How Does it Affect the Economy?
Plastic water bottles are one of the most popular methods for containing and storing water. What also makes it ideal is that the plastic bottles come ready made and they are easily portable. These are a couple of the many things humans enjoy so much about plastic water bottles. Plastic water bottles have been around for a while, being introduced in and around 1989 (Hurber). In America, plastic water bottles are the second largest commercial beverage sold ("Bottled Drinking Water"). In 2006, the United States consumed a record of 8.3 billion gallons of bottled water, about 26 gallons per person, and in 2007, American's spent 16 billion dollars on bottled water ("Ban the Bottle").
While tap water is much less expensive then purchasing water in plastic bottles from the store, many people are afraid of the unhealthy bacteria tap water may contain. This is why even though on average tap water costs $0.002 while bottled water costs $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon, many people purchase the bottled water instead of using their own tap water straight from the faucet ("Ban the Bottle"). Many consumers do not realize that bottled water is costing them 240 to 10,000 times more than tap water when bottled water is about 40% filtered tap water and tap water is more closely monitored and is just as good, and perhaps even better for one's health ("Ban the Bottle"). Plastic water bottles are costing people loads of extra money that is unnecessarily spent, when they have perfectly safe tap water. People depend on the production of plastic so much that consumption has gone from 5.5 million tons in the 1950's to 110 million tons in 2009 (Cho).
Below, is a chart that demonstrates just how much of our resources we use to produce plastic water bottles. As displayed in the chart, unnecessary quantities of water and other important resources are being used in order to produce easily reachable and already bottled water. This is not just costing consumers loads of money each year, but also the government and plastic factories in order to produce plastic bottles and containers.
While tap water is much less expensive then purchasing water in plastic bottles from the store, many people are afraid of the unhealthy bacteria tap water may contain. This is why even though on average tap water costs $0.002 while bottled water costs $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon, many people purchase the bottled water instead of using their own tap water straight from the faucet ("Ban the Bottle"). Many consumers do not realize that bottled water is costing them 240 to 10,000 times more than tap water when bottled water is about 40% filtered tap water and tap water is more closely monitored and is just as good, and perhaps even better for one's health ("Ban the Bottle"). Plastic water bottles are costing people loads of extra money that is unnecessarily spent, when they have perfectly safe tap water. People depend on the production of plastic so much that consumption has gone from 5.5 million tons in the 1950's to 110 million tons in 2009 (Cho).
Below, is a chart that demonstrates just how much of our resources we use to produce plastic water bottles. As displayed in the chart, unnecessary quantities of water and other important resources are being used in order to produce easily reachable and already bottled water. This is not just costing consumers loads of money each year, but also the government and plastic factories in order to produce plastic bottles and containers.
The marketing that leads consumers to believe that bottled water is superior to tap water is supposedly misleading. Actually, approximately 25 to 40 percent of bottled water is from the tap (Berry). U.S Environmental Protection Policy that regulates the quality of tap water have stricter regulations in comparison to the U.S Food and Drug Administrations that regulates the quality of bottled water (Berry). Recently however, consumers are realizing that plastic bottles, especially single use ones are dangerous for one's health and that it may be safer and cost much less money to buy stainless steel containers to store water instead because stainless steel is durable, reusable and does not leach harmful chemicals into the water it contains (Berry).