Bottled water is a must-have in many households. Tap water just isn’t pleasant to drink in many places and may contain harmful impurities. With such poor water conditions, many people believe that their only option is purchasing bottled water.
While bottled water is a convenient alternative to unhealthy tap water, it has more issues than you might be aware of. Let’s explore 4 reasons to stop using single-use plastic water bottles.
1. Bottled Water Is Expensive
Bottled water is significantly more expensive than tap water. You probably have an amount set aside for your monthly water budget, and drinking bottled water can add a significant amount to that expense.
The average cost of tap water in the UK is 0.1 pence per litre, compared to 65p plus for 1 litre of bottled water. At the end of the day, if plastic bottled water is your family’s only source of drinking water, you can expect your annual water bill to be monumental.
2. Bottled Water Has Limited Reuse Value
Reusing single-use plastic water bottles is a very bad idea. Since the bottles are made of thin, flexible plastic, they are prone to cracking and breaking over time. If your bottle breaks after repeated usage, you run the risk of hurting yourself or ingesting small plastic pieces that have chipped away from the bottle. Bacteria could also start to grow on the plastic, which opens the doors to avoidable illnesses.
You also need to consider chemical leakage when reusing plastic bottles. Extra chemicals may leach into the water you drink when you reuse a plastic water bottle. It’s far safer to reuse a cup or mug.
3. Bottled Water Is a Leading Cause of Pollution
Millions of people drink bottled water every day and wrongly dispose of plastic bottles. There’s an ever-growing heap of plastic bottle waste slowly building and damaging the environment, as it takes a long time to breakdown, therefore plastic is a long-term environmental hazard. Plastic wastes promote the formation of greenhouse gases, which drift into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
As waste sites overflow with plastic rubbish, the fate of the earth and future generations appear very worrying. Global warming isn’t the only way plastic waste can hurt us. Once the plastic finally starts to breakdown the chemicals from the slowly decomposing plastic bottles find their way into our soil, water, and air, posing a threat to all life on the planet.
4. Manufacturers Use a Lot of Water in the Production of Plastic Bottles
Aside from safety and environmental considerations, making plastic water bottles consumes a lot of water. Cooling hot plastic items demand large amounts of water. The extrusion method, which feeds plastic through a long, heated chamber, is commonly used to produce plastic bottles.
The plastic is melted by the heating chamber and its moving screws, and then it flows through a small die to form the end product’s shape. After the plastic has been extruded, it’s left to cool in a water bath. In many circumstances, the amount of water required to create a plastic bottle is greater than the capacity of the bottle once it is ready for use.
Alternatives to Plastic Bottled Water
Bottled water is bad for the environment, expensive, and not as pure as the manufacturers would have you believe. You’re spending more time, effort, and money than you realise when purchasing bottled water. But getting clean, drinkable water doesn’t have to be this way.
You can get clean drinking water by installing a bottleless water dispenser in your home. Compared to bottled water, water dispensers save you a lot of money. You’ll pay a one-time installation cost, and then the filters will need to be changed once a year. These costs are small when spread out over time and can provide you with more healthy water at a fair price.
Water Dispenser Types
There are many kinds of water dispensers available. Water dispensers can be bottled or bottleless. With proper research, you’re guaranteed to find your ideal fit among some of the best water dispensers. Many are small enough to fit on a counter, while others are much larger and less portable.
How does a bottleless water dispenser work? It provides water straight from your plumbing system. Well, not quite straight. First, the water goes through several stages of filtration for a better taste. And let’s not forget; water dispensers don’t just provide lukewarm water. They also offer hot and cold water.
4 Problems
Plastic bottled water consumption causes 4 problems:
- It’s expensive.
- The plastic bottles have limited reuse value.
- It’s a leading cause of pollution
- A lot of water goes into the production process.
1 Solution
- Water dispensers. They are more environmentally friendly and produce healthier water, due to the filtration technique.
