Crystalline Water Point Of Use Water Dispensers

Facts About Bottled Drinking Water

• The World Wildlife Fund estimates that 1.5 million tons of plastic are used globally each year for water bottles.¹
• Most bottles are made of the oil-derived (nonrenewable resource) polyethylene terepthalate, PET2, which generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions in the form of nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide and benzene than the same amount of glass bottles.³
• According to the Earth Policy Institute, 1.5 million barrels of oil are required to make plastic bottles per year, enough to fuel 1,000 cars for a year.⁴
• Water supplies are falling while the demand is dramatically growing at an unsustainable rate. Over the next 20 years, the average supply of water worldwide per person is expected to drop by a third.⁵
• According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), bottled waters do not have greater nutritive value than tap water.⁶
• Delivering bottled water from far away places burn fossil fuels and results in the release of thousands of tons of harmful emissions; 22 million tons of bottled liquid is transferred each year from their country of origin⁷, transported by boat, train, air and ground transport.
• Bottled water that is shipped and/or stored cold requires additional electricity.
• Large amounts of energy are used in water bottling plants throughout the US and the world.⁸
• Energy is required to remove the empty bottles in the form of recycling or trash.
• Bottled water may be no safer or healthier than tap water in many countries while selling for up to 1,000 times the price.⁹
• Typically 90% or more of the cost paid by bottled water consumers goes to things other than the water itself -- bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing, other expenses, and profit.¹⁰
• According to the Climate Action Network, when some plastic bottles are incinerated along with other trash, as is the practice in many municipalities, toxic chlorine (and potentially dioxin) is released into the air while heavy metals deposit in the ash.¹¹
• The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) estimates that supplying the US bottled water market for 1 year consumes more than 1.5 million barrels of oil, which is enough to generate electricity for more than 250,000 homes or enough to fuel 100,000 cars for an entire year.¹²
• The CRI estimates that 90% of plastic water bottles end up as either garbage or litter.¹³
• Plastic accounts for 25% of the total volume of material sent to landfills every year and plastic water bottles can take as long as 1,000 years to biodegrade.¹⁴
• Pumping water from the ground to make bottled water dries out fresh water springs, destroys habitats, devastates ecosystems, and drains freshwater aquifers.¹⁵
• Tap water is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure.¹⁶
• Approximately 40 percent of bottled water begins as tap water.¹⁷
• Less than 5 percent of plastic waste is recycled each year.¹⁸
• Plastics are the fastest growing sector in the waste stream and currently take up 25 percent of the volume of materials sent to landfills each year.¹⁹
• There are many environmental costs that society must pay, such as loss of groundwater, toxic emissions from plastic production and destruction, air pollution from transporting the products, and the disposal of loads of empty bottles.
• Americans will buy an estimated 25 billion single-serving, plastic water bottles this year. Eight out of 10 (22 billion) will end up in a landfill.²⁰
• Bottled water is a rip off - consumers spend an estimated $7 billion on bottled water in US each year.
• Worldwide 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year.²¹
• 1.5 million barrels of oil is used annually to produce plastic water bottles for America alone - enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year.²²
• The bottled water you purchase is often in #1 PET or PETE bottles (polyethylene terephthalate), which may leach DEHA, a known carcinogen, if used more than once.²³
• A growing problem – "in 1990, Americans bought 1.1 billion pounds of plastic in the form of bottles, according to the Container Recycling Institute²⁰. In 2002, they bought more than three times that - 4 billion pounds."²⁴
• Increasing evidence of adverse health effects tied to Bisphenol A, or BPA a widely used chemical in the manufacturing of plastic polycarbonate bottles, including baby bottles, water bottles and food / beverage containers.
• Like all plastic, these bottles will be with us forever since plastic does not biodegrade; rather, it breaks down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate our soil and waterways.
• Along with plastic bags, plastic bottles are one of the most prevalent sources of pollution found on our beaches.
• Many studies show that the quality of bottled water may be no better than tap water.

What are the problems with bottled water? Here is a short list of what's wrong with bottled water.

Did you know that many cities and municipaities world-wide have banned bottled drinking water and have passed back to the tap initiatives? See this selected list of dozens of cities that have banned bottled water.