Walk down any street or down any hallway, store aisle, beach, and everywhere you look, you will find someone drinking a bottle of water. Now, walk down any street again, and this time look not to the pedestrians, but to the ditches, trash cans, middle of the road, where the complete disregard for simple sanitation of our roads causes many of the aforementioned plastic bottles to wind up.
The number of plastic bottles bought, consumed, and discarded every year by America alone totals up to a staggering 28.9 billion. Not to mention the other countries around the globe that consume bottled water. Eighty percent of those bottles end up in landfills, rivers, and the ocean. But why are water bottles so bad?
Water bottles are made of a compound called Polyethylene terephthalate or PET. PET plastic is almost unanimously used in bottles because it is clear and flexible, thus making the bottle more convenient to carry. While there is nothing bad about convenience, the effects of PET have been shown to be less than healthy.
I’m not going to elaborate on the chemistry behind PET or plastics in general, but have you ever stopped to think that you might be drinking water with plastic leeched into it? In fact, several studies tested bottled water that has been in bottles for various harmful chemicals including benzene, a hydrocarbon known to cause cancer. Other chemicals include Bisphenol-A, or BPA, a chemical banned for use in baby bottles because of its ability to mimic the hormone of estrogen.
Almost all of the water in bottles bought locally is stolen from the municipal water supplies. Here in Jacksonville the Nestle plant is doing exactly that, pumping water from our local supplies and then reselling it at a price of almost four dollars per gallon when you could get it for free.
Some make the argument that buying bottled water is best for its convenience. Similarly, carrying a reusable container filled from faucets costs a fraction of the price is also convenient and the water can be taken for free, as opposed to paying for a product that in the end is an inconvenience on the community, the environment, and the individual.
So between the price, the negative health benefits, and the effects on the environment, why are we still buying bottled water?