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Do you choose bottled water because you think it is the easier (and healthier) option?

Convenient and good for the environment and water resources?

WRONG!

Clever marketing blinds us to the facts. “…out of a sample of 1,000 bottles sold in the U.S., at least 300 would have some level of chemical contamination.” (read more HERE)

“Each year, bottled water sales grow about eight to 10 percent. In 2005, bottled water sales surpassed milk, beer, juices — everything but carbonated soft drinks.” (read more HERE) It’s now five years later, and we use way more ….

“Sometimes bottled water is tap water: In spite of the springs, mountains, and other bucolic scenes depicted on labels, some bottled water is nothing more than tap water, NRDC and Consumer Reports have found.

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“The Aquafina brand, for example, is drawn from the municipal water supplies of Detroit, Fresno, and other cities. Coke and Pepsi – the main producers of bottled water (under different brand names) also use tap, not spring water.” (read more HERE)

“Despite the Hype, Bottled Water is Neither Cleaner nor Greener than Tap Water

“A Suffolk County, NY, study tested 88 bottled waters, and what they found was horrifying. It was this study which discovered the cancer agent, benzene, in Perrier and caused it to be withdrawn, but they also found: Freon, kerosene, toluene, trichloroethylene, and xylene in a number of other bottled waters.

“The NRDC in the USA reported that one-third of bottled water products they tested were found to violate an enforceable state standard or exceed microbiological purity guidelines, or both, in at least one sample. Despite popular misperceptions (spawned primarily by advertising), bottled water is not regulated….” (read more HERE)

Because of how bottled water is manufactured, the entire plastic water bottle industry is detrimental to the environment – and not just because of the effects of discarded bottles on our beaches, oceans and waterways.

1. Non-renewable resources (natural gas and petroleum) are used in the manufacturing of plastic water bottles.

2. To produce PET, the type of plastic from which water bottles are made, more than 1.5 million tons of plastic is used per year. That’s a LOT of plastic!

3. The emissions caused by producing PET affects our health, and contributes to the Green House Effect.

4. This manufacturing process uses approximately 17 million barrels of oil per year, in the United States of America alone.

Water Policy Expert and Director in Oakland, CA, Peter Gleik, puts it into perspective by explaining: “It would be like filling up a quarter of every water bottle with oil.”

The oil used in the manufacturing process could be used to fuel more than 100,000 cars a year!

Add onto this the fuel used in trucks and ships to transport the water bottles to the various outlets….

It takes approximately 3 to 4 litres of water just to produce one 1L plastic water bottle. “In fact, more water is used to make PET bottles than is actually put into them.” (read more HERE)

Plastic water bottles disposed in mixed trash containers make up part of the 88% of water bottles not being recycled.

Instead of being recycled and reused as different products, they end up on our beaches, in oceans or landfills, where it takes approximately 450 to 1000 years for them to biodegrade.

When plastic water bottles degrade, they produces toxins (like chlorine gas) which can lead to diabetes, hyperactivity and breast cancer.

Do you see the real need to change how we’re doing things?

What can you do?

First, please recycle your plastic water bottles.

Check out water filters or use Prill Beads (Ebay – I use the ones that cost $8 – they last forever). Better yet, use reusable glass, stainless steel (or other) bottles instead.