The whole world wants to go green, but how is it possible when people are ignorant of minor harms? Humans bear the greatest cause of environmental pollution. Particularly, human beings heavily use plastics which they later dump, yet they are non-biodegradable and if burnt, pollute the air. A quick look at people seated on a park, walking in the streets and even driving reveals that majority of the people use bottled water to quench their thirst. Many people argue that bottled water is safe to drink, convenient and even provides employment to many people, who otherwise would be in the statistics of the biting unemployment rate. Surprisingly, though bottled water may be relatively safer, the purity comes with a heavy price. Bottled water industry maybe favorable to the economy but to the environment, it is costly and a menace. The use of bottled water is a barrier to the clarion call of turning the world green since it damages the environment, hurts the economy and harms human lives.
The plastic bottle industries mainly use scare natural resources in their production leading to massive environmental degradation. Opel (2012) reveals that water bottle production in the United States uses an estimated 1.5 million barrels of oil annually. Unfortunately, a U.S conference of Mayors explained that the 1.5 million barrels of oil can supply over 250,000 homes with power or fuel over 150,000 cars annually. According to data released by the Earth Policy Institute, the energy used to process, pump, transport and refrigerate bottled water is over 60 million barrels of oil annually. Worse still, the delivery of water bottles to the local stores has a profound environmental impact since the distribution requires a fleet of around 45,000 18 wheelers (Opel, 2012). Since cars are still running and homes have enough power, the 1.5 million barrels of oil could be saved if there were no production of the water bottles. Consequently, the current environmental degradation would also not be happening and the world would be way much greener.
The production of water bottles not only depletes the world of rare natural sources but it also destroys the ozone layer. It is heart breaking to note that though 36 billion water bottles were sold in 2006, only a fifth of them were recycled. Yes! A total of 28.8 billion plastic bottles ended up in a landfill. As Millard (2010) explains, plastics may take an estimated 1,000 years to decompose and in the process, release toxic substances into both the soil and water. The micro-plastics in the soil have devastating long term effects to the environment. In fact, Arnold and Larsen (2006) claim that micro-plastic pollution on land is even higher that the micro-plastic pollution in the marine ecosystem. The plastics in the landfills also release harmful greenhouse gases that distort the ozone layer, leading to global warming. Of course, the effects of global warming have now caught up with earth. Incidents of heat wave in various continents, increased occurrences of hurricane and the unpredictable weather patterns are just some of the effects of global warming. One cannot imagine how the future of the precious planet earth will be if humans continue to use plastic water bottles. It will be devastating.
It is ironical that laboratory tests indicate that bottled water contains harmful chemicals yet human beings spend a lot of money buying them as a guarantee for safe drinking water. “In fact, EWF laboratory tests conducted by University of Missouri indicated that 38 pollutants were identified in 10 different brands of bottled water. Also, it was found out that the contaminated bottled water was likely to cause the growth of breast cells by 76%. Leivadara et al., (2008) reveals that taking food and drinks stored in plastics is harmful to people’s health since plastics contain a component called BPA that acts as a hormone disruptor. BPA have a wide range of effects on human body such as toxicity, hormone imbalance, cancer and inflammation. Worse still, Farley and Alert (2013) explains that the plastic bottles contaminate the water with other chemicals and metals such as lead which together with BPA affect the communication of hormones, cellular health and some specific body organs and systems. These effects may begin before birth and continue affecting one’s future health, possibly even the offspring. It simply does not make sense when one uses their hard earned money to buy products that have been scientifically proved to be harmful to their health and at the same time, have devastating effects to their home, planet earth.
Supporter of bottled water argue that it is safe, convenient and reduces the rate of unemployment. Raj (2005) reasons that the money obtained from the production of bottled water is more than the money used to buy the same. According to Raj (2005), it is not the bottled water that pollutes the environment but the people taking the water. However, it is worth noting that the environmental impacts are mainly long term. The plastic bottles are not all recyclable and they end up littered everywhere. They infiltrate the streets and one finds them on sidewalks, parks, front yards, rivers and any other open place. Even if the plastics were chopped into minute pieces, they will still take more than a human being’s lifetime to completely decompose. Furthermore, a lot of money is then used to dispose the plastics while the large part of them ends up in landfills where they leach harmful chemicals into the ground.
Currently, environmental degradation is considered to be the primary cause of death all over the world since over 100 million people are affected, a relatively higher number as compared to epidemics such as HIV and Malaria (Millard, 2010). It is unfortunate that United States is increasingly using natural resources like fossil fuels and in the process, polluting the environment at an alarming rate. The over production of bottled water is therefore doing more harm than good. Land, air and water is no longer safe and the effects are not only felt by United States alone but the whole world at large. It is not right that the young generation and the future generation will have to bear the consequences of the current inhabitants’ thoughtless over-consumption of bottled water. Nevertheless, all is not lost and a cultural shift; from taking bottled water to trusting treated tap water will go a long way in ensuring that earth becomes a green planet.