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Bottled Water and the Ecosystem. Do You Know Just How Greatly Bottled Water is Disturbing our Environment? Here’s a Closer Look into This Problem.

By: Peggy Pollice Click author's name for more of his/her articles

With our Ecological Devastation, are We Better off Consuming Tap Water?

Do you think you’re doing yourself a favor by drinking bottled water? While you may possibly think you are doing your body good, are you recycling that container? If not, the environmental impact can be disastrous. There is a solution however, by switching to tap water we can contribute greatly to cleaning up the ecosystem. (Discover how to make tap water not just safe to consume but tremendously good for you as well, through out this website: www.healthywateroflife.com).

Our natural environment is not the only one which suffers when you consume bottled water. More frequently than not you could be suffering as well. Generally bottled water comes in polyethylene terephthalate bottles, indicated by a number 1, PET or PETE on the underside of the bottle. Some scientists are now stating that a leaching of chemicals into the water can happen if the bottle is exposed to heat for extended periods of time (example leaving bottled water in your vehicle). This can cause a different chemical composition of the water and can cause a difference in smell as well as taste. Even worse, when you consume this water you are ingesting the chemicals which have leached into the water, thus exposing your body to chemical pollution. While the effects of such long-term exposure to these chemicals are not yet acknowledged, scientists are working diligently on testing the effects of this chemical pollution. Tap water doesn’t sound so terrible anymore does it?

In a current development that’s even more frightening, experts caution about a few particular chemicals in general. Antimony is one and is a potentially poisonous material used in making PET. Scientists in Germany have discovered that antimony develops in greater quantity the more bottled water sits around. This is troubling as there is actually no telling how long that bottled water you just purchased had been sitting on the shelf at the store or even in the warehouse before it hit the shelf for that matter. Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea are a few causes of high concentrations of antimony.

In a further shocking incident, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) committee agreed that bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in polycarbonate (used to construct water cooler jugs, sport-water bottles and other hard plastics, but not PET), may cause neurological and behavioral troubles in fetuses, babies and kids. This is a troubling finding, however it doesn’t end with kids. In a separate study a NIH-sponsored panel established that the risk was even worse than projected. Their results said that adult exposure to BPA probably affects the brain, the female reproductive system and the immune system. Who said bottled water was greatfor you?

While the effects to us are a shocking theory, let us not overlook what the environmental impact to our Mother Earth can be as well. The pollution produced by individuals that do not carry out a healthy recycling routine can be overwhelmingly high.

Producing bottled water actually increases the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. This is going backwards in our great effort to reduce our dependencies. The bottles themselves are made of a matter that is precisely linked to fossil fuels. In many cases the bottled water that we consume is packaged in other countries that can be thousands of miles away. The transport alone leads to even more fossil fuels being burned hence creating more pollution. The ecological impact this creates is severe and needs to be addressed instantly if we are going to lessen the world’s dependence on fossil fuel.

If we took the energy it takes to create all the bottled water in the United States for one year to keep up with demand, we would save ourselves the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil. That is sufficient to fuel one million cars for an entire year.

There is in addition the definite waste of water that goes on as well and that is in no way a reference to the water going down the drain when you are running your tap water. According to the Institute for Water and Watersheds at Oregon State University, it takes about 72 billion gallons of water per year just to manufacture the unfilled bottles that the water ends up in. Further waste is seen as it is projected that it takes two liters of water to create every one-liter of bottled water that are stocked upon the store shelves.

However, the amount of bottles that are really recycled is the most disturbing fact of all. It is estimated that only about 20 percent of the unfilled water bottles make it to the recycling plants here in the United States; even though recycling is an easy thing to do. This means that 80 percent of the unfilled bottles are left to make pollution in our landfills for a lot of years to come. It will take around ten thousand years for an empty water bottle to biodegrade, the same bottle of water that just took you three minutes to drink. Can you imagine the negative ecological impact?

It’s in no way rocket science. Consuming bottled water is not the safe bet you may have thought it to be and when it comes to the wellbeing of the Earth it is worse than tap water. With so many people NOT participating in recycling these days, the pollution of the World is growing at a pace that can’t be sustained for a great deal longer. Unless things transform we will be handing over to our children and grandchildren a world full of sickening pollution and an ugly environmental impact to have to deal with.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: Discover the impact on the wellbeing of our bodies as well as the ecological impact of bottled water. You will be completely amazed!