Bottled Water Is An Environmental Disaster
Author: Marlene Affeld

Do you wish to live in a way that protects our children's
future? Do you want to live in the greenest world possible with
a conscience, respect and appreciation for the environment?

The majority of Americans have a strong sense of environmental
and social responsibility. We endeavor to make environmentally
beneficial choices in many aspects of our daily living, yet we
ignore one of the major contributors to the plight of the
planet.

Worldwide in excess of one billion people do not have an
uncontaminated source of clean drinking water, this is in excess
of 1/6 of the world population, yet we, as Americans, spend
billions of dollars yearly for the convenience of drinking from
a plastic bottle instead of a water tap. Shame on us.

1.5 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water every
year. It takes in excess of 25 times the amount of water to make
each plastic bottle than the bottle contains. 300 million
gallons of bottled water are imported to the United States
yearly.

In America bottled water is often simply an indulgence. Despite
our justifications, it is not a harmless indulgence. Bottled
water is an environmental catastrophe. Thirty years ago bottled
water barely survived as a business in the United States. Today
Americans spent more on "designer" bottled water than we spent
on iPods or entertainment tickets - $15 billion in 2007. The
expected United States expenditure for bottled water will be $16
billion a year before the end of the decade.

As a country we consume more than 30 billion single-serving
bottles of water per year. Bottled water is the fastest growing
beverage industry in the world, worth up to $22 billion a year.
Less than 15% of plastic bottles are recycled, the rest end up
in the refuse systems and cost America's cities over 70 million
per year to handle clean-up and landfill expenditures. America
yearly produces in excess of 800,000 tons of plastic bottle
pollution that substantially magnifies global warming.

Last year, Americans threw away 38 billion plastic water
bottles, about $1 billion worth of plastic. That's an
overwhelming waste, especially considering 1.5 million barrels
of oil - enough to power 100,000 cars for a year - were consumed
to manufacture these bottles. And that's not even including the
oil and gas required for shipping and delivering this massive
volume of liquid.

If you are putting money into bottled water, you are basically
purchasing plastic, which is manufactured from petroleum. "When
we buy a bottle of water, what we're often purchasing is the
bottle its self. One of the main problems with bottled water
production is the reliance on fossil fuels. From packaging to
transportation, bottled water relies on oil, using 17 million
barrels of oil and producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide
every year.

In the United States alone, we're hauling 1 billion liters of
water around a week in ships trains and trucks. That's a weekly
giant convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers. Water weighs 8
1/3 pounds a gallon. It's so heavy you can't fill an 18-wheeler
with bottled water--you have to allow empty space.

There is an simple eco-friendly solution. Tap water is
considerably less expensive. As an investigative reporter for
the NY Times points out, "Almost all municipal water in America
is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from
Italy or France or the Fiji Islands.

Clean and safe drinking water should be public and affordable.
The more the wealthy opt out of drinking tap water, the less
political support there will be for investing in developing and
maintaining America's public water supply. That would be a
serious loss."

Access to inexpensive, pure water is basic to a nation's
health. In Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than
a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S.
market, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have a
pure or dependable source of drinking water. This means it is
easier for the average American in Los Angeles or New York to
quench their thirst with refreshing Fiji water than it is for
the majority of people in Fiji.

Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight - ten
glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,500
or more every year. The same amount of tap water would cost
pennies a day. Recent studies show that many brands of bottled
water fail to meet industry guidelines and the cost of even low
quality bottled water can grow quite high.

A lot of bottled water is just plain tap water. Many bottled
water businesses repackage tap water into plastic bottles, then
sell 'em back to you at prices higher than gas and increasing
just as rapidly. Aquifina, as an example, has finally been
pressured into amending its labels to advise consumers that
Aquifina water comes from tap water. Why not just drink tap
water? In fact, more than a quarter of bottled water is just
processed tap water.

Plastic containers leach toxic chemicals. Have you considered
why your plastic bottle of water has a label warning telling you
not to reuse it? The longer you have that bottle, the more
likely it is to leach toxic chemicals into your water.

There is a solution. If you are not confident in your local
water supply or wish to safely filter tap water when on the go,
carbon-filtered tap water's safer and costs much less than
bottled water. According to the Environmental Working Group,
"carbon filtration of tap water will dramatically lower levels
of toxic by products; it is also 10 to 20 times less expensive
than bottled water, and does not produce the waste and pollution
associated with the packaging and transport of bottled water."

A portable water filter is a perfect solution for water
filtration on the go. A portable water filter allows anyone to
filter their own water, no matter where they travel; across town
or
around the world. A portable water filter allows you to free
yourself from any unpleasant taste, additives or contaminates
while protecting the environment and your pocketbook. Get the
whole family involved - a five member family could save well
over $7,500.00 a year.

Let's stop being unwitting victims of manipulative advertising.
When a entire industry is build up by overwhelming us with a
product we don't need--when an entire industry is founded on
packaging and presentation, not the product--it's worth
questioning how that happened and what the long- term impact is
upon our precious planet.


About The Author: M. Affeld is part of the Nandu Green Team -
Nandu Green is a green lifestyle portal, offering high-quality,
unique, intriguing and innovative merchandise from around the
globe. http://nandugreen.com