Bottled water production has significant environmental impacts, producing 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually and using over 17 million barrels of oil to make plastic bottles. Less than 1% of plastic water bottles are recycled, contributing to the large plastic waste patches in oceans. Bottled water also has negative social and economic consequences, as tap water has greater health benefits, plastic factory workers suffer higher cancer rates, and bottled water costs up to 1900 times more than tap water while providing no extra health benefits.

1. break the
PLASTIC HABIT“There is enough water for human need, but not for human greed.”
– Mahatma Gandhi, 1974
Environmental
1. Bottling water produces 2.5. million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
2. Making bottles to meet America’s demand for bottled water uses more
than 17 million barrels of oil annually. That’s enough to fuel 1.3 million
cars a year!
3. Less than 1% of plastic water bottles are recycled. American’s
plastic waste has led to the creation of the ‘North Pacific Garbage Patch’-
a sea of plastic larger than the state of Texas floating in between San
Francisco and Hawaii.
Social
1. Studies have proven tap water to have greater health benefits than
bottled water due to the fact that only tap water falls under the purview of
the Environmental Protection Agency.
2. Inhalation of plastic is an enormous hazard for the factory workers
who handle the material. Since the 1960s, workers have been documented
to suffer higher cancer rates than the general population.
3. Bottle water is often sourced from locations experiencing water
shortages.
Economic
1. Bottled water costs 1900x more than top water!
2. Drinking 2 liters of tap water a day only costs 50 cents a year!
3. The potential savings of decreasing and diverting single use water
bottle waster could equal up to $144,940.11 per year at UCSD alone.
Buying bottled water is environmentally irresponsible,
highly wasteful and economically nonsensical.
Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. A.S. ESJA & SSC