What are all the ways which Bottled Water harms the Environment.?

Question

Just compile reasons why people should not drink bottled water.

Answer 1

the major 1 is fiji water. it has to be shipped all the way around the world which means lots of gas. its ridiculous when we already have plenty of freshwater here

Answer 2

Because it's radioactive

Answer 3

The recycled bottles are sent to China - and our governments are profiting in selling our recycled waste packaging to these global and domineering countries.

Answer 4

Bottled Water has a chemical called Bisphenol-A that can be potentially harmful to us. Bottled water also uses a lot of fossil fuels, to make and to transport. The bottle is plastic, so it's obviously recycle-able, yet only 14% ends up being recycled. The rest goes to landfills or it's incinerated. Plastic will break down in smaller toxic pieces. If they're incinerated they pollute the air with gases like methane.

Water in the bottles is also water out of the system. Out of the water cycle.

Answer 5

because bottled water is proving less safe than tap water ,via inspection of safety ,and thus only interrogates the abuse of other countries raping our economy ,using the environmentalists to there advantage. p.s. it costs you more money to recycle ,and hurts the environment more, to recycle a plastic bottle ,than to open your faucet and have a glass.    via ,melting 'heat comes from fuel' ,trucking ,fuel etc.

Answer 6

Once upon a time, drinks came in glass. In the early 70's, thermoplastic polyester (specific poly(ethylene terephthalate) aka PET) bottles were introduced by Pepsi Cola, as lightweight, transparent bottles which saved on transport costs (cf. glass), and were effective as packaging to containing pressurised, carbonated drink up to 4 bar pressure. PET is said to be one of the cleanest polymers used, for bottle-use, free of residual monomers, additives etc.; besides colas have low pH values and so containers have to be resistant to dissolution and leeching by quite strong acids. And indeed the likes of one of the main PET producers, ICI, had already worked out strategies for recycling PET before the mass introduction of these bottles. Coke reportedly went for polycarbonate (PC) initially but because of the residues in PC (POINT OF INFORMATION: such a bisphenol A, one of the monomers to make the polymer PC, but not used in the polymerisation of PET), accepted PET as the norm.

From the original packaging of carbonated drinks in PET, the industry grew to package many ready-to-drink beverages: beers, water, other non-alcoholic liquids. POINT OF INFORMATION: one reason many UK councils collect plastic only in the form of bottles, is that this selectivity minimises the problem of sorting plastics to the handful used in bottles, e.g. HDPE (e.g. milk bottle aka "jugs", household chemicals), PVC (e.g. cooking oil, squashes), PET and then possibly PP (competition to PET for non-carbonated drinks) and PLA ( a so-called biodegradable competing with PET; as the Guardian very belated reported 5 weeks ago - and what we have been teaching for 2 years!!! - that "biodegradables" need relatively special conditions in landfill sites and compost heaps to decompose) .

One can readily challenge the transportation, sale and use of water in PET (or PLA) bottles, when tap water in many European countries is most definitely potable and significantly cheaper. In other countries the story is somewhat different. However, water bottles are largely made for the same materials as fizzy drinks bottles, and I don't  hear nobody calling for a ban. And as stated above, we have approaching 40 years of experience of successfully recycling PET, that is conversion in monomers to make new polymers, melting to make new PET products - check label of the next 'fleece' coat  you buy - and many other second life uses. The  problem, as with so much potentially recoverable/recyclable materials, is getting the infrastructure working to collect, concentrate and process bottles preferrable at a local level (to minimise transport costs). If people are daft enough to buy bottle water rather  than filling up a used PET bottle from the tap, let them, but for goodness sake make sure that at the end of life each and every  bottle goes into a suitable collection bin and gets recycled locally - since that plastic can be certainly used again. If your local council doesn't do anything to help in the infrastructure of recycling plastic bottles, write and encourage them!

It is clear from some of the previous comments, that information provided elsewhere (no doubt so-green pundits in the media are to blame for the incorrect facts), that the public is confused and badly misinformed about the situation - as I've stated previous writers are attributing properties to plastics that are not commonly used for water bottles. To reiterate the majority of water bottles are made of PET, some from PLA  (poly(lactic acid)) or a derivative.

Answer 7

Got to support the industry

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That is not regulated

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And a couple of them sell tap water that has sent threw a water softener

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I read this a long time ago and no body can do anything about it cause they do not tell it is water from a under ground spring or from a water distilling plant  of some sort

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Answer 8

The huge carbon foot print made by the manufacter of the plastic bottles for the water then the gas to transport the water then there is the shelf space at big box mart where you buy it then gas to take it home etc.

Answer 9

Plastic bottle is man best invention yet

Answer 10

chlorinated hydrocarbons do not break down (in a normal lifespan, anyways)

It take fuel to transport water, rather than taking it from a local source.

plastic is generally not recycle-worthy

Large bottling plants deplete the water table directly around them.

Answer 11

1.) Bottlers take water from where it's supposed to be and send it to other areas, creating an imbalance in watershed. Even areas in drought conditions lose water to bottlers. They need that water to keep their section of the planet watered.

2.) Trucks and machines eat up energy to bottle and transport the water. That means more carbon.

3.) The plastic releases chemicals that bottled-water users drink.

4.) Bottled water is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, so it can be sold with bacteria and viruses the government won't let us consume in tap water. Those contaminants are ingested by users who think everything on the grocery shelf is safe. That puts those contaminants back into the water system so we use more energy to get rid of them.

5.) Many people don't recycle the bottles, so the plastic sits in landfills for millions of  years, leaching chemicals into our water table.

Answer 12

the plastic bottle will not break down for an incredibly long time.

the manufacturing of this bottle takes place in factories which use alot of energy, using up natural resources and releasing polluting gases.

the bottle could be recycled but this still uses alot more energy than if there were no bottle in the first place!

the water we get from our taps is just as good as bottled water!

xx