Reflective Essay On Water Bottles

It makes me feel guilty when I have my bottle of water with me, even though I put it in the recycle bin at the end of the day, I now wonder about where it will end up. Does it go to another plastic product to be tossed aside, this indestructible piece of plastic? I am concerned as I watch the people of “convenience” walk by and I look at the products that we all carry to help us make our lives easier. I note the woman next to me has two of the “better water bottles”, one with a small round spring in it to help stir the liquid “meal on the go” that she has in that particular bottle. Another person walks by with a liquid breakfast in a Styrofoam cup, another non-biodegradable product. A couple of construction workers sit down across the room with their

a. Size in sales: In 2001, bottled water was among the world’s most attractive beverage categories, with global sales exceeding 32 billion gallons and annual growth averaging nearly 9 percent between 1996 and 2001.

Refillable water bottles may seem expensive, but in the long run it will be much cheaper. “On average, Americans spend about $5 a week on bottled water, this means you can save $260 per year by switching to a reusable water bottle” (Speer par. 5). This statistic shows just how much the average American (the world wide statistic was not available) can save yearly, let alone in a lifetime. This statistic also does not include the average money a year a person spends on soda pop, tea, coffee, or other drinks that could be put into the refillable bottle if they are bought in bulk. Many people say they do not have money to buy a nice refillable water bottle, but most people do have the money it would take to buy an eight dollar Contigo refillable bottle from Walmart that would do the job. Up to one fifth of Americans have tap water that is not drinkable (Karp par. 1). However, there are refillable water bottles with filters. Refillable water bottles with filters may be more expensive, but it is easy to find a cheap one at Walmart. For example someone could buy a ten dollar Brita filter water bottle. Investing in a refillable bottle will already save someone money after one month of use.

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.

Some consumers feel that if the bottles of water being purchased are being recycled, then the environmental damage is greatly decreased. This is a reasonable and valid assumption, but unfortunately the statistical truth behind recycling gives way to a dimmer reality. There is an estimated 50 billion bottles of water being consumed per year worldwide, with approximately 80% of these bottles not being recycled. This amount of waste burdens our landfills tremendously.

You can’t walk across a college campus, past an office building, or through a park without seeing one, two, or ten empty bottles. Many are plastic water bottles. Trash bins overflow them. Those water bottles are a problem. Why? Because only one out of five bottles actually makes it to a recycling bin. Plastic bottles take centuries to decompose and if they are incinerated, toxic byproducts, such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals, are releasing into the atmosphere. The rest are littered on our streets or over filing our landfills. They degrade our landscape and damage our environment. In addition the plastic water bottles are not biodegradable that is, they don’t decay. They remain as trash a hundreds of years.

Water bottles are a staple in today’s society. In his article, “Costly water: Bottled and Sold: The History Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water,” author Martin W. Lewis quotes Peter H. Gleick when he says that, “Consumers buy bottled water for four main reasons: safety, taste, style, and convenience,” and he’s absolutely right (Par. 9). Bottled water is cleaner, healthier, and more convenient than tap water. More people are more apt to grab a bottle of water on the go, rather than fill a reusable bottle from the sink. It’s just easy. At least, that’s what we are led to believe. Bottled water is constantly in battle with its not-so-lavish counterpart, tap water. Some will even argue that the benefits of bottled water alone outweigh the cost. They, however, do not. The fact is, water bottles have plagued society for years and have become a growing menace to our environment and our people.

Background and Audience Relevance: Everyone including newborn babies uses Plastic bottles. According to Petz. S (2009, October 15) Science, Clean Water “Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80% end up in a landfill, even though recycling programs exist. ”. Which takes an impact to the plastic trash that travels to what is now a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. We are the reason for the global warning, leak of chemicals in our food and water supplies. Yes, water bottles do make it easier for us to carry around but what we don’t know if that our pocket is paying the price of pollution leading to health issues.

Schools all across the nation have been notoriously known for banning a ridiculous ammount of things; one of whixh that is now being considered is water. Belive it or not many schools are now thinking about banning bottled water. The articals ¨Goodbye Bottled Water?¨ ,by Gail Hennessey, and ¨Statement from the Internation Bottled Water Association¨ ,by the IBWA, give very different veiws on this topic. Our schools shoulnt not ban bottled water for many reason such as our rights, our health, and tap water contamination.

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

“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 years. Besides the long decomposition rate, water bottles are the cause of several more environmental issues. Overfilling landfills, health hazards caused by refilling, and the economic stresses due to the constant and inconvenient repurchasing are just a few of the negatives water bottles have on us. These plastic pollutants are doing more harm to both the environment and their users than good.

“Myth:Bottled water is not as regulated as well regulated as tap water. Fact:the FDA controlling the safety and quality of bottled water must be as good as the EPA regulations which controls tap water” (Bottled Water Question and Answer). Also, bottled water has lower levels of sodium, which helps many people with health conditions. Another cool fact is bottled water has an “indefinite shelf life”(Bottled Water Maters), meaning if the bottled water were to stay unopened and in a cool spot it is good to go for a long time. Additionally bottled water companies are also a major asset to our economy, the companies make and sell the bottled water employed about 137,000 Americans and pay them about $6.3 billion in wages and benefits. Another good thing about water bottles is it can be donated from big companies, such as Walmart. Walmart has donated 6.5 billion bottles of water to the school kids of Flint, MI (Adamczyk). Many people do not realize how wonderful bottled water really is, bottled water can be transported easily, bottled water can also be used in many situations, also bottled water can

Background: Trash continues to increase, as the world continues to last. Easy disposable products such as water bottles and soda cans has led to increasing amount of pollution around the world.

Background: Trash continues to increase, as the world continues to last. Easy disposable products such as water bottles and soda cans has led to increasing amount of pollution around the world.

Plastic bottles are one of the most common litter issues. Plastic bottles litter the land and waters of Earth. More than half a billion bottles of water are purchased in the U.S. every week, this is enough to circle the globe five times. Oil is used to make plastic bottles and ship them across the world. Enough oil is used making plastic bottles each year to fuel one million cars. Then, eighty percent of the bottles end up in landfills where they sit for thousands of years. Some of the bottles we think are being recycled are actually just being shipped to other countries and thrown in their backyards (“The Story”). By reducing the amount of plastic bottles used, this would clean up our environment and preserve our Earth.