Finding Alternatives to Plastic Water Bottles

Environmental activists are encouraging people to find alternatives to bottled water — and water bottles. Most of the price of a bottle of water goes for its bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing and profit. Transporting bottled water by boat, truck and train involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. More than 5 trillion gallons of bottled water is shipped internationally each year. Just supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, according to the Container Recycling Institute.

The message is clear: Bottled water is “good” water, as opposed to that nasty, unsafe stuff that comes out of the tap. But in most cases tap water adheres to stricter purity standards than bottled water, whose source—far from a mountain spring—can be wells underneath industrial facilities. Indeed, 40 percent of bottled water began life as, well, tap water.

Most disposable water bottles (e.g. – Evian, Dasani, Aquafina, etc.) are made of PET plastic. According to the American Recycling Institute, only 14% of these bottles are recycled. Most of the PET bottles end up in litter or trash where they can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, filling our landfills and injuring wildlife.

PET is a petroleum-based plastic. Manufacturing and transporting bottled water (especially from distant countries such as France and Fiji) unnecessarily burns fossil fuels – approximately 1.5 million barrels per year according to the NRDC.

Does using a reusable water bottle make sense financially?

Yes, dollars and sense! The EPA strictly regulates the quality of tap water and according to the NRDC, bottled water is neither purer nor safer than tap water in most communities. In fact, many of the leading bottled water brands (Aquafina, Dasani, etc.) are sourced from municipal tap water. Assuming you drink 1 liter per day, you'd spend $500-$1,000 in bottled water a year.

Check out these link for getting your own safe reusable water bottle

Klean Kanteen: www.kleankanteen.com/



Swiss Engineered Water Bottles: http://www.mysigg.com/



Thermos: http://www.thermos.com/



Voss: http://www.vosswater.com/



for babies Born free: http://www.newbornfree.com/