Over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S.
The bulk of the plastic bottles that get trashed in the U.S. end up being added to the bulk wastage that gets buried onto the Earth. Maybe these bottles will end up being retrieved in a future date many thousands of years later as evidence of what human beings were up to in the eras that we currently are living through. These future generations will be confused if and when they work out that over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S. They will be at a loss to understand as to what kind of situation would have engendered the use of bottles on such a large scale. It would be baffling for them to decipher the environmental situation and pollution effects over 2000 years later.
Is it cheap to buy bottled water?
This is one of the questions that arise in any one’s mind. Why would people be buying and throwing away such a large number of bottles away. Future generations might feel that plastic might have been freely available in the world, just like how sand or oxygen. They would think that this must have been the case if over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S. So were they cheap? Are they cheap is the question for us to ponder in the here and now! It is surely not too tough a question to consider as the costs of tap water are considerable lower. With the coldest water bottle available on hand, you have the opportunity to steer clear of this unexplainable behavior that we in the U.S. are guilty of. Of course, the rest of the world too is doing exactly the same. But, we seem to be outdoing the rest of the world in terms of the numbers of bottles that go into the trash can every single day.
So what do we do with all those bottles
As we saw previously, over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S. and 80 percent of that goes into landfills or wherever the litter in your society gets packed into or shoved into. Looking into more numbers on this, the annual expenditure of oil that is necessitated for the manufacture of this many number of plastic water bottles is equally mind boggling at about 15 million barrels of oil. That is about 15 percent of the entire amount of oil production on a single day around the globe.
What are we doing in our quest for ease and comfort
Surely, there is nothing else that we are doing with such a major footprint on the globe. Sure, the fossil fuels that we end up burning each day is causing harm to the health of the environment. But, there are ways to counteract this burning of fossil fuel. We might do that by planting more trees. But, when five out of every six water bottles that is consumed in the U.S. ends up in a landfill, we really have a serious problem out there. Of course, cold water is good for the body and we need to be drinking it every once in a while on an hourly basis. But, is there no other alternative to buying a plastic water bottle and then throwing it out to remain a hidden object that will be investigated by future generations many thousands of years hence. Sure, there is! And it is a stainless steel bottle that retains the temperature of the water for up to 24 hours. With such a great alternative available, and with some of the most exquisite features that you can think of, we need to be dropping the habit of using and throwing plastic water bottles. As over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S., it is really the need of the hour to address this issue right away.
What does all this plastic do over the years?
While it will be harmful to the land over the years with the land turning useless in all probability, imagine what can happen if this plastic makes its way onto the water table or gets transferred into the water bodies. Would you like your favorite water body to be having a plastic layer underneath? Would you like water that has been received from a plasticized water body or would you want water that has the goodness of the Earth as its source. Of course, recycling is one way of making best use of all of this plastic. But, it has not been possible to get that done. And even if recycled, you only have more and more plastic on our hands.
How many water bottles have we put into storage into the Earth?
While over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S., let us take an average of 10 million water bottles for a calculation of the numbers accumulated over the last two decades. That is about 73 billion water bottles. Even if we take out 20 percent as having been recycled, we have close to 60 billion water bottles down there somewhere in Mother Earth’s bosom and each day we and almost every one of us here in the U.S. piling onto this even more.
A good habit but at a huge cost
Imagine that you are doing something that is supposedly beneficial for your body but unknown to you, it has been causing you huge detriment. This is what has happened with our feel-good quest to drink water. It is one of the simplest yet one of the best things we do to our bodies and minds. But, have we ever thought of what happens with that bottle that we throw away each time we drink from a plastic bottle to enjoy that unparalleled cold liquid as it makes it way from our mouths and down our throat. Yes, we love our water cold and we love our water fresh. But, don’t we have any other way to meet this fundamental need? Stainless steel is the way out to address this unquenchable need that is quenched fully only by the coldest and freshest water that we can get our hands on. When we have a bottle of the highest quality and at something that can range from $20 or slightly more based on quantity, we do not incur any cost ourselves nor does the environment have to bear the cost of the plastic. This cost that is levied by the plastic can be unquantified. It is something that is quite monumental. Remember that it takes a thousand years for that plastic to decompose and break down to be one with the environment.
Not that good a habit actually!
While we assume that plastic water bottles contain the cleanest water, we cannot say that it is a 100 percent safe. There is always the problem of some kind of contaminant being a part of the manufacturing process, both of the water and of the plastic itself. When you have something being manufactured in such huge quantities as is occurring when over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S., you can expect a miniscule level of contamination at the very least. And, if the bottles are not bought by you right away after manufacture, you might be having problems with the leeching of the plastic into the water. This could be poisonous to your system. Do you want to be checking and rechecking the manufacturing date of your plastic water bottle, or would you want to just get the cleanest water bottle from your home tap into a perfectly engineered stainless steel water bottle and take it wherever you may go?
The problem component of plastic
These are compounds phthalates. These are the ingredients that give plastic the resilience and flexibility that makes it a very convenient material. They are derived from an acid called phthalic acid. It is a dicarboxylic acid. That means it has two groups of the formula COOH. An important aspect of these materials is that are made out of chemical bonds which are not prone to be broken down in any other chemical reaction. This is what provides them with their unbreakable aspect. While this aspect is beneficial in using the phthalate-added plastic as a packaging material, the same aspect goes against us and the environment in the long run as it tends to be completely retaining of its original characteristics for quite a long time. While phthalates themselves are tough to break down, the same cannot be said of the combinational plastic which comprises of these phthalates. Hence, when you have water bottles with water inside for a long period, you might get these phthalates to leech out of the plastic and into the water.
While phthalates can also be found milk and butter, plastic-based phthalates represent an artificial input into your system. Hence, we have to keep note that this is a possibility if we buy water bottles that have had a lot of their shelf life expended on the shelves themselves. Phthalates have been barred from inclusion in the manufacture of toys for children in Europe. The limit that has been placed for their input into toys is 0.1 percent of the plastic component. This limit has been in place in Europe since 1999. The same has been in place in the U.S. since 2008 for input into children’s toys. The exact chemicals that have been barred are diethylhexyl phthalate or DEHP, dibutyl phthalate or DBP and benzyl butyl phthalate or BBP. These three compounds are also a part of the specifications in the European ban. For those toys that go into the mouth of children, Diisonyl phthalate or DINP and Diisodecyl phthalate or DIDP have been restricted at a concentration of not more than 0.1 percent.
In California, Diisonyl phthalate has been listed as a cancer-causing substance in 2013. The material that is used for packaging bottled water is polyethylene terephthalate. It is known as PETE. However, PETE actually does not have phthalates in it despite its name being so. While this is a relief, it has been revealed that DEHP can be found in bottled water. One dissonant possibility is that this might be occurring if the bottle has been made of recycled plastic.
At the end of the day, imagine that plastic water bottle that you are buying just contains tap water. Would it not be a huge letdown as you would have been thinking that the water bottle comes with some ultra-treated water that is as pure as it gets. While tap water is not harmful in any case, the source would need to be as good as the one from which water enters your home taps. With almost zero cost for the water that comes out of your tap and an investment of $20 or slightly more for a high-quality plastic water bottle, you can begin to work towards keeping plastic away from the environment and from any phthalates making their way into your system.
With the numerous benefits of cold water, what we need is regular intake from a greatly-designed and built bottle. Which is what the coldest water bottle can achieve for you.
We can stop furthering this accumulation of plastic onto the Earth to an extent where plastic is bound to turn up wherever the land is broken down for agriculture or plastic might be a regular item that one spots on the seas. Would any of us want an ocean that is full of plastic water bottles? Do we want plastic water bottles to be an ever-present part of our land, lakes, rivers and seas? While avoiding this ever-growing possibility, we also take the best care of our bodies and minds when we have a great-looking and great-performing stainless water bottle on our hands. Over 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the U.S. Let us start slowly rolling that number back.
