Don’t Drink the Water (From a Plastic Bottle): We Need a Sustainable Economy

Our throwaway economy is largely to blame for our environmental woes, as Lester Brown points out for Grist. First introduced after World War II to stimulate growth and create more jobs, throwaway products offered consumers convenience. Soon, disposable paper towels replaced hand towels, tissues replaced handkerchiefs, and plastic diapers replaced cloth ones, eventually building up an overwhelming amount of garbage. Throwaway products create a multitude of problems, including maxed-out landfills, air pollution and depletion of limited resources. Instead of hunting for new places to stash our trash, we should focus on consuming less altogether. But in the midst of an economic crisis, can we transition to a sustainable economy?

“The overriding challenge for our generation is to build a new economy—one that is powered largely by renewable sources of energy, that has a much more diversified transport system, and that reuses and recycles everything,” writes Brown.

Materialism is part of our culture, alongside baseball, hamburgers and free speech. It won’t be easy for Americans to break their consumption habits. According to Wiretap, Americans use more paper and create more waste than any other country. The video below, The Secret Life of Paper, explains how paper contributes to global warming, how to reduce paper waste, and the environmental and economic benefits of recycling.

Meanwhile, Tracey Bianchi of Sojourners remains optimistic that the next generation will grow up to be more environmentally conscious. Bianchi’s young son referred to an empty water bottle on the ground as “recycling” rather than trash. To the younger generation, protecting the environment is not an adjustment but a normal way of life.

“Small things like this give me hope. They make me think that indeed, we can change things. And they make me nervous for the day when my son is old enough to demand an excuse as to why my generation lived like sloppy gluttons. The way I demand my parents account for the racism of the ’50s, the way my parents demanded their parents account for two world wars, the way that generation demanded an explanation for slavery,” writes Bianchi.

Although most people are familiar with the 3 Rs of conservation (reduce, reuse, recycle), Public News Service’s Dick Layman notes that “there is more to recycling than meets the eye.” Many other green cycles reduce waste. Pre-cycling refers to not buying things you don’t need; free-cycling is giving things away instead of disposing of them; up-cycling is when useful items are created from recycled materials; down-cycling is when you reuse an item for a less important function and e-cycling is when you recycle electronics.

But perhaps the biggest environmental culprit in our throwaway economy is bottled water. The Michigan Messenger’s Eartha Jane Melzer reports that bottled water sales for the Nestle corporation are thankfully on the decline. Even a small slip in consumption can make a big difference: A whopping 70% of consumers say they drink bottled water, according to a study conducted by Mintel. What kind of environmental impact does bottled water have? According to Food & Water Watch, it takes over 17 million barrels of oil (which is enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year) to produce all of the plastic water bottles sold in the United States each year. And, even worse, about 86% of the bottles end up in the trash instead of recycling.

Despite these grim statistics, America’s top water importer, Fiji, has remained immune to environmental criticism. Anna Lenzer of Mother Jones questions how Fiji Water embodies chic and green ideals, but is backed by a military dictatorship who can’t provide its own people with clean water. For more information about Fiji Water’s troubles, check out Mother Jones‘ special report, Spin the Bottle.

Immediate action is necessary to combat climate change, and there are many small things that we can do to reduce our waste, such as paying bills online. More people today use re-usable grocery bags instead of plastic or paper ones, buy eco-friendly products and use recycling when given the option. And even though the next generation is being taught to be less wasteful, that is no excuse for a wasteful lifestyle today. We have to lead by example and create a responsible economy to go hand in hand with a sustainable environment.

Finally, we’d like to recognize Senator Ted Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) accomplishments for the environment. He fought for energy efficiency standards, land and ocean preservation, pollution reduction, and oil company accountability. And while many are concerned about the impact of Kennedy’s death on healthcare reform, Jonathan Hiskes of Grist worries how his passing will affect climate change legislation. As a strong advocate for the environment, Kennedy’s vote was crucial to pass a climate bill in the Senate, and his support and vision will surely be missed.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment and is free to reprint. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets.

istockphoto
By Raquel Brown, TMC MediaWire Blogger

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Past Member .

9:09AM PDT on May 7, 2010

HEMP as plastic GOOGLE HEMP, GO TO WIKIPIDIA
The basic building block of plastics is cellulose taken from petroleum, but toxic petrochemical compositions are not the only way to derive plastics. Plastics can be derived from plant cellulose, and since hemp is the greatest cellulose producer on Earth (hemp hurds can be 85% cellA recent technological advance with biodegradable plastics made from cornstarch has led to a new material based on hemp. Hemp Plastics (Australia) have sourced partners who have been able to produce a new 100% biodegradable material made entirely from hemp and corn. This new material has unique strength and technical qualities which have yet to be seen before, and this new material can be injection or blow-molded into virtually any shape using existing moulds, including cosmetic containers, Frisbee golf discs, etc.ulose), it only makes sense to make other organics, instead of letting our dumps fill up with refuse.
The possibilities are endless with hemp plastics and resins, and bio-composites. Virtually any shape and purpose can be fulfilled by bio-composite plastics. Hemp plastics are already on the rise, it is only a matter of time before we will see the need to grow hemp in the United States to meet our demands.

send a green star

Renee L.

12:53PM PDT on Sep 26, 2009

I have a solution for all of you if you can afford it. There are water treatment systems out there to correct practically all water. We have de-salinization (removes salt from salt water), we have chlorination to kill bacteria, we have ultra violet light treatment to kill whatever chlorine doesn't. We have water conditioners to remove harness and iron. Ultimately, we also have reverse osmosis. It fits under your sink, it is relatively inexpensive compared to paying 40 cents a gallon. For about $150 you can have one installed on your kitchen sink. It removes 99.9% of impurities from your water.
My family used to own and operate a water treatment and conditioning business, I know water. I refuse to drink well water, there for I will buy bottled water. I care about what kind of water I drink because your body is primarily made of water. It is crucial to your survival.
Again, I absolutely refuse to drink flouride or chlorine. Even if you need a chlorination system to clean up your water, still filter it to get the chlorine out. You wouldn't drink bleach would you?

5:48PM PDT on Sep 25, 2009

That having been said, I live in a very progressive community but our water quality has taken a noticeable dip in the past 10 years. As I tell you this, please keep in mind I'm a wine, liquor, cigar and cuisine aficionado, so I have a sensitive palate. When I left here for the big apple in 1998, I had been using a Britta pitcher for my water, and it worked great. The water tasted like it came from a mountain stream. When I returned here 5 years ago, the Britta pitcher, which also worked quite well in NYC, was useless. We purchased 1 gallon quality, non-pourous plastic bottles and we get our water at our local food coop. There are machines there that triple distill and ultraviolet treat the tap water, leaving it even better than the Britta water used to be, delicious. We payed 38 cents/gallon 4 years ago, it's 49 cents/gallon now. The local warehouse-sized supermarket has a similar machine and charges I think less than 40 cents/gallon. A small price, I think, to pay for your health, and no waste.

5:47PM PDT on Sep 25, 2009

Your water must be pretty bad Rosalinda for it to require sweetening to be palatable. Have you seen an analysis of your local tap water? I'd be concerned if I were you. This never happens, but I have to wholeheartedly agree with Renee here, we have no way of knowing all the illness caused by our water.

Many of here on Care2 DO try to get our government to take proper measures to keep our tap water clean, I certainly think it should be, but there is a lot of opposition from big industry who have, of course, purchased much of our government some time ago and continue to increase their holdings. The result? The dumping of tons of chemical waste into rivers. Mercury levels have increased dramatically over the decades, particularly in the last 8 years as a result of deregulation. It would be nice if big industry could be trusted to do the right thing and properly dispose of their waste, but of course greed wins the day, we need these laws.

It should also be mentioned that recent studies have shown that a variety of pharmaceuticals are showing up in public water supplies. We consume so much, that we pee it out and it ends up in the water.

Rebecca D.

6:07PM PDT on Sep 22, 2009

We often have no choice but to buy bottled water. Living in rural Australia our house is supplied with boar water which has its good days but most of the time is undrinkable, and due to the drought most of the time our tank is empty. If you want to buy water to fill it by truck its usually a 3 week wait. So i'll continue to drink bottled water.
Sometimes

11:07AM PDT on Sep 21, 2009

Tell me something Rosalinda, How in the world is it safe to drink mass quantities of known carcenigens? Both chloride and flouride build up in your body. When you span a lifetime of drinking those horrible chemicals, what do you think happens. It even says right on your toothpaste, DO NOT INGEST!
Think about this Rosalinda, when did cancer start getting out of control in this country? Think about when they started putting flouride in drinking water, hmmm wasn't that back in the 60's. In the 70's, cases of cancer started rising. Coincedence? I do not think so. I refuse to drink chlorinated (bleach) and flouridated water. I will filter it out using reverse osmosis or buy filtered bottled water. Why do you think people from the early 1900's live longer than most people born after 1950? It is the chemicals that we now deem safe that we put in our food and drinking water. Appalling.

Rosalinda R.

12:14AM PDT on Sep 21, 2009

I'm fascinated that so many people in 'developed' countries like the USA refuse to drink their tap water on the grounds that its unsafe... Yet the chlorine & flouride is added to improve public health & safety.
Don't get me wrong; I don't like the chemicals either. But I don't understand why so many people would prefer to spend so many hundreds (? thousands?) of dollars per annum on buying bottled water, rather than hassling the appropriate authorities to do something about the tap water. Its wierd.
If no-ones going to drink it anyway; why bother with the chemicals? Poor folk (like me) will just boil it & keep it in back o' the fridge... Then serve it in patterned glasses (to disguise the colour) or with a few ml of cordial (to disguise the taste)... Which is exactly what we do now...

Linda W.

8:54PM PDT on Sep 6, 2009

Can Care2 writers create some original topics instead of recycling this plastic bottle topic? It's been done to death, and yet safe (and appetizing) tap water is still lacking in many places even in the United States. Improve our tap water and the bottled water problem will shrink until it's meaningless.

Michael G.

12:56PM PDT on Sep 2, 2009

Plastic that is not recycled is the new "scourge of the earth" but don't single out water bottles, most of those are PET#1 and #2 which ARE recyled. But show me in America where #'s3-7 are recycled. Almost guaranteed not to be. And the volume of foods, junk drinks, and even "Health" Anti-Oxidant" shakes that are in these bottles, NOT to mention yogurt cups which are thrown out IS the reason we have 3 Texas-sized garbage islands floating in the middle of our wonderful Oceans.
Then add in one of the biggest but seemingly inconsequential culprit: BOTTLE CAPS! Until they make them so they stay attached to the bottle and are recyled with the bottles they will plague our oceans and beaches. They aren't thrown there, they are in the water column from dumping garbage at sea.
The only answer: eat more healthy produce, use old fashioned laundry flakes, minimize buying all plastic products and demand that manufacturers put all food and drinks only in #s 1-3. Use glassware whenever possible.
But don't drink the tapwater, IT ain't safe anymore. It is poison where I live. But do buy your drinking water in the largest bottles possible and use non-plastic ones to pour your carry drinks into . Then let's do something about those throwaway bottle caps that are not recycled and litter our beaches and mid-oceans where they float in fragments so thick you could almost walk on them...

Saf T.

2:40AM PDT on Sep 2, 2009

I appreciate your sentiments here but some things have their place.

I prefer rainwater to bottled but I need a container for it, so what do I use.... an old plastic water bottle. Cheap convenient and effective.

I spend a fair amount of time on the road, a week at times. Rather than buy coke in a PET bottle I buy water in a PET bottle. Better for me, much the same for the environment.
Now I'm not going to fill that empty bottle with chlorinated, flouridised tap water at my next stop, so the bottle goes in the recycle bin for someone else to turn into polyester carpet or underlay.

I'm 100% with Pam H. and others. Why single out bottled water when the soda giants use the same bottles and also poison our humans.

Environmentally, a sick human in hospital, on medications etc etc probably uses enough energy/oil to fuel 100 Priuses.

Also if 86% of plastic bottles in the US end up in land fill, what percentage of those origianlly contained water? what percentage contained some sugary syrup that's just too hard to wash out. I contend that water bottles are less contaminated that soda bottles and thereby a zillion times easier to recycle into something useful.

And finally as a worker in the plastics industry I urge everyone to refuse PVC bottles full stop. PET or HDPE won't kill you or the environment nearly as quickly as PVC.