What’s Up With Water Bottles?
I’m sure you’ve seen it, the crunchy-looking thirty-something coming back from yoga sipping on an aluminum water bottle as she gets into her Prius.
Pretentious? Perhaps. Trendy? Sure. Necessary? Absolutely.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, it takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture the plastic bottles that supply Americans with bottled water for just one year. That amount of oil is equivalent to the amount needed to fuel 100,000 cars.
Making matters worse, out of the billions of bottles consumed, only about 20% are recycled, with the rest making their way to landfills or even worse, to the world’s oceans.
Earth 911 makes an interesting argument by pointing out that if everyone in New York City alone gave up water bottles for just one week, they would reduce the number of bottles headed to a landfill by 24 million. Giving up plastic water bottles for a year would reduce the number of water bottles headed to a landfill by over 1.3 billion bottles.
But water in bottles is so much better/healthier/cleaner than my local tap water, isn’t it?
Probably not. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), out of more than 100 brands of bottled water tested, the overall quality was “spotty” with a third containing contaminants. Tap water, on the other hand is a tightly regulated alternative. If you don’t like the ‘taste’ of your tap water, you can easily use a filter.
Water bottles have become such a source of wasted resources that some stores have refused to stock them. Food Fight Grocery, an all-vegan grocery store in Portland, Oregon, recently stopped carrying bottled water. Instead, the owners opted for a more eco-friendly alternative, Food Fight Aluminum Water Bottles. They allow customers to refill them in the store at any time.
Purchasing a reusable water bottle such as the trendy Sigg bottles available here, is a great alternative to consuming water in disposable plastic bottles. You can refill it with tap or filtered water and can drink with a clear conscience, knowing that you did not contribute to the wasted energy or resources that go into the plastic water bottle industry.
Comments
Mike Panic
I’m actually a fan of Nalgene bottles over Sigg because they are transparent. I keep two 32oz ones in the fridge at all times, this way when I need to cook with something that needs water, say oatmeal, I don’t have to pour water into a measuring cup first, then dry it out to pour the dry oatmeal in to prevent sticking. The sides of Nalgene bottles are marked for every 2 ounces, so it makes pouring and measuring that much easier for cooking.
Erica
Hey, great post! For anyone looking for more info or ways to get involved, check out the Take Back the Tap campaign, a program of Food & Water Watch. If you’re looking for more reasons why tap is better than bottled (including impacts on the environment, jobs, the climate and more), check out our website, http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled. You can also get a stainless steel Kleen Kanteen with the Take Back the Tap logo on it, so others get the message too.
Mark
I agree, there are many alternatives to all the waste and litter of the one-way plastic bottle.
There is a company, Oasis Watercoolers, that makes water coolers and filters that hook up to your tap water line. They have a survey going about water coolers and if you participate (takes five minutes tops), they will send you a free Stainless Steel 600mL sports bottle… Nice!
The website is: http://www.tripalmint.com Navigate to the Oasis site button at the bottom and find the link to the survey on the oasis home page.
Good luck.