Leak-Proof Plastic Bottles for Backpacking

 

Here's a great tip from Trail Divas
I don't know about you, but I carry a few plastic bottles for things

like sunscreen, alcohol (the fuel variety, of course) and various other sundries.  I learned the hard way a few years ago that in rare cases if you squeeze the bottle hard enough or somehow in your pack, the
material inside the bottles can ooze out from the cap and between the threads of the cap.  After doing some home plumbing it dawned on me to put Teflon Tape on the threads of my little bottles in my backpack.  Teflon tape is used during plumbing projects to seal threads when screwing fittings on like shower heads.  It fills in the gaps in the metal or plastic threads and creates a tight seal.  So I tried it and
no more oozing!!   You just wrap a good 3"-4" long piece around the threads of the bottle neck and make sure it is on there good.  Be sure to wrap the tape on the threads clockwise, i.e. the same direction as
tightening the cap.  Otherwise the tape might slip or shread when you put the cap on.  The tape only really sticks to itself, but not really stick like normal tape.  You will see what I mean when you use it.  Make sure to keep the tape taught as you wrap it around.  

A roll of teflon tape should be less than $2 in the plumbing supply  section of your local hardware store. 

Comments

[mightychair]

Great tip. I've found teflon tape to be very useful in a lot of ways.

[JimmyTH]

As long as we're talking about tape, two more kinds can come in really handy. There's an epoxy plumbing tape that looks like black electrical tape, you stretch it to activate the epoxy. Wrap something with it and it hardens in only a few minutes, good enough to make emergency repairs on broken gear. Duck tape patches holes in tents and even canoes. On tents a square on either side of a hole sandwiches the tear pretty well permanently. I used duck tape to patch my old canvas canoe whenever I ripped out the bottom on a snag and it worked surprisingly well, always got me home. Too heavy to carry everything with you, but having at least one makes sense.