Hidden Costs of Bottled Water
Strictly speaking, water from a tap isn’t free — it costs about $0.00002 per ounce. Bottled water; however, is an alarming 1,000 to 4,000 times more expensive for a single serving! Some cities, including San Francisco, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, and Seattle, have banned city purchase of single-serve, one-time-use bottled water because of waste impact from the bottles and because it’s viewed as an unnecessary cost to taxpayers.
And there’s the waste stream from one-time use water bottles, as the impact of using these unnecessary items puts a much larger dent in our environment than our wallets…
Over the course of 10 years, the amount of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles going into landfills skyrocketed from 1,175 million to 3,900 million pounds. “Water bottles are a big part of that problem,” said Marion Brown, a professor at Ithaca College, “because there are so many more of them, and because in many states, water bottles don’t have a redemption value like soda and beer bottles do.” Brown added that better recycling rates of water bottles would certainly help, but even better would be for people to stop purchasing one-time use water bottles altogether.
Such products as New Wave’s Seriously Safe Stainless Steel 6 ounce reusable drinking water bottles are a great solution for the plastic-conscious individual and, more importantly, the environment. Visit www.newwaveenviro.com to learn more!