Great Green Idea: Green Living: How Water Bottles Can Hurt the Environment

How Water Bottles Can Hurt the Environment

People around the globe believe that bottled water is cleaner and safer to drink than tap water. This resulted into the booming businesses of retailing bottled water which consequently lead to millions of water bottles being accumulated every year. While these water bottles are recyclable, it is not advisable to do so give the chemical components of manufacturing them.

Millions of empty water bottles end up in landfills every year and are buried beneath the ground. This can have harmful effects on the environment, most notably soil contamination as time passes by. This is due to the chemical composition of the water bottles which can contaminate the soil and as a result, can also affect plants which cannot easily grow if the soil has been contaminated by toxic substances. In addition to this, ground water may also end up being contaminated as well if the toxic chemicals of water bottles end up sinking deeper into the ground and reaching the ground water reservoir. This means that natural water resources are being wasted due to the disposal of these water bottles.

Production of plastic that are used for water bottles also take a lot of energy and resources which can have negative effects on the environment as well since more power requirements for production means more fossil fuel is potentially used to achieve this. This can lead to heavily draining of fossil fuel resources. Add to that the fact that more energy and resources are needed from production to post production of these water bottles which can be considered as a waste of limited energy resources. The unnecessary energy costs and requirements in manufacturing plastic water bottles are also a very big problem.

The manufacturing factories of water bottles also has a direct role in hurting the environment as they emit pollutants that make the air we breathe dirtier and more harmful to our bodies. These industrial plants also produce other wastes that can also negatively affect the environment. We already have a problem with cars polluting the air. Now add the manufacturing plants of plastic water bottles and it is not a mystery why air pollution is becoming more and more of a problem that affects each and every one of us.

It is important to know the facts about how plastic water bottles can hurt the environment and how it can affect hour lives in general. Having the knowledge of the harmful effects of plastic bottles as well as the huge energy costs and requirements in manufacturing them may help us realize that there is now a need for alternatives to plastic water bottles. It is important that we do something about this now before it is too late.