Safety pins & empty bottles
 

I did a fruitless search here & can't find an answer...

Are tiny safety pins & EMPTY water bottles (like Dasani / Poland Springs) allowed through security these days?

Thanks in advance.

In December the Onion reported that safety pins were still allowed, but not "danger pins" or "terror pins." http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43716 ;)

I'm pretty sure safety pins and empty bottles are fine. Just make sure they're actually empty. And if you're Amish, the safety pins are out (but so, most likely, is air travel).

RATS! I just realized...I am Amish, so I guess I'm going to have to cancel now, huh?

fwiw, i've been wearing a safety pin on the belt loop of my 501's for the past 30 years (jokes allowed ;)). every time i get wanded (which is every time i fly as i wear orthotics and don't take my shoes off but i digress), the wand beeps but have never once been questioned about it.

Empty bottles are allowed. Had a stupidity check during my last SFO-JFK flight. I stupidly forgot to drink the bottle of water I specifically put in my bag to drink before going through the checkpoint. Obviously they saw it. I asked if I could drink it then & there. She said no. She said I could go outside the sterile area, where she'd give it back to me. (stupid???). There was no line, so I decided to do that. Ended up going through security <30 seconds later without problems this time. Is this stupid or what?

Empty Bottles Are Banned In Ams
 

Was flying out of AMS-PHL today and the "security" folks were confiscating empty water bottles at the gate. After the "interview", your bags are X-Rayed again. At this point my empty dasani bottle was seized. I just remarked how insane and stupid it was. The result was a sullen look from the security supervisor. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Not sure if a TSA printout of the idiotic rules would help in a foreign airport.

I've been bringing an empty bottle with a filter in it. This allows me water in the concourses without paying $3+/-.
I ususally,not always,take it out and keep it in the same bin as my baggy.
So far no one has questioned it.

I travel with about 2" safety pins (they serve a medical use for me to make a back support for sleeping) and have never had a problem.

As for the empty water bottle, I've got through each time I tried but switched to carrying an insulated travel mug which I attach to the outside of my backpack. Easier to fill at a water fountain than the water bottle and freaks them out less because it doesn't have a lid. (It does, but that's tucked inside my back pack and they never find it!) The mug is inside a ziplock bag in order to keep it clean (and I poke a hole for the carabiner to hook the handle.) The mug also works for making decent amounts of tea in a hotel room (12 oz or more, rather than a 6 oz cup.)

What kind of bottle is that? I recall on W5 (Canadian show) a few years ago they did an analysis of bottled water quality v.s. municipal tap water. It was found that the municipal water was in every case as good if not better than the best bottled water.

Quite a few samples of the bottled water had certain amounts of algae andn whatnot in them. This was a result of improper packaging and/or storage apparently.

In airports I never drink from fountains as I don't know what happened to the fountain before I arrived; I certainly wouldn't want to fill up a water bottle from a restroom tap either.

Where do you fill up your bottle from, once airside?

I spent my entire childhood drinking from drinking fountains, and don't think I ever got sick from one. I still drink from them today, and still don't get sick. The whole point of a drinking fountain is that you don't have to touch your mouth to the thing. The water comes directly out and shoots right into your mouth. As long as you run it for a few seconds before you start drinking, I don't really see how any germs could be in the water flow unless somebody managed to jam something actually inside the spout.

i brought the empty glass bottle from the coca cola blaks they were giving out in vancouver back to ORD as souvenir. got bugged about it in YVR and LAX, at latter, guy insisted it felt full, told him "its glass"

Agree with themicah. Apart from the occassional chewing gum dropped in the drinking fountain (find it gross, plus cannot understand why folks will not remove their own gum) never found any reason not to use a drinking fountain. Or for the matter the tap in the bathroom sink in a hotel restroom.

If you have spent enough time as I have in the Food Service industry, this stuff is pretty harmless. But if triple filtered tap water served by Dasani makes you feel comfortable, go for it ;) .

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

Sprocket
Many of the bottled water arenothing more than tap water. You need to see if it has reverse osmosis, been distilled,etc. Many just say "spring" or "natural" water. Otherwards, tap.
I'm no expert, but my wife is (a nutritionist) and she has me testing a bottle from some company called Code Blue (I think) that has a filter in it. It ,I believe, was designed for hikers, bike riders,etc., but is now going to be targeted at frequent flyers.
I generally go to a water fountain (or sink) in any city and fill it up. A lot better than paying the crazy prices in the terminals.
And it's a LOT better than drinking water from the tap in places like FLL!Yuck!

I've never drank the water there. I always drink tap water in whatever hotel I'm in. My question was more about where would one fill up a water bottle airside if not from a water fountain?