Banish the Bottle
Mariam Damra
Water Bottles
You know that water bottle you just bought? Did you ever think that 1 small bottle could cause such major environmental issues? Did you even know of all the harsh chemicals that can harm you in this 1 bottle? You probably didn't know huh? Well I'm here to tell you about a greener version of drinking that water and hopefully banishing that bottle!
The Greener Way
Now I'm sure we've all seen these bottles before, those are the greener way to drink your water! Although, yes they are made of plastic these are reusable, weren't made with the same harsh chemicals, and are as potable as bottled water. Bottled water is 10,000 times more expensive than just regular tap water, so why waste hundreds of dollars every year for bottled water when you can just buy one of these babies for $10 and use it for multiple years.
If your that person who's reading this and is like "but eww tap water isn't filtered!" well I bet you didn't know that 40% of water companies use municipal water (a.k.a tap water). But hey, I have your solution, filtered pitchers! Buy one of those and your water is 10 times cleaner than any bottled water! If you don't have the time just buy a filtered water bottle!
What about how easy it is to take a case of water bottles and throw them in the car for those long car trips?
Well ever considered one of these? Fill it up with your new filtered pitcher! Now after years of using your greener product what do you do with it? Well Brita® recycles all they're products, which means once that pitcher or jug just is too old you can just drop it off at a drop off area or mail it back to them! Bet your questioning yourself now huh?
How does this affect you?
Well besides the fact that you save hundreds every year, your health is at stake when drinking bottled water! 22% of tested bottled water contained chemical contaminants at levels above strict health limits and most plastic bottles contain a chemical called bisphenol-A (BPA) which can eventually leach into your water! Lucky for you those Nalgene bottles up there are BPA-free and since your filling it up with your own filtered water theres nothing to worry about. Tests found traces of antimony (SB), a chemical used in the making of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in bottles, leading to dizziness, nausea, and poisoning!
What about the environment?
Well this is where the bottled water sucks the most because everything about is wrong, the container, the production process and the disposal! 17 million oil barrels are used for the making of these bottles. That can power 1 million cars for a year! And with all these water bottles that have to be transported to a different area, all of these gases contribute greatly to greenhouse gases. Which basically means more pollution in the air...climate change...warming of the globe...GLOBAL WARMING! Also, 1 in 5 water bottles are actually recycled! So what happens to the other 4 you ask? They contribute to the 3 billion pounds of waste from other bottles! So what about the greener way? Well, the making of them is almost the same but instead of you driving and burning fuels to get the water you can simply use your tap water! Also these products can all be recycled into new products after years of use! Ever think that 1 bottle could cause global warming?
So what now?
Well I propose to banishing the bottle completely. Instead of stores selling bottles they can have little taps/fountains where you can just go and refill the your reusable bottles. Until we banish bottles, we can start putting more recycling bins on streets and such just like trash cans and little signs for people to remember that recycling that 1 bottle makes a huge difference!
Totally portable
For those busy bee's this won't delay you at all, it actually might save you some time!
Packs more
For our outdoorsmen, you can pack more water with this baby.
Filtered
For our germaphobes, don't you fear, the filter is here.