The Problems with Bottled Water Introduction Americans live in a consumer society where majority of

One of the biggest harms to the world is pollution caused by people. Most of the plastic materials used by people are left to pollute. Bottled water is one of the biggest plastic materials produced. Some people say that bottled water is safer, convenient, and provide jobs to workers in many ways. The reasons for buying bottled water differ. Some people buy bottled water because they don’t like the taste or smell of tap water, while others on the other hand buy it because of health concerns with water contamination. Pollution is one of the biggest problems hurting the environment today, and water bottles that are thrown out after each one-time use, contribute greatly to its increasing buildup. Bottled water is not only expensive to us, but also to the environment. Bottled water is hurting the economy, harming human lives, and damaging 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

Water is essential to life, scientific fact, not debatable (Tracy). More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly (Olsen). Many drink or buy bottled water simply because they believe it is of better quality, cleaner, and better tasting. On the contrary, several individuals do not know the cons of drinking bottled water. Today, there are many misconceptions and myths about bottled water. Many people are uneducated about what goes into our bottles and how it not only affects us but also our environment. In the article “The New Oil” by Jeneen Interlandi and Ryan Tracy they discuss the issues that have to do with water and the privatization of it. They believe there is a crisis and something has to be done. Due to the cost, pollution, shortage, and health issues, bottled water should be outlawed. Water should not be controlled by water bottle companies and should not be allowed to be sold in plastic bottles.

Michael Hiltzik’s first section of the article is especially important for individuals to know about. I agree 100% with his opinion on bottle water. There are many environmental dangers and unnecessary expenses for bottled water. Countless people don’t discard of their bottled waters in the recycling or trash bin. Eventually, these plastic dangers end up in the ocean and may put marine life in jeopardy.

From helping the daily jogger stay hydrated during a run to that mom and family trying to stay hydrated at the amusement park, bottled water has had a lot of good to it. However do those goods outweigh the bad? In “Bottled Water: Friend or Foe?” by Christopher Castillo, Diana Goettsch, Angela Reid, and Catherine Sterling argue bottled water are our worst enemy, reasons being the bottle itself has harming chemicals within it which we are drinking, bottled water damages our environment, and lastly we are spending more on bottled water when we have the same water coming from our sinks.

According to a four-year, detailed investigation to evaluate the quality and safety of bottled water conducted by an environmental advocacy group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), traces of various chemicals (THMs such as chloroform and BDCM, both probable human carcinogens) and arsenic were discovered in high levels. Another chemical found in PET plastic bottles is antimony that is harmless in small doses but in larger doses can cause nausea, vomiting, and death. (Ban the Bottle, 2014) A senior scientist at the NRDC, Dr. Gina Solomon told The New York Times that “there is no reason to believe that bottled water is safer than tap water.” (Ban the Bottle, 2014) Public water in the U.S. is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because they require numerous tests for bacteria daily which are available to the public. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water and only require tests on a weekly basis and does not share their discoveries with neither the public nor EPA. (Ban the Bottle,

Making all the plastic for those bottles uses 17 million barrels of crude oil annually. That is the equivalent to the fuel needed to keep 1 million vehicles on the road for 12 months so why are so many people drinking bottled waters? They believe that they are making a healthy choice. But the truth is that tap water is just as safe, often safer than bottled water. In fact, some bottled water is

Billions of gallons of bottled water are consumed in the United States every year. Many Americans choose bottled water for its convenience and say that the taste is much better than tap water. They say tap water is flat and tasteless. Some argue that the cost of bottled water far exceeds the cost of tap water. One study showed that one bottled water per day would cost the consumer $365 per year while the same amount of tap water would cost ten cents. While bottled water is more expensive, it provides over 130,000 jobs resulting in over six billion dollars in salaries for american workers “Bottled Water Matters.” In the article, “ Bad To The Last Drop,” Tom Standage says that bottled water is too expensive and encourages people to stop buying bottled water and give the money to charity. In the article “ In Defense of Bottled Water,” Thomas J. Lauria says that eliminating bottled water would have the unintended consequence of driving people to choose more unhealthy beverages which have thicker plastic bottles and would be worse on the environment. He also says that bottled water is an important choice in situations where there is a lack of tap water or concern about water

According to the article “cision” “Nestle Waters North America Donates more than 1 million bottles of water to hurricane Harvey Relief.” That was only a portion of how much bottled water was donated to hurricane harvey survivors and bottled water isn’t just for natural disaster survivors. So the next time you think of getting rid of bottled water think of all the people whose lives you could save. Don’t ban bottled water.

In 2004, Americans, on average, drank 24 gallons of bottled water, making it second only to carbonated soft drinks in popularity (Standage). In the article “Plastic Water Bottles Causing Flood or Harm to the Environment,” the Earth Policy Institute factors the energy used to pump, process, transport, and refrigerate bottled water as over 50 million barrels of oil every year (Schriever). It’s absurd that so many resources are used to make plastic bottles which are not necessary at all. Bottled water does allow us to drink water out of it but in reality bottled water is very bad for

In fact 22% of test water bottle brands had chemical contaminants higher than the state limit (ABC, 1). So why do Americans think bottled water is so great? Maybe it’s because of how much companies advertise the product, advertising expenses for bottled water totaled $61 million in 2012 ("International Bottled Water Association" 1). Whatever the reason may be, bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the U.S.A., and more and more bottles of water are being produced and distributed this very second.

“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.

Doctors are always telling us to drink more water to improve our health, but what if that water is contaminated by a potentially toxic chemical? When it comes to our drinking water in America, compared to other countries around the world, there is usually no concern in becoming ill after consuming a nice, big glass of tap water. The reason you don’t question the quality is because of the regulations in place by US Environmental protection Agency (EPA) for public drinking water. But now we are foreseeing issues with our drinking water due to chemicals used in items such as food packaging materials (such as pizza boxes and popcorn bags), fabrics, nonstick cooking pans and firefighting foams (Scutti). As a result of their inhabitance, the chemicals

Have you ever had any concerns about bottled water? Do you think that bottled water consumption should be banned? Bottled water is water packed in plastic containers and sold for human consumption (Health Canada, 2013). Currently, the amount of bottled water consumed has increased considerably since many people feel it is safer drinking bottled water than tap water (Parent and Wrong, 2014). According to The Statistics Portal, the global sale of bottled water took a leap from 161, 589 to 181, 608 liters from 2009 to 2011. Only in the United States, each American citizen consumed around 32 gallons of bottled water in 2013, thus meaning an equivalent growth of 15, 94% over 2009 (The Statistics Portal, 2014). In fact, due to good portability, bottled water has been helpful in both simple and complex situations such as daily exercises and natural disasters. Even though having those few considerable advantages, bottled water still have been less beneficial; especially due to the negative impacts in the socio-economic, health and environmental fields.

Water bottles have become a staple in American life. Often times we will buy a bottle with lunch because it is healthier than the advertised alternative, soda. In reality, while water bottles may be healthier than soda, they can cause the same, if not more, damage in the long term. The plastic used for water and soda bottles alike have drastic effects on both human health and the environment but water bottles are worse because they are a completely unnecessary product. In America a majority of citizens have access to clean tap water which they neglect to use for various reasons, despite it potentially being safer. Water bottles, despite what companies have convinced you to think, are actually terrible for the environment and can have adverse health effects.