Water Drinks : The Negative Effects Of Plastic Water Bottles

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!

Thesis: Plastic water bottles were created to make our life easier; however the pollution it has made has linked to cancer and chemicals not known fifty years ago.

The cycle for producing bottle water changes the four chemicals essential for life because the production and transportation of the bottle water releases tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Humans intervene during by burning the fossil fuels (Bousted, 2005). Also, oil is a nonrenewable resource and takes 17 million barrels of crude oil to meet the demand for bottled waters in America alone. The amount of plastic from bottled water continues to increase in the space it takes up in landfills. This is because it takes over 1000 years to biodegrade. To intervene, communities have tried to become much more involved in recycling glasses, plastics, and aluminums. This helps to free up space in our local landfills.

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 littered on the coasts of waterways and the side of the road more often than they make it to a recycle bin. The difference between throwing an apple on the ground and throwing a disposable water bottle on the ground is that plastic is impossibly hard to decompose. Plastic in the natural environment takes 450 years to decompose, and can take up to 1000 years in a landfill” (Reise). Schools should require students to bring their own reusable water bottles and schools should stop selling plastic bottles. There are many benefits to reusable water bottles including being better for one’s health, not buying plastic bottles saves money, and helps 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

Many of people have not realized that the creation of bottled water affects our environment. The production of water bottles requires a large amount of water plus the water that is needed to fill the bottle. Considering there is a shortage of water in several places, water should be better handled and not wasted on plastic bottle making. Of the eighty million single serve bottles of water consumed daily, thirty million ends up in landfills (Soechtig, 2009 qtd. in “Bottled Water: The Risks to Our Health, Our

One big problem with water bottle is, well the bottle. Plastic pollution is enormous in the marine environment, the plastic is distributed across all oceans because plastic photodegrades and it disperse in the ocean as little particles. Small animals eat this particles and get poisoned and it pass up to the food chain, which probably end up with us. It is estimated that 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighting 268940 tons are currently floating at sea (Eriksen).

Unfortunately, the negative effects posed by the bottles far outweigh the positives. If PET bottles are thrown away and made into a landfill instead of being recycled properly, it can take up to one thousand years for a bottle to fully disintegrate, thus leaving 3 billion pounds of plastic to sit and to potentially harm the wildlife or the geology of the area. The century of deterioration allows plenty of time for animals to accidentally ingest the bottle, or for the chemicals within the plastic to leach out into our own water sources. Furthermore, recycled pellets and fresh oil are two further ingredients which go into the manufacture of plastic bottles, using and wasting millions of barrels of oil a

Concerns about environmental pollution caused by bottled water vs. tap water are at an all time high. For instance, the author states “[Bottled water companies] are trashing the environment all along the product’s life cycle” (Leonard 2). The author further explains that this can be done through “extractions and production” of the water bottles, more energy to “ship” the product, then the used bottles “sit in landfills...where they are burned, releasing toxic pollution” (Leonard 2). One can conclude that this article recognises this problem and is strictly against the production of water bottles. On the other hand, water bottle bans in some areas have prompted for reusable water bottles. On author states, “especially aluminum and stainless steel varieties… ‘BPA-free’ products” (Karlstrom and Dell’Amore 1-2). These reusable water bottles save

Everyday people visit grocery stores where the majority of products sold are liquids wrapped in plastic. The top sold item in supermarkets today is water. Many people believe that drinking bottled water in grocery stores is safer than drinking tap water, and as a result, plastic is damaging our animal life and oceans. These plastic bottles are often stored in open face refrigerators, freezers and non refrigerated aisles. Unfortunately plastic, after manufactured with coal, is simply used once then thrown away. It is within our reach to educate the general public on more viable resources for obtaining drinking water rather than encourage

Many different resources are used when PET is manufactured. Oil has a big part in the production of plastic. Over 17 million barrels of oil are used yearly. The amount of oil required to make each bottle is about 25% of its capacity. This is a waste of resource because this oil is not a renewable resource. In addition, when bottles are manufactured about 2.5 million tons of Carbon Dioxide is released into the atmosphere yearly. In the long run, this will have a great impact on our environment. Bottled water is not only bad for the environment but also human beings and their health. When water is left in the plastic container for more than 10 weeks, chemicals from the plastic can leach into the water. This is bad for humans as these toxins

The United States is constantly saying to go green. "Going green means to pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles” (Going Green). There are a variety ways that people can go green. One specific way they can do this is by not using plastic water bottles. Bottled water is a worldwide item used in a person’s everyday life. It is so commonly used even though it is far more costly than filtered water or tap water, and even sometimes gasoline. Bottled water has a significant impact on the environment, as well as the health of individuals. It is important to understand what exactly the impact of bottled water has on the universe today. People try and say that bottled water is safer, more convenient, and helps provide employment in numerous ways. Bottled water may be purer than water from the tap, but it comes with a price. It may employ people, but in comparison to the price of manufacturing and selling water bottles, it is a small amount. Plastic water bottles are prohibiting the United States from going green by negatively destructing our environment, hurting the economy and harming human lives.

“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.

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