Bottled Water Impacts The Environment

Do you want to live in a way that protects thefuture of our children? Do you wish to live in the greenest world possible with a conscience, respect and appreciation for the environment?

Many Americans have a strong sense of environmental and social responsibility. We try to make environmentally well advised choices in many aspects of our daily living, yet we ignore one of the major contributors to the endangered state of the planet.

Worldwide in excess of one billion people do not have a pure source of clean drinking water, this is in excess of 1/6 of the world citizens, yet we, as Americans, waste billions of dollars yearly for the convenience of drinking from a plastic bottle instead of a water tap.

1.5 million tons of plastic are used to manufacture bottled water every year. It also takes in excess of 25 times the amount of water to make each plastic bottle than the bottle contains. 300 million gallons of bottled water are imported to the United States yearly.

Often, in America bottled water is simply an indulgence. Despite our rationalizations, it is not a harmless indulgence. Bottled water is an environmental disaster. Thirty years ago bottled water hardly survived as a business in the United States. We Americans now spend more on "designer" bottled water than we spend on iPods or movie tickets - $15 billion in 2007. The expected United States expenditure for bottled water will be $16 billion a year before the end of the decade.

As a country we consume more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water per year. Bottled water is the fastest growing beverage industry in the world, worth up to $22 billion a year. Less than 15% of plastic bottles are recycled, the rest end up in the refuse systems and cost America's cities over 70 million per year to handle clean up and landfill expenditures. America yearly produces in excess of 800,000 tons of plastic bottle pollution that substantially magnifies global warming.

in 2007, Americans trashed more than 38 billion plastic water bottles, approximately $1 billion worth of plastic that could have been recycled. That's an unforgivable waste, especially considering 1.5 million barrels of oil - enough to power 100,000 cars for a year - were consumed to manufacture these bottles. And that's not even including the oil and gas required for shipping and delivering this huge volume of liquid.

If you are choosing to purchase bottled water, you are basically buying plastic, which is manufactured from petroleum products. When we buy a bottle of water, what we're often purchasing is the bottle its self. One of the main problems with bottled water production is the reliance on fossil fuels. From manufacturing to transportation, bottled water relies on oil, using 17 million barrels of oil and producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide every year.

In the United States alone, we are hauling 1 billion liters of water around a week in trains, trucks, railcars and ships. That adds up to a weekly giant convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers. Water weighs over 8 pounds a gallon. Water is so very heavy you cannot fill an 18 wheeler with bottled water, you have to allow empty space.

There is an simple eco friendly solution. Tap water is considerably less expensive. As an investigative reporter for the NY Times points out, almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands.

Pure and safe drinking water should be public, accessible and affordable. The more the wealthy opt out of drinking tap water, the less active political support there will be for investing in developing and maintaining America's public water supply. That would be a grievous loss.

Availability of inexpensive, pure water is basic to a countrys health. In Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the American market, yet more than half the people in Fiji do not have a pure or dependable source of drinking water. This means it is easier for an American in Dallas or Boston to quench their thirst with refreshing Fiji water than it is for the majority of people in Fiji.

Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight to ten glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,500 or more every year. The same amount of tap water would cost pennies a day. Recent studies show that many brands of bottled water fail to meet industry guidelines and the cost of even low quality bottled water can grow quite high.

Much of bottled water is only plain tap water. Many bottled water firms repackage tap water into plastic bottles, then sell them back to the consumer at prices higher than gasoline and increasing just as rapidly. Aquafina, as an example, has finally been pressured into amending its labels to advise consumers that Aquafina water comes from tap water. Why not just drink tap water? More than a quarter of bottled water is just processed tap water.

Plastic containers leach dangerous chemicals. Have you considered why your plastic bottle of water has a warning on the label telling you not to reuse it? The longer you use that bottle, the more likely it is to leach hazarous chemicals into your water.

There is a green solution. If you are not confident in your local tap water or wish to quickly filter tap water when on the go, carbon-filtered tap water is safer and costs much less than bottled water. The Environmental Working Group states, "carbon filtration of tap water will dramatically lower levels of toxic by products; it is also 10 to 20 times less expensive than bottled water, and does not produce the waste and pollution associated with the packaging and transport of bottled water."

Portable water filters are a perfect solution for water filtration on the go. A portable water filter allows anyone to filter their own water, no matter where they travel; across town or around the world. A portable water filter allows you to free yourself from any harsh taste, additives or contaminates while protecting the environment and your pocketbook. Attempt to get the whole family involved. A five member family could save well over $7,500.00 a year.

Stop being unwitting victims of manipulative advertising. When a entire industry is built up by overwhelming us with a product we do not need, when an entire industry is based on packaging and presentation, not the product, it is worth asking how that happened and what the future impact is upon our precious planet.