The Problem with Plastic Water Bottles

Bear a plastic water bottle to your own hazard; the sway of social perspective is turning against you. From top rating documentaries, to the written word and campaigns, the hottest debate in our lives is the terror that is bottled water and the waste of resources that the industry forces.

The producing, moving and waste of water in petrochemical plastic bottles requires large amounts of water along with energy, and generates ridiculous measures of greenhouse gases and waste.

Director of the upcoming documentary ‘Tapped: get off the bottle’ Stephanie Soechtig says “1500 water bottles end up in landfill every second – that’s 30 million water bottles a day! We wanted to show people just how much waste is generated by bottled water.” The team of Tapped are plugging the show with an across-America roadshow, collecting money from donors to reduce their water bottle numbers and exchanging their old plastic water bottle for a reusable stainless steel bottle. Download Tapped from Amazon or iTunes.

Another short film ‘The Story of Bottled Water’ was released on World Water Day in March. From the pen of Annie Leonard of the acclaimed ‘The Story of Stuff’, this animation shows the strategy that is behind convincing Americans into buying around half a billion bottles of water a week, as opposed to a few cents cost for clean tap water. Find this animation on You Tube.

Through her book ‘Bottlemania’, writer Elizabeth Royte investigates one of the most massive marketing cons of our century and demands a sudden environmental wakeup call. She explores the red flags we must come to deal with. Who has ownership of the water distribution? What will happen when a bottled-water factory holds your town’s source? Is the water that comes from the tap completely safe? What is really the environmental footprint of production, transportation and waste of one plastic water bottle?

Politicians all around the globe are acknowledging that they must do something – especially when the institutions in which they debate are huge consumers of bottled water. How often do we observe a politician at a conference drinking from a water bottle. They can drink from a water glass in Parliament House.

Leslie Samuelrich of Corporate Accountability International, said “Cities and states are spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on bottled water, and that’s not to mention what’s spent to deal with all the plastic bottles that are thrown out.”

In July 2009, the NSW rural town of Bundanoon became the first place around Australia to prohibited the retail of bottled water. Around 60 cities in the States and a handful of cities in Canada and the UK have lately prevented spending taxpayer money on bottled water.

No doubt this issue will be discussed come World Water Week 2010 from September 5 to 11 in Stockholm, Sweden, the annual meeting for the world’s most urgent water-related dilemmas.

Article written by Tracey Bailey, founder of Biome Eco Stores. For more information about eco-friendly water bottle choices, visit Biome Eco Stores today.