Every now and then I purchase a water bottle, but only when I’m desperate – perhaps at an airport or a restaurant that refuses to serve me tap water. Otherwise, I carry around a re-usable bottle filled with tap water.
The most common justification for purchasing bottled water is “well, I’ll recycle the bottle anyway”. Recycling is no excuse for sticking to bottled water. It still takes unnecessary energy for water companies to extract the water from the source and store it, manufacture the bottles, fill the bottles, package the bottles in cases, ship them on oil fueled trucks to a distribution center run on coal electricity, ship them on another truck to a store, into the customer’s hands, then picked up by a recycling truck and taken to a recyclable sorting center, sorted, placed on another truck and taken to a recycled plastic consolidating center…well you get the point.
As an avid surfer I am regularly disgusted by human waste. Whether it’s washing up next to me in the lineup, or strewn across the sandy beach, the plastic is everywhere. Not all of it is bottles, but I have seen my fair share and it’s a driving force for me to kick the bottled water habit.
The NY Department of Environmental Conservation published a neat PDF on bottled water. I compiled some of the facts below to support my vendetta against bottled water:
It’s a Waste of Money
• Tap water creates less pollution and uses far less energy and natural resources than transporting and
manufacturing of plastic water bottles.
• Bottled water costs as much as $10 per gallon—tap water costs less than one cent per gallon.
• Nationally, local governments spend $43 billion per year to deliver some of the highest
quality water in the world.
It’s a Waste of Plastic
• Unlike soda and other carbonated beverages, there is no deposit on water bottles
so fewer are recycled.
• Nationally, only 10% of plastic water bottles are recycled—90% end up
as either garbage or litter.
• 30 million single-serve non-returnable containers end up
in landfills or as litter every day.
• We spend millions annually to clean up plastic
bottles that litter our highways, parks and
open spaces.
It’s a Waste of Energy
• 18 million barrels of crude oil equivalent were consumed in 2005 to replace the 2 million tons of
plastic bottles that were wasted instead of recycled.
• Manufacturing that much plastic releases more than 800,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere, contributing to global climate change.
• In New York, the oil used to make our bottles is equal to 66 million gallons of gasoline; enough to power
120,000 automobiles for a year.
So there you have it folks. Its a waste of money. It’s a waste of plastic. It’s a waste of energy. Stop drinking bottled water.
And don’t get me started on plastic bags…
Source: http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/waterbottles.pdf
