Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Is it a probiotic drink, or a glass shrapnel bomb?


Bottom of exploding probiotic bottle

Thankfully a strong label prevented extra glass shrapnel spread

This ricocheted off a cutting board in front of Meridee's face
It exploded right in Meridee's face while it was sitting in the sink.
We both shudder to contemplate the damage had she not had 2 things handy at the time:
A cutting board, and really sharp reflexes.

The bottle had an internal pressure that exceeded its breaking point, and dizzyingly fast moving sharp edges.
The glass shrapnel was deflected from hitting Meridee in the face or throat and seems to have taken out a drawer knob behind her.


There was a knob there before the bottle exploded

When it blew up I was sitting 20 feet away and sprang up after hearing a loud 'BANG' and screams.
I was relieved to see Meridee was OK, and disturbed to see the remains of the bottle in the sink, and then tracked down the jagged lid portion and plenty of tiny shards, which kept showing up for days after.

Sparkling. Mmmm, I could think of some other words...

I found this across the room


Fortunately much of the glass had been kept from spraying itself across the room by a very sticky label.

So as it turns out, the bottle was in the fridge past its 'enjoy by' date.
Then Meridee went away painting for 3 weeks, and cleaned out the fridge of old stuff when she got back.
So it was way past its 'enjoy by' date by then.
The bottle then sat in the sink for at least a couple of hours while it generated more than enough internal pressure to go off like some kind of stealthy home made IED.

I got in touch with the KeVita people and suggested that they might determine the failure pressure of the bottle and design a lid that would fail at a lower pressure, perhaps by scoring grooves into it or something to weaken it. Then at least perhaps only the lid would break apart and fly off.
That could still take your eye out, but hopefully not your face off.

I hope they do something to prevent this happening to anyone else. While it was probably a freak occurrence we're not risking it with this brand anymore, but if you like it I'd keep an eye on the 'enjoy by' date (while wearing high impact protective goggles and a bomb squad suit). Perhaps they should have a 'take cover by' date as well.

Other news:
My art grid cards (for all visual artists) that did great on Kickstarter  are now available through their own little website, artgridcards.com
They fit in your wallet, and hopefully don't spontaneously combust!
Notice the nicely rounded corners? (safety first!)






Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille