How is not drinking disposable water bottles good for the world?

Answer 1

Not only is drinking water from bottles a waste of plastic but the energy used to put the water into bottles not to mention that used to transport the water is enormous. Drink tap water or filtered tap water. Some water is transported across the world on boats. What a waste. As if that water would be any better than the water out of your tap. If your water tastes bad you could buy a filter or if you leave it in an uncovered container the taste gets better because the chlorine gas leaves the water. Research shows that it is a waste of not only resources but money with much of the water sold just being filted tap water anyway (40% in the US).

Key points include Points inter alia:
energy consumption, waste disposal, and other environmental concerns.

-Bottled water costs as much as $10 per gallon for bottled water compared to less than a penny per gallon for tap water.

. It takes three liters of water to produce a one-liter bottle of water.

. Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, but in the U.S., less than 20 percent of these bottles are recycled.

. The total estimated energy needed to make, transport, and dispose of one bottle of water is equivalent to filling the same bottle one-quarter full of oil.

. An estimated 40 percent of bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered tap water.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/index.php?/archives/235-Bottled-Water-Waste.html

Answer 2

Unless the plastic is recycled, the garbage generated will not decompose quickly at all. There is a much more recent issue and that is with the plastifiers (phthalates) in all those bottles which will leach into the water. Some of them allegedly have nasty effects like causing egg cells to grow in sperm sacks. I'd like to see the scientific evidence weigh in on this one before we all panic. Meanwhile, osme 8th grader did an experiment in his school which proved that the drinking fountains were much less sanitary than the toilets in his school - a very good reason to use bottled water.

Answer 3

Plastic doesnt decompose. Poland spring just came out with a water bottle with 30% less plastic so i guess thats a step in the right direction... all though i do know of a student at my high school who generated a "plastic" bottle that was 100% biodegradable... It's probably too expensive to market but if we had more people looking into something like that, the water bottles wouldnt be so bad...

Answer 4

IN addition to creating a ton of plastic waste that is not bio-degradable and needs to be disposed of somewhere, drinking water from the disposable bottles requires that more plastic bottles be made, which requires a lot of resources (petroleum products, energy to process them) and creates toxic by-products that also need somewhere to go.

Answer 5

Plastic bottles, made from petrochemicals "plus" the fuel used to haul it to market "plus" the fuel used to haul it home from market "plus" the energy used in recycling the old plastic bottle or worse yet it ends up in a dump,adds up to something that isn't very environmentally sound.
Why not just use good old tap water?

Answer 6

I thought that was obvious. Too much plastic in the world to dispose of.

Answer 7

well, if you buy one and repeatedly refill it, then it doesn't harm the environment. but even if you buy lots but recycle them, it takes fuel to melt it all down into something new, putting tons and tons of junk into the air. but recycling is still better than just throwing it away.

Answer 8

You spread common sense by showing people how foolish it is to buy something when you can get it for free.