Bottle Water Ruining The Enviorment?

Bottle water ruining the enviorment?

by

Marson Higdon

Generating, packaging and trucking a liter of bottled h20 requires between 1,100 and 2,000 times additional energy on average than treating and delivering the same amount of tap h20, according to a peer-reviewed energy analysis conducted by the Pacific Instituea nonprofit research organization located in Oakland, California.

Bottled water has become the beverage of choice for many people around the world, and sales have skyrocketed over the past couple years. In 2007, for example, additional than 200 billion liters of bottled h20 were sold worldwide. Americans alone retained added than 33 billion liters for an annual average of 110 liters (nearly 30 gallons) per person-a 70 percent increase since 2001. Bottled h20 has become so popular that it now outsells both milk and beer in theunited states. Carbonated soft drinks are the only bottled beverage that United states of america consumers buy in larger amounts than bottled water, and per-capita sales of bottled water are increasing while per-capita sales of milk and soft beverages are going downward. The irony here, of course, is that a lot of bottled h20 is little more than tap h20 which costs very little and is much better regulated and added rigorously tested than bottled water. For the energy analysis, environmental scientists Peter Gleick and Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute assessed the energy used during each stage of bottled h20 production. They added up the energy it requires to make a plastic bottle; process the h20; label, fill and shut the bottle; transport bottled water for sale; and cool the bottled h20 before it ends up in your gym bag or your car’s cup holder. The 2 scientists compute that just producing the plastic bottles for bottled-water consumption worldwide uses 50 million barrels of oil every year-enough to equip total usa. oil demand for 2.5 days. Transportation energy use is harder to figure, because some water is bottled locally and goes short distances to reach consumers while other brands of bottled water are brought in from another place from distant nations, which increases the amount of generated power needed to move them. According to the report, imported bottled h20 uses about two-and-a-half to four times added energy than bottled h20 produced domestically. Overall, the two scientists estimate that meeting u.s. demand for bottled-h20-assuming the 2007 consumption rate of 33 billion liters-requires energy equivalent to between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil. The energy needed to satisfy the global thirst for bottled h20 is about three times that quantity. If you imagine that every bottle of water you refreshment is about three-quarters h20 and one-quarter oil, you’ll have a pretty accurate picture of how much energy it takes to put that bottle of h20 in your hand.

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Bottle water ruining the enviorment?