Facts about Bottled Water

We created the student-inspired “One Earth. One Bottle” campaign to join the emerging movement to help the planet by agreeing to drink tap water instead of bottled water whenever possible. These are some of the reasons why:

Bottled water is wasteful.

• Americans send about 38 billion water bottles a year to landfills. Considering more than 24 million gallons of oil — enough to fuel 30,000 cars for a year — are required to produce just one billion bottles, the environmental impact of plastic bottle waste is truly staggering.
• The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes.
• In 2006, the average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38.1.
• Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles in 2006. The U.S.'s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles — more than $1 billion worth of plastic — are wasted each year.

Tap water is just as good – maybe better.

• Pepsi (Aquafina) and Coca-Cola (Dasani) own nearly a quarter of the U.S. bottled water market. Both use bottled, purified municipal water.
• Public water in the U.S. is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, which requires multiple daily tests for bacteria and makes results available to the public. Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which requires only weekly testing and does not share its findings with the EPA or the public.
• There are growing worries about the possible adverse physiological impact of using plastic containers.

Sources:

The Earth Policy Institute
The New York Times
P.O.V’s Borders
Thailand Energy Policy & Planning Office