According to a 2001 report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year.While the contents themselves are not especially harmful, the process of producing bottled water is not doing the environment any favors. Many health-conscious consumers strongly believe bottled water is preferable to ordinary tap water, and the bottled water industry's profits run in the billions of dollars (USD) annually. Even if the bottling and shipping aspects of bottled water have a negative impact on the environment, the end result is still viewed as a healthier alternative than tap water processed through municipal treatment plants.
simply because bottle is made of plastic and that hurts the environment. Water aint bad but the bottle is bad
The Problem With Bottled Water & It's Effects On Our Environment
1.5 million barrels of oil are used annually to manufacture plastic water bottles. (Earth Policy Institute)
2 million tons of plastic bottles are land filled every year. (Worldwatch Institute)
Only 1 out of every 10 plastic bottles is recycled.
Bottled water has to either be pumped out of the ground or treated. Up to 1500 gallons of water are wasted during this process.
Bottled water uses fossil fuels in the making, filling, transporting, and recycling of plastic water bottles…up to 187 gallons of oil are spent!
1 billion pounds of CO2 is emitted in the transportation of bottled water in the United States alone.
40% of PET bottles recycled in the United States in 2004 were exported – adding to the resources used.
Bottled water is drinking water packaged in plastic or glass containers. The dominant form is water packaged in new Polyethylene terephthalate bottles and sold retail. Another method of packaging is in larger high-density polyethylene plastic bottles, or polycarbonate plastic bottles, often used with water coolers.
PET bottled water containers make up one-third of 1 percent of the waste stream in the United States.An estimated 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per annum in the US and around 200 billion bottles globally.
The recent documentary Tapped argues against the bottled water industry, asserting that tap water is healthier, more environmentally sustainable and more ecologically just than bottled water. The film focuses on the bottled water industry in the United States. The film has largely seen positive reviews, and has spawned college campus groups such as Beyond the Bottle.
The Answer?
Home Water Filter Systems. A quality home water filter system filters out the dangerous contaminants found in tap water, including lead, chlorine, herbicides and pesticides. The home water filter industry has developed a wide variety of filter options, from drinking water filters to attach to your kitchen faucet, to under sink filters to shower filters to whole house water filters. For more info, visit: http://www.thewaterfilterladysblog.com
We need to return to glass. I see a potential trend here. I have been seeing glass bottles again for some soft drink.
It seems to me though that the glass is cheaper than plastic.
Beer comes in bottles and they are not the returnable kind, but they should be. And beer is cheaper than soft drinks. Go figure...
Buy a Sigg water bottle and carry your own.
Glass bottles weigh a lot - added fuel cost, added pollution.
Because of the amount of plastic waste that is created from buying water in plastic bottles. However, there are methods of recycling this waste plastic into useful items - fleece clothing is generally made from recycled plastics and we all know how useful fleece is - it's warm, lightweight and easy to wash as it dries so quickly.
As we find more uses for this recycled plastic, less of these bottles are going into landfill, especially in countries where recycling facilities are available and convenient to use. Green Decore of London (http://green-decore.com/) sells indoor'outdoor rugs that are made from recycled plastic bottles. They are hard-wearing and weatherproof so they are great for use in the garden or around the pool. The rugs are also mildew resistant making them a great choice for bathrooms where condensation is often a problem.
If you do buy water (and other drinks) in plastic bottles, it can be difficult to know what to do with the empty bottles. Where there is organised kerbside recycling, it's not so much of a problem. However, if there are no recycling facilities available, then we're often stuck looking for craft ideas that we can use to upcycle our empty bottles to give them a second purpose. I've seen people use them as planters in the garden, as containers indoors, as mini greenhouses, etc. I've also seen plastic bottles used to build a greenhouse - okay, not the most aesthetically pleasing greenhouse you've ever seen, but it does work. One of the most imaginative uses I've seen is a collection of plastic bottles lashed together to form a canoe!
by nightwork4 13 years ago
Is bottled water really needed or is it just another way we have become lazy.it's less expensive and more enviromentaly friendly to use tap water but bottled water is a huge seller these days. should we be using it or are we just being lazy?
by Brian 13 years ago
Is it just me or are there way too many brands of bottled water sitting on store shelves these days. I mean you walk into these supermarkets, and there are stacks and stacks of those packs of bottled water piled to the ceiling.I wonder what would happen if you took just one day, and went to every...
by Eliel Arrey MD MBA 6 years ago
"Every 5 minutes in the U.S. over 2 million plastic bottles are used,Gone Un-recycled, these plastic wastes will take up to 1000 years to properly START decomposing. What about the adverse effects it has on our ecology?"Those heart punching details were summarized to me by a mentor...
by Rambler1 12 years ago
I have often wondered this since recycling is so reported in the world as being important. Since visiting the local recycling drop off it seems few people actually recycle.
by Silver Fish 10 years ago
Are you happy drinking tap water?
by What's News 13 years ago
Which bottled water do you drink?Which brand of bottled water do you buy and why? Is it becuase you like the taste, the company or is there another reason.
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |