How Bottled Water Affects the Environment

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Although bottled water is considered to be healthier than regular tap water, many times it is not the case. While people believe that buying bottled water is better than drinking tap water, the truth is that it can cause more harm than good when considering the environmental part. The plastic used in manufacturing the bottles can cause severe damage to the environment.

    • The main concern regarding bottled water is the effect the plastic has on the environment once it starts degrading. In few cases, the bottles are collected in proper recycling stations that make sure they don’t get into the environment to cause harm. In the rest of the cases, the bottles end up in the local landfill where they sit until they degrade, which doesn’t happen fast. A single bottle takes over 1,000 years to bio-degrade, meaning it will stay in the soil or in the water it reaches for 1,000 before disappearing. Over 80% of the single-use water bottles in the US become garbage without being taken to proper recycling stations.
    • Recycling is also a complex issue because not every bottle made of plastic can be recycled. Only PET bottles can be recycled and the rest are sent to the recycle bin. This is extremely harmful to the environment as the rest of the bottles that can’t be recycled are made of a very toxic plastic.
    • The bottles the water is packaged in are made of oil and the worst part is that it takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to make all the bottles required for bottling the water drank in the US. This huge amount of oil exceeds the amount needed to power 100,000 homes for one year, not including the fossil fuel and emissions costs of greenhouse gasses required to transport the bottled water.
    • Studies say that 3 liters of water are used to package 1 liter of bottled water, which is a huge waste of water. If people would stop buying bottled water, the water waste will decrease significantly and the impact on the environment will be smaller.

These being said, you should be more aware of how bottled water affects the environment and you should look for more convenient ways to solve the dirty tap water issue. Installing a whole home water filtration system is a better and safer solution to improve the quality of the water you drink. This method will help you drink cleaner and healthier water without any side effects and collateral damage that involve our environment.

A whole home water filtration system will provide you with clean drinking water, but also with pure bathing water, as this system filters all the water in your home. There are also cheaper systems that only filter the water from one tap. However, it is best to buy a whole house system, since dangerous tap water contaminants such as chlorine ca also be absorbed through your pores when you take a hot bath.