Nearly 90 percent of plastic bottles go unrecycled and end up in landfills or litter our cities, highways and ocean. Even if you're an assiduous recycler and manage to keep every plastic bottle you use out of the waste stream, you could still go greener by giving up plastic bottles entirely. There are plenty of good reasons to consider kicking the plastic bottle habit.
Less Waste
Beverages contained in plastic bottles are often consumed away from home, in places where there is no easily available recycling. As a result, they often end up as litter. Even if you personally recycle every plastic bottle you buy, not everyone else does--and your purchase perpetuates the market for disposable plastic. States with bottle deposit laws usually do not cover plastic water bottles, yet according to the Clean Air Council, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
Reduce Chemical Leaching
Plastic water bottles tend to leach chemicals. Of particular concern is bisphenol A or BPA, a compound used to make plastics more rigid and found in many disposable water bottles, specifically those made of polycarbonate plastic, also known as #7 plastic. BPA mimics the hormone estrogen in the body. As a result, it can disrupt normal hormonal development in fetuses, infants and children, especially boys. The CDC reports that, while there is still limited clinical data on the effect of BPA in humans, "CDC scientists found BPA in the urine of nearly all of the people tested, which indicates widespread exposure to BPA in the U.S. population."
Lower Resource Consumption
The plastic used to make bottles for water, soda and other drinks is made from the fossil fuel petroleum. Petroleum is a non-renewable resource; that is, the supply of petroleum is finite and will eventually run out. Using petroleum for disposable plastic bottles is an inefficient use of such a finite resource. Even if you recycle every plastic bottle you buy, those bottles consume non-renewable energy resources such as coal and petroleum when they are manufactured, shipped, stored in refrigerators before and after purchase and processed post-consumption into recycled material. All this energy use also contributes to the greenhouse effect--the organization Back2Tap says that each disposable water bottle made generates 120 grams of greenhouse gases, and that the annual oil consumption from plastic water bottles alone totals 17 million barrels.
Less Cost
It's simply cheaper to drink water, soda or juice from a reusable container than it is to buy it in a plastic bottle, especially a single-serving size. Most of what you're paying for is the packaging, which you use once and then discard or recycle. If you use a reusable metal drink container instead, you could potentially save hundreds of dollars a year. According to the Sierra Club, bottled water costs on average $1.27 per gallon, while tap water costs less than one quarter of one cent.
Food Safety Concerns
If you're thinking about re-using a disposable plastic bottle as a way to reduce waste and cost, think twice. First of all, it turns out that BPA leaches more readily in hot water than in cold, according to Science Daily--that means that when you wash it, out comes the chemicals. And if you don't wash your bottles, they quickly become breeding grounds for bacteria. Use an unlined metal container made for the purpose instead.
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