As more and more people turn to bottled waters, thinking that it is the safest and healthiest drink for them, take a look at what damage bottled water has done to the environment. Every year, 38 billion water bottles are dumped in the landfills and it takes 1,000 years for them to decompose. Lay those out end to end and you can circle the globe 150 times with these many bottles. Aside from getting dumped into the landfills, the plastic bottles are thrown into the ocean which eventually drifts to garbage patches. Plastic bottles are one of the major components of the biggest garbage patch that is floating in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and San Francisco which is estimated to be the size of Texas.
Each bottle requires a quarter bottle of virgin petroleum to manufacture which will total to 17 million barrels of oil each year. If used as fuel for cars, this amount of oil would have been enough to power 1 million cars for a year. Each bottled water requires 3 to 5 bottles of raw water to produce but interestingly enough, about a quarter of the bottled water sold in the market come from municipal or tap water that has just been treated using reverse osmosis, deionization and others. What is worse is that producing 30 billion liters of bottled water generated 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006 and this figure is expected to rise to 3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2011.
The bottled water has a bigger impact on the environment than it does on the health of the people. A lot of natural resources are wasted but a lot of toxins and pollutants are also contributed to our environment. Bottled water that is handled improperly and exposed to heat can produce toxic and carcinogenic substances like BPA or Bisphenol A that is leached out into the water from the plastic bottle.
Although drinking clean water may be very essential to our good health, there are better options than drinking bottled water. You can use refillable aluminum water bottles but these require plastic liners which make the water taste funny and might still possibly have a reaction.
One of the best and most practical water containers that you can use for your drinking water is a stainless steel bottle. These bottles are designed to last a lifetime given the proper care. They are fairly easy to clean up, being dishwasher safe. Stainless steel drinking bottles need not only be used for water but can also be used for other beverages like hot drinks because these bottles do not melt nor deform. Stainless steel is impermeable so it will not retain any odor or flavor from anything that you put inside the bottle for as long as you have washed it thoroughly. What’s more, the steel that is used for making these bottles are safe and do not leach out toxic substances even if the bottles are exposed to heat. These refillable stainless steel water bottles will help reduce the garbage from plastic bottles both in the landfills and in the oceans. Just the simple decision of boycotting plastic water bottles and using stainless steel bottles is already your big contribution to the environment.
My name is Yip Bop and I write blogs about our World with stories and insights that may not be written in your daily newspaper.
The Green Bottle is an informational material and resources blog to promote Stainless Steel Water Bottles for Health and living Green. The Green Bottle offers a wide selection of stainless steel water bottles that are high quality, 18/8 food-grade stainless steel and are BPA FREE with no Toxins.
