Living Green by Boycotting Plastic Water Bottles

I'm sure by now many are aware that purchasing single use bottled water is a faux paux when living green, but a waste of money as well. In fact, in terms of money alone it will cost you 1,000 times more to buy a gallon of bottled water than to drink it out of the tap. But the greater concern should be the effect these plastic bottles have on the environment. Those PET bottles are made out of oil, that's right folks the same king that goes into your cars, and the oil content used to manufacture 50 billion of these bottles is the same amount it would take to then power 1 million cars through the course of a year; 1 1/2 million bottles of oil. Now also keep in mind that that amount doesn't even include the additional waste and emissions that then come in the way of keeping these plants producing and then shipping those bottles to you.

The elements in these PET plastic water bottles are also going to leak into your liquids should you choose to reuse them. Many people, and myself included, are guilty of this living green sin by figuring that they'll simply use the bottle again by refilling it and then are at least doing a bit in the way of recycling. Yet this is hazardous to your health because over time the oil and other toxins seep out of the bottle and then into the water, that is then passed to you. So these bottles are then only to be used once and then chucked into the trash to be among the growing landfills for up to 1,000 years.

Okay, okay well it is not always possible to avoid these plastic water bottles at all costs, but you can be better at living green by at least recycling the ones you do use. If just 1 PET bottle makes it into the recycling bin instead of the garbage, that is a step in the right direction; but if a culmination of 1 ton of this plastic then is placed into those recycling bins that will equate to saving the amount of 2,000 pounds of oil. It further means that it saves the same amount of energy consumed annually by two people.

Now if you are lucky enough to live in a place that drinking water straight from the tap is safe to do so, then you may be already set. If you are out on the go, buy a water bottle that is made to be refilled, and then you can stay hydrated while out and about (I'm a runner and I drink like a fish, so that's what I do). Yet if the state of your water isn't safe or it has a taste you simply can't stand you should opt for a water filter. At the same time, many of these filters are made out of plastic themselves and if not recycled will wind up in the dump; however if you compare that to the 60 million PET bottles making their way to land fills each day across the US it is a much better route to go if it cuts back you purchasing a one time use plastic water bottle. So in the end, in our efforts to be living green, pass on that PET bottle and hit the tap instead!