Bottled Water May be Good for your Body but not for the Planet
In the last 15 years bottled water has become ubiquitous. From little league games to corporate board rooms, from rock concerts to the soldiers in Iraq, bottled water is now everywhere. In general it is considered a sign of health consciousness, but it increasingly a sign of environmental health unconsciousness.
If you are someone who paddles a canoe or a kayak in or around a city like New York, Chicago, or Seattle you are as likely to see as many discarded water bottles as you are water birds.
There are economic, environmental and social reasons for switching to a water filter system.
Economic
Bottled water on the low end costs about $3.50 a gallon. A gallon of tap water costs virtually nothing. If you buy a sophisticated filtering system, it will cost you about 10 cents a gallon over time.
Environmental
We have bought the story that bottled water is healthier for us than tap water while simultaneously forgetting the fact that more than a billion people don’t have access to clean reliable drinking water. The amount of fossil fuel that goes into the manufacture of the plastic bottles an their transport alone is enormous. Add to this the millions of bottles that are washed into our rivers and streams and thus out to the oceans to be gradually consumed by aquatic life, the consequences are devastating.
Social The fact is that we spend 10′s of billions of dollars a year on what amounts to a personal indulgence, while 1 billion people do not have access to reliable water. A recent article in Fast Company noted that the country of Fiji, there is a state of the art bottling plant that generates a million bottles a day while ½ the population of Fiji does not have access to reliable drinking water. That means that the guests at the Peninsula in Chicago have a better access to clean Fijian drinking water than half the population of Fiji.
Consider these facts
24% of bottled water is tap water re-packaged by coke or pepsi
38 Billion water bottles go into land fills each year- more than $1 billion worth of Plastic
1 Billion people world wide have no reliable source of drinking water
3000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water
If these facts alarm you, here is some things you can do:
- Lighten up about tap water. A little fluoride or chlorine will not hurt you. Consider how fortunate you are.
- Take every dollar that you would spend on bottled water and give it to charities that work to develop clean water sources in the developing world.
- If you are truly concerned about your local tap water. Buy a filtering system.
Here you can do some Water Filter Comparisons
Some Charities Working to Develop Clean Water Sources
JustADrop.org Water Partners International World Clean Water Campaign
Environmental Examiner
Filtered Water versus Bottle Water
Bottled Water May be Good for your Body but not for the Planet
In the last 15 years bottled water has become ubiquitous. From little league games to corporate board rooms, from rock concerts to the soldiers in Iraq, bottled water is now everywhere. In general it is considered a sign of health consciousness, but it increasingly a sign of environmental health unconsciousness.
If you are someone who paddles a canoe or a kayak in or around a city like New York, Chicago, or Seattle you are as likely to see as many discarded water bottles as you are water birds.
There are economic, environmental and social reasons for switching to a water filter system.
Economic
Bottled water on the low end costs about $3.50 a gallon. A gallon of tap water costs virtually nothing. If you buy a sophisticated filtering system, it will cost you about 10 cents a gallon over time.
Environmental
We have bought the story that bottled water is healthier for us than tap water while simultaneously forgetting the fact that more than a billion people don’t have access to clean reliable drinking water. The amount of fossil fuel that goes into the manufacture of the plastic bottles an their transport alone is enormous. Add to this the millions of bottles that are washed into our rivers and streams and thus out to the oceans to be gradually consumed by aquatic life, the consequences are devastating.
Social The fact is that we spend 10′s of billions of dollars a year on what amounts to a personal indulgence, while 1 billion people do not have access to reliable water. A recent article in Fast Company noted that the country of Fiji, there is a state of the art bottling plant that generates a million bottles a day while ½ the population of Fiji does not have access to reliable drinking water. That means that the guests at the Peninsula in Chicago have a better access to clean Fijian drinking water than half the population of Fiji.
Consider these facts
If these facts alarm you, here is some things you can do:
Here you can do some Water Filter Comparisons
Some Charities Working to Develop Clean Water Sources
JustADrop.org Water Partners International World Clean Water Campaign