Bottled water can have harmful effects on the environment.
Plastic water bottles account for hundreds of thousands of tons of landfill waste each year. The popularity of bottled water continues to increase, while recycling of plastic bottles has decreased. Discarded plastic water bottles pose a serious threat to the environment. Some of the biggest environmental concerns include soil pollution and air pollution.
Soil Pollution
In 2005, according to the New York Times, 43 billion gallons of bottled water were sold worldwide. In 2006, sales increased to 47 billion gallons. Every year, about 118,000 tons of plastic water bottles are manufactured, a number that is projected to increase by about 10 percent each year.
Plastic bottles are the easiest of all plastics to recycle, yet the New York Times reports that only about 20 percent to 35 percent of them are recycled; the rest end up in landfills, in the soil, or tossed into rivers and streams.
The United States is the biggest consumer of bottled water in the world. In 2007, almost 9 billion gallons of bottled water were sold.
Landfill Impact
In a 2003 report by the California Department of Conservation, researchers estimated that 1 billion plastic water bottles were dumped into California landfills every year--3 million recyclable water bottles every day. According to the report, these bottles could be recycled to make 74 million sq. ft. of carpet for homes. Only about 16 percent of the recyclable polyethylene terephthalate water bottles sold in California were recycled.
CNN reported that, according to a 2007 survey, as many as 72 percent of Americans did not know that plastic is made from petroleum, and 40 percent of Americans thought plastics were biodegradable. Even though more than 80 percent of homes in America have access to a recycling program, only 25 percent of those households participate in the program.
About 100 million barrels of oil are consumed each year for the manufacture of plastic water bottles, the New York Times reported. This does not include the fuel used by trucks that transport the finished product to market.
Plastic bottle production requires enormous use of oil and gas reserves, which contributes to the depletion of reserves and drives up the cost of petroleum. Plastic takes many years, often several hundred years, to degrade in landfills.
Air Pollution
Polyethylene terephthalate presents a significant source of air pollution when discarded water bottles are incinerated. Heavy metals like cadmium and lead are released from burning plastic. According to the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, toxic chemicals that are released into the air from incineration of plastics, including water bottles, include benzene, dioxins, furans and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
These chemicals contribute to the toxic soup commonly known as acid rain. Open burning of plastic water bottles releases dioxin into the air. According to the Oregon Environmental Council, dioxin is a carcinogenic chemical that when breathed or ingested can cause birth defects, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, immune disorders and gastrointestinal disturbances.
The open burning of plastics has been banned in many American states, but some open burning persists. There is disagreement about whether incineration of plastic water bottles at the high temperatures used by commercial incinerators results in release of toxins like dioxin.
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