laboratory equipment. A bottle can also be used to store medicines, cosmetics, or other household chemicals.
Plastic bottles are generally made of polyethylene terephthalate or PET. This is a thermoplastic polymer which is derived from petroleum. It is a highly durable plastic and can be recycled many times without loss of quality or strength. The resin identification code for PET plastic is 2.
Another common plastic for bottles is high-density polyethylene or HDPE, which has the resin identification code of 4. HDPE is a flexible plastic that can be molded to be resistant to corrosion, heat, and moisture. It is a good choice for beverage bottles because it has an excellent moisture barrier and can be molded in a wide variety of shapes. It is also FDA approved for direct food contact and can be formulated with a low odor, which is particularly important when packaging foods like milk or juice.
Other types of plastic for bottles include LDPE, PE, PVC or vinyl, and polypropylene. The type of plastic chosen for a particular bottle is determined by the manufacturing process and the material to be stored inside the bottle. The most common manufacturing techniques for plastic bottles are reheat and blow molding, co-extrusion blow molding, and injection molding.
There are many benefits to using bottles of all types, but as we’ve seen in our images of the ocean pollution problem, they can also end up as a symbol of human environmental desecration. Each plastic bottle requires five times its volume in water to manufacture. The chemical pollutants released during this process, such as nickel, ethylene oxide and benzene, are then carried by stormwater runoff into lakes, rivers and oceans around the world.
