Plastic bottle tops aren’t recyclable, so they almost PET requires a huge amount of fossil fuels to create, and for a single-use bottle, that is a lot of fuel to burn. Despite the huge mass of water bottles, most of them aren’t recycled because only certain types can be recycled. Most bottles usually end up in the ocean or landfills, leaving dangerous chemicals all around our environment. They are also invading our clean society, with litter in parks, streets, sidewalks, etc. Even if you chop them up into tiny pieces, they still take longer than a human lifetime to decompose.
How Harmful Can Plastic Bottled Water Be? One of the biggest harms to the world is pollution caused by people. Most of the plastic materials used by people are left to pollute. Bottled water is one of the biggest plastic materials produced. Some people say that bottled water is safer, convenient, and provide jobs to workers in many ways. The reasons for buying bottled water differ. Some people buy bottled water because they don’t like the taste or smell of tap water, while others on the other hand buy it because of health concerns with water contamination. Pollution is one of the biggest problems hurting the environment today, and water bottles that are thrown out after each one-time use, contribute greatly to its increasing buildup. Bottled water is not only expensive to us, but also to the environment. Bottled water is hurting the economy, harming human lives, and damaging the environment.
There are many impacts that bottled water has on the environment. The choice of packaging determines many impacts. The bottles, which are either plastic, aluminum, or glass, that are not recycled are thrown into landfills and buried. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86% of plastic water bottles in the United States become garbage. If water bottlers would have used 10% recycled materials in their plastic bottles in 2004, they would have saved the equivalent of 72 million gallons of gasoline. If they used 25%, they would have saved enough energy to power more than 680,000 homes for a year (Jemmott, 2008). Incinerating used bottles produces toxins such as chlorine gas and ash. Water bottles that get buried can take up to thousands of years to biodegrade. The most common type of plastic is polyethylene
Refilling a plastic bottle can have unforeseen consequences. Using a refillable water bottle is better for the drinker’s health than drinking out of plastic bottles only meant to be used once because they are not good quality.“Plastic bottles contain a harmful substance called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is dangerous to human health” (“Think” par. 2). If that is not a serious enough reason, there are even more chemicals that are found in plastic bottles. “BPA has been connected to cases of hormonal issues and even cancer” (Speer par. 4). No one should be consuming harmful chemicals. Use of plastic bottles, whether for
Another misconception that many people hold lies in what happens to bottles of water once they are “recycled”. People believe that once they send a plastic bottle on its way to be recycled, it will be converted into a new, usable, recyclable container. Generally speaking, this is not the case. The majority of recycled plastic gets a new life as something non-recyclable, such as plastic lumber or parking lot bumpers. This does not amount to as high a rate of waste reduction as one would hope for.
Water is essential to life, scientific fact, not debatable (Tracy). More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly (Olsen). Many drink or buy bottled water simply because they believe it is of better quality, cleaner, and better tasting. On the
One of the largest issues with bottled water is that, water bottles can help contribute to the cause of many problems in the environment. It can cause pollution because many don’t recycle their water bottles. In fact, according to Jennifer Gitlitz, the research director for the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), “86% of the water bottles sold are wasted: landfilled, incinerated, or littered.” Furthermore, the CRI keeps track of how many bottles and cans go into landfills around the year and in this year only 64 million bottles and cans have be thrown into landfills. When these recyclable items go through landfills it just creates more and more pollution. Yes, we can limit this but we can never completely eliminate it unless we get rid of the bottle that is causing it. Eliminating these bottles
One of the plastics that are used everyday are plastic bottles. Approximately 185 pounds of plastic are thrown away each year by the average american. Some of these plastics are plastic water bottles. Each year americans throw away 35 billion plastic water bottles. These plastic bottles end up in landfills or the ocean. When they reach
Have you ever considered what is happening to all the plastic bottles you use? According to "Bottled Water: The Wrong Choice paragraph 2" it states, that when plastic bottles are made we are using more fossil fuels. By doing this we are damaging environment!
Water Bottles Since the 1990’s Americans are drinking less soft drinks and are now consuming more bottled water than ever. Currently, Americans are drinking over 50% more bottled water than they did in 2001 (theatlantic.com). A reason for this could be that more Americans are aware of the health issues soft drinks create. Although the resurgence and emphasis on a healthier society is a positive aspect of the popularity of water bottles, it does also bring negative aspects. For example, 80 million bottles of water are sold daily in the US daily which means that 80 million plastic bottles need to be disposed. Recycling is what many people believe combats the issue of disposing of so many water bottles but only 20% of those plastic bottles actually get recycled leaving the other 80% to end up in the ocean or even a landfill. This harms the environment, as landfills tend to remove the oxygen from the ground and release methane, a greenhouse gas, harming the ozone layer. A depleting ozone layer causes global warming, the ice caps to melt, and an increased risk in skin cancer. As for the oceans, the plastic bottles degrade then conjoin to create plastic masses as large as the state of Texas. This harms the coral reef and not only pollutes the ocean but also people’s food supply as many fish ingest the plastic then people ingests the fish.
Water Bottle Waste “One of the biggest challenges facing the bottled water industry is how to respond to the environmental claims levelled against it” (Grocer). Every time someone throws a bottle away, they have taken up more space in a landfill for the next four hundred fifty to one thousand
Plastic bottle waste effects on animals Have you ever even thought twice before throwing your plastic bottle, which to you, looks like nothing more than 6 inches of a water container. Just a piece of plastic that is taking up a little room in your house, or vehicle. A piece of plastic that could do YOU no harm, right? Well that may, or may not be the case, and it may not hurt you. Although think about the effects that it may have on the already depleting sea life. Well if you haven’t had the audacity to look up the affects yourself , I’ll do it for you. So first off let me hit you with a shocking, but true, nonetheless. Nearly 100,000 sea mammals are killed per year just due to plastic. Now let that sink in, that's, JUST mammals. Just imagine
The second reason is that people don’t recycle the plastic bottles. First, the bottle is going to go to in to a landfill instead of reusing it and making something else.
Production and Distribution: Plastic water bottles are considered one of the healthiest beverages you can find in any shop. But are they really all that healthy for the environment, or is there a fine line between a plastic bottled water drink and what’s best for everyone? Let’s take a look at bottled water from the very start to find out. To manufacture plastic bottles, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is used, and to produce PET, crude oil and natural gas is required. If one fills a plastic water bottle 1/4th full with oil, they will be looking at how much oil was used to make that one bottle, so how much oil does it take to make all of America’s water bottles? According to the Pacific Institute, in 2006, making plastic water bottles
Plastic water bottles are seen and consumed everywhere. Without knowing the deadly effects that water bottles have on the environment, consumers will keep buying them and contribute to the problem. About 17 million barrels of oil are used each year solely to make water bottles