Bottled Water is Dangerous to Earth

1. What resources go into making bottled water?

1.1. Water

1.1.1. It almost takes triple the amount of water to produce a water bottle, than is actually in the bottle.

1.2. Crude Oil

1.2.1. Nearly 17 million barrels are used to make water.

1.3. PET (polyethylene terephthalate)

1.3.1. All plastic water bottles are made with PET. Nearly 50 grams of PET is used to make one bottle.

1.4. Electricity

1.4.1. It approximately takes 3.4 megajoules (1 kilowatt) to make the bottle, cap and packaging (1 litre bottle).

2. Local Impact (Vaughan)

2.1. The Issue: Bottled water is a big issue in Vaughan. I think this because when walking down the street you see empty bottles that have not been recycled. This is an issue because by not recycling we are going to be wasting more resources and it will damage our environment more.

2.2. How we can help: To help people recycle water bottles we can tell them how bad it is if they do not recycle and what effects it has on us and the earth.

2.3. What people need : I think people need a conformation that their tap water is not as bad as they think. I also think that new filters/ systems should come out that filter your water in a better way so that people can trust it.

3. How it affects the environment?

3.1. Water: There is approximately only 2.5% of fresh water in earth. In 2013 Canadians bought almost 2.4 billion litres of water. This means that 7.2 billion litres of water was used to make the bottles, caps, packaging and the water inside

3.2. PET: PETs are recyclable but, they don't biodegrade they photo-degrade, meaning they break into smaller pieces and those fragments cal pollute our waterways. Also 1 ton of PETs equals to 3 tons of carbon dioxide, this is bad because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse effect and the more heat that gets stuck in the atmosphere means that the earth will be hotter than it is normally. Even though PET bottles are recyclable only 14.5% of them get recycled.

3.3. Crude Oil: It is bad that crude oil is being used to make bottled water because sometimes to get oil you have to frack. While fracking we put our selves and wildlife in danger.

3.4. Energy: In some cases fossil fuels are used to make energy. Since fossil fuels are non- renewable one day we will not have them. This means that at one point getting electricity will be every hard and spending it all on water bottles when we could just drink from the tap is a bad idea.