Bottled Water – WHY?
www.OceanCrusaders.org
What’s this?
A closer look
Even Closer
Introduction
Today we are looking at Bottled Water. That is the water you buy in the shops that comes in plastic bottles.
Today the world consumes 200 BILLION litres of
bottled water annually.
Did you know that to count to 1 million would take you 11 days. So imagine how long it would take to count to
200,000,000,000
More than a billion people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. In most countries that have bottled drinking water for sale, they have the luxury of quality tap water.
So why do we drink bottled water?
Global Corporations
In the 1970’s, the large soft drink manufacturers saw that their sales of soft drink were not growing as much as they liked. After all we can only drink so much soft drink.
So they started bottling water and went on a campaign to scare people into drinking bottled water rather than water from the tap. They stated that water from the tap was not good for you and that the water they had was pure and fresh, straight from a natural spring or from the mountains.
People started taking note and the Bottled Water industry started to grow.
• Producing and delivering a litre (34oz) of bottled water can emit hundreds of times more greenhouse gases than a litre of tap water.
• The world recycles only 30% of PET plastic drink bottles. Assuming the 200 billion litres (34oz) of bottled water produced in 200910 is in one litre (34oz) bottles, according to these figures, 140 billion of those bottles will end up as waste.
That’s 140,000,000,000
The Statistics
To produce a 600ml (20oz) bottle of
water it actually takes 1,800ml (60oz) of
water. The additional water is because
of waste and manufacturing of the
bottle.
So in effect, in times when we are on
water restrictions, drinking bottled water
is not actually helping our water levels.
‘But it comes from natural springs and
mountains’ I hear you say.
Did you know that 40% of the world’s
bottled water is actually filtered water
from a tap!
In fact whilst water from a tap has to
adhere to strict Government standards
for clean water, 0% of the worlds
bottled water has to adhere to the
same standard.
So is bottled water actually better for
us or are we best to drink out of the
tap?
That comes down to where you live
and what bottled water you drink but
in the majority of places drinking water
out of your tap is perfectly safe. If you
are worried, you can buy a filter for
your tap.
If you take into account the production, transport, refrigeration and recycling, the
world’s annual use of bottled water generates more than 20.5 million tonnes of
greenhouse gas emissions.
This is the same amount that 4.5 million cars generate over the course of a year.
Increase in Greenhouse
gases means our earth
warms up as heat is
retained in the earth’s
atmosphere.
So drinking bottled water
increases global warming
issues. For instance if the
oceans get too hot, our
corals will die because of
coral bleaching.
Greenhouse Gases
There are other dangers with water that
comes in plastic. These are known as
BPA’s (Bisphenol_A). These are toxic
chemicals in plastic that can be absorbed
into the drinking water or your lunch if
you have a plastic lunch box.
These toxins break down your immune
system slowly and you can get sick from it.
It can also cause cancerous cells in your
body as well as many other diseases.
Have you ever tasted water from a bottle
that has been left in the sun. It tastes
really bad and it isn’t good for you so be
careful, you could be drinking BPA’s.
BPA’s
The cost
$1.50
per litre
$6 per
gallon
$2.30 per
litre
$9.20 per
gallon
$0.02 per
litre
$0.08 per
gallon
$4.00
per litre
$16 per
gallon
So what can I do?
It’s really easy to make a difference on this one and you can start right now.
Use the tap?
Buy a bottle?
You saying no will make a world of difference.
• Less Greenhouse gases – reduces global warming
• Less Rubbish – no plastics in our ocean for animals to eat
• More money in your pocket – to spend on fun things