I had the opportunity to join a class of second graders learn about the environment this week. One of the things they talked about was bottled water. When asked what plastic was made of - they couldn't answer... and naively I thought "old recycled plastic" - which in a very small part is true... but bottled water comes in plastic bottles made from crude oil. In fact, according to the Earth Policy Institute, "Americans’ demand for bottled water requires more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year.* Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year".
So you might say - Well I recycle my bottles... no big deal right?
or
I'm getting cleaner, healthier water - but there are no regulations to make bottled watter any purer than tap water.
Even if you recycle your bottle - if you leave the lid on the bottle it may not be recycled. If it gets to be recycled, it takes water to clean the plastic, the energy to ship it to a place for recycling, the process of recycling, and production of a new bottle. If you don't recycle that bottle, there it will sit in a local landfill, for up to 1000 years before it breaks down. So... grab a glass and pour yourself a big glass of tap water, and pat yourself on the back for getting perfectly good tap water, saving money, and doing your small part to make your live a little greener.
Want to learn more? Here are some other good links:
Fast Company - Message in a Bottle
Reasons to Ditch Water Bottles
(Photo by Ooodit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution)
2 comments:
I have heard that there are even stricter regulations on tap water than there are for bottled water. We would never get bottled water if it was up to me. Kenny is the bottled water snob!
Great post, Donna. I will be learning alongside you in your journey - thanks for teaching me!
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