Facts about Plastic Water Bottles

Kristyn Robinson

BEFORE YOU REACH FOR ANOTHER PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE, CONSIDER THESE FACTS:

-- Every hour 2.5 million plastic water bottles are discarded in the United States, 60 million every day. Most are not recycled, many end up as litter.

-- 85% of plastic water bottles end up in landfills or as litter.

-- Plastic bottles are the #1 litter item collected along the banks of the Muskingum River during annual trash clean up events.

-- Bottled water must be transported long distances--and nearly one-fourth of it across national borders--by boat, train, airplane, and truck. Americans import water shipped some 5,500 mi. from Fiji and other faraway places to satisfy demand for chic and exotic bottled water.

-- Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate, a plastic derived from crude oil. Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year.

-- Of the bottles deposited for recycling in 2004, the United States exported roughly 40 percent to destinations as far away as China--meaning that even more fossil fuels were burned in the process.

-- Buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals tied to a host of human and animal health problems.

-- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of plastic trash particles in the North Pacific Ocean has been estimated to be twice the size of the continental United States. This plastic only breaks down into smaller and smaller particles, but never biodegrades.