Going back to the States is less of a culture shock than it used to be, but I still find parts baffling and sometimes overwhelming.I have a very clear memory of going to the grocery store about 12 years ago to pick up some Honey Nut Cheerios as a treat for the boys. Looking for the cereal aisle I happened upon shelves and shelves of water. Water! I just stood there and stared.
I could not believe that people who lived in a country with wonderful tap water would buy that much water in plastic bottles!
Since then I have learned how damaging all those water bottles are: not to mention, how expensive they are!
The United States, a nation of good, clean tap water* buys more bottled water per capita than any other place in the world: 167 bottles per year....50 billion plastic water bottles! And only about 23% of those bottles are recycled, which means about 38 billion plastic water bottles were wasted. 200 million tons of plastic water bottles are in the land fills waiting the 1,000 years to bio-degrade. If incinerated, their fumes are toxic.
As damaging as that is, it doesn't stop there by a long shot:
- 17 MILLION barrels of oil are used annually to make the U.S. consumption of plastic bottled water...enough to fuel 1.3 million cars or power 190,000 homes for a year!
- Those 17 million barrels do not include the fuel needed to transport the bottles of water to market, to home, to the dump or recycling plant.
- It is estimated that it takes about 3 liters of water just to bottle 1 liter of water!
- Half of all bottled water is tap water.
- Tap water is more regulated than bottled water, so it is safer.
- Drinking 8 glasses of water a day using tap water costs an average of $0.49/year while drinking that much bottled water would cost on average $1,400! Save the money. Hey! Give it to the poor!
This is an easy one. If you drink bottled water, quit. Buy a bottle of your own and fill it up at home and refill it at work, in the gym, at rest areas,...well, you get the picture. If you don't like the taste of your water, buy a filter. So much of conserving, recycling, reusing has effort. THIS actually takes less effort. No shopping and hauling bottles of water. Easy-Peazy! And encourage others to do the same.
-Kathleen
*eliminating Flint, Michigan, and wells damaged by fracking
