Bottled water typically costs about 10,000 times the cost of tap / filtered water, so by using your own mug instead of buying one individual, disposable plastic bottle every day, you could save $500 a year. Besides contributing 365 more bottles to our landfills where they take 1,000 years to decompose, you could also prevent some serious health risks. Chemicals that leach from the plastics have proven to cause birth defects, low sperm counts and an increase in testicular cancer. So for your own and your children’s health, if you are going to buy water, look for a glass or steel bottle that you can reuse.
Take Action / Next Steps
Ready to switch to a reuseable water bottle? Sign up for the goal on ecomii Action and find other ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Read more about the stylish bottles on the market here.
Buy a bottle today at a local retailer or online vendor, such as Amazon.
Did you know that
bottled water is not necessarily purer than tap water?
Studies have shown that bottled water is no better
than tap water, and sometimes worse due to fewer regulations on bottled water than tap water. In the U.S., public water is
regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requires multiple daily tests for bacteria and makes results
available to the public. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water, only requires weekly testing and
does not share its findings with the EPA or the public, according to the New York Times.
Did you know that plastic water
bottles are highly toxic?
Phthalates, found in plastics of water bottles, are highly toxic to humans. Studies
from the Centers for Disease Control have linked phthalates with declining sperm counts, birth defects, and increase in
testicular cancer.
Did you know that Americans send 38
billion water bottles to the landfills each year?
Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last
year; however, the U.S.'s recycling rate for plastic is only 23%, which means 38 billion water bottles—more than $1
billion worth of plastic—are wasted each year, according to the Container Recycling
Institute.
Did you know that it takes plastic water bottles 1,000 years to
biodegrade?
Did you know that 1.5 billion gallons of fuel are used to transport bottled water
each year?
