Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Bottled water.

Since the arrival of summer I have noticed myself handing over small change regularly to purchase water in a bottle that I can get freely from a tap.  They have been piling up everywhere, in the car, in my handbag and on the kitchen bench.  It got me thinking, if I am buying this much water, then other people must be too, that would make for a lot of bottles going into the rubbish each day, and even though we have a recycle program, is it really working?

I looked on the internet for some statistics and frankly they were staggering:


  • Australians spend more than half a billion dollars a year on bottled water. Last year, the sale of bottled water increased by 10 percent.
  • Producing and delivering a litre of bottled water can emit hundreds of times moregreenhouse gases than a litre of tap water.
  • According to British research, drinking one bottle of water has the sameenvironmental impact as driving a car for a kilometre.
  • In many cases, a litre of bottled water is more expensive than a litre of petrol.
  • Department of Environment and Climate Change estimates that 200ml of oil is used to produce, package, transport and refrigerate  each litre bottle of bottled water. As a result, at least 50 million litres of oil is used in the manufacture and distribution of bottled water in Australia every year.
  • Australia recycles only 36% of PET plastic drink bottles.
  • In South Australia, which has Container Deposit Legislation, the plastic bottle recycling rate is 74%. A 2007 national Newspoll commissioned by Clean Up Australia found that those polled 82% support a CDL scheme of 10c on bottles.
  • Australia’s annual use of bottled water generates more than 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions - the same amount that 13,000 cars generate over the course of a year.

So, I have decided to make a promise, and by putting it out here I hope to be made accountable to it.  I am not going to buy any more bottled water, if at the end of the month I have kept my promise I am going to treat myself to a swanky bottle so that I can continue on and hopefully make this a bottle free house.

Will anyone join me?

2 comments:

  1. I use a .5l camelbak water bottle. Love it so much. The bite value is nice because you won't spill on yourself like a wide lid bottle.

    Zurich house fountains everywhere so I have plenty of places to fill it up. Bottled water is expensive here too.

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  2. We are totally with you on this one and have been making an effort to not buy ANY convenience drinks in glass or plastic and to all carry reusable containers. Once you get in the habit and talk yourself out of grabbing a drink it is amazing how simple it is. The Munchkin occasionally gets the tetris pack fruit boxes but thats it. Good on you for sharing the awful facts about this! :)

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