How are plastic water bottles bad for the environment?

Question

What if i receyle them?

Answer 1

I found the site listed below to be helpful in answering questions about plastics and the environment.

Answer 2

Well, the manufacturing and recycling of water bottles uses energy and causes waste products.

The best bet is usually to just drink a glass of tap water, or to get a couple of glass bottles with s***w off lids that can be washed, and use those to carry your portable water.

Even if you recycle, it still takes a lot of energy to ship, bottle, store, sell, transport and recycle the plastic bottles. If your tap water tastes bad, get a water filtration pitcher for the fridge or one of those s***w on filters. Generally, the tap water is just as safe and good as all the bottled water we buy.

Answer 3

Think about this - they must first make the plastic bottle which creates emissions, uses chemicals, water, energy. Then they fill the bottle water which takes from local resources. Then put a wrapper on it, package it, warehouse it, ship it, distribute it, the consumer must go to the store to buy it, then they drink it, and may or may not recycle the bottle. That's a lot of fuel energy and waste. You could walk to your tap and get the same thing nearly for free and minimal effect on the environment. Tap water is required to be tested more often than bottled water.

Answer 4

Plastic water bottles or other pressurized plastic bottles are really bad because they are constructed of two layers of plastic with overlapping grains which makes them stronger and more resilient than other plastics of the same thickness. One layer withstands damage from one direction while relying on the other layer to keep it from tearing. They tend to degrade very slowly because of this strength.

The best thing to do with any recyclable is to reuse it. Reuse is exponentially better than recycling because it requires no energy other than what "you" put into it. There is no reason you can not reuse a water bottle as long as you practice minimal sanitation.

Answer 5

Some are made with plastic that can not be recycled.

Answer 6

They also have an extremely short use life, just like all the packaging fast food restaurants hand out.

Answer 7

The problem is that people don't recycle them.

Answer 8

I'm in environmental science and I vaguely remember my teacher saying something about how they are made that really effects the environment.

Answer 9

copied from http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/ch... because my answer is same.

Unless the plastic is specially designed to decompose in the soil, such

materials can last a very long time because the chemical bonds that hold

the molecules together are often stronger than nature's power to take

them apart. This means that soil micro-organisms that can easily attack

and decompose things like wood and other formerly living materials

cannot break the various kinds of strong bonds that are common to most

plastics.