Ingrid Ingebretsen Have you ever stopped and really thought about the magnitude of our waste?
It only takes a few statistics to put America’s plastic water bottle problem into perspective.
- It takes 17 million barrels of oil every year to make plastic bottles for Americans – This is enough to fuel 1.3 million cars
- You could power 190,000 homes with the energy used to produce plastic bottles
- 1,500 plastic water bottles are wasted every second in the U.S.
- Americans only recycle 23% of the plastic bottles they use – landfills are filled with 2 million tons of plastic bottle waste
- It takes 3 liters of water to package 1 liter of water
- Bottled water costs between $0.25 and $2.00 per bottle – tap water costs $0.004 per gallon
- Limit your use of plastic water bottles – instead buy a BPA-free reusable water bottle for $10
- Buy prepared foods in glass jars – you can reuse them once you finish the food
- Buy household items in boxes – they are more easily recycled than plastic bottles
- Invest in a carbon-based whole-house water system to ensure your water quality in an environmentally-friendly way
GERMANY started a recycling program that gives people cash for turning in their plastic water bottles
AUSTRALIA has banned plastic water bottles altogether in the city of Bundanoon
CANADA official declared BPA, the carcinogenic chemical that is used in plastic, a toxic substance
SWEDEN has so many recycling programs that less than 1% of household trash ends up in landfills
These countries have set the standard for limiting plastic waste and it’s up to us as individuals to help the United States catch up.
