Bottled water now on global warming hit list
May 7, 2009 by Tom GuayPosted in: Cost Cutting, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, News
Oh boy. Now it seems anything can cause global warming these days. The latest culprit: bottled water!
New York yesterday joined Illinois and Virginia and dozens of cities in banning purchases of bottled water by state and municipal agencies. NY Gov. David Paterson (D) says bottled water manufacturing alone creates 2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year.
The bans are designed to cut costs of the water and related disposal/recycling expenses and critically, to promote the use and safety of municipal tap water.
These regulatory phaseouts also serve as a warning to all companies to consider ways to reduce their environmental footprints.
To see a list of other cities and states considering ways to discourage bottled water usage, click here.
Bottle water also contributes to global warming because of the associated CO2 emissions from fossil fuels used to power trucks, vans and ships that deliver the product. Another key negative is that it takes more water to make a bottle of bottled water than the bottle contains. To see one such analysis, click here.
To calculate what the associated GHG emissions might be for your products, click here for EPA’s calculators.
Tags: bottled water, global warming, greenhouse gas, recycling
GreenandMore.com
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May 11th, 2009 at 9:11 am
What makes the water bottle any worse than a soda bottle? We all see the commercials with the water bottle sitting on the landfill – if your state does not recycle bottles and cans doesn’t that mean the soda bottle will be sitting right there next to the water bottle? My state recycles, all my beverage (soda, juice and yes… water) bottles go to the recycling center. Just curious.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:11 am
GLASS AND MORE GLASS. FORGET CANS AND OIL BASED PLASTICS WAKE UP!
May 14th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
If you would just drink tap water. It can be filtered. You can use one container over and over again. I know their are alot of you lazy people out there that just cannot seem to find the 45sec it would take to simply wash the container. That would eliminate all that extra garbage, money bottling water, etc. Wake up people.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I reuse my bottles and recycle everything. There are just as many soda bottles being made but the municipal agencies want you to buy their water. Bottled water is cutting into their profits. Is that fair? Do we not have the right to choose our beverages? The effort to reduce CO2 emissions needs to be a conscious effort by all. Banning just water bottles is not a viable solution to the problem.
May 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
But it’s a start Christina. I myself drink tap water all the time, and if I’m going somewhere that no tap water is available, I’ll simply fill a drinking container with tap water and take it with me. Also if they ran soda through piping to everyones home then most likely the soda companies would stop bottling themselves. Water is already available where ever you go. There’s really no logical reason to bottle it. Except for major emergencies.
May 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Lazy, Lazy and Lazy, that is what we have become, what is wrong with tap water, anyway most of the water bottle companies use tap water, get rid of the plastic, get rid of cans and recycle. We have become a lazy nation with drive thru fast foods, drive thru dry cleaners and banks, online banking, shopping on the net and QVC??? Ha! We pay a very eOur future kids and grandkids will pay the price!!!
I just hope I am dead by them!
May 14th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I do not think mankind causes global warming at all,..it’s just more liberal lies. Green is just the another industry trying to make money from you.
I love how people always go green with things they barely use anyway,..grifters!
Women are the BIGGEST abusers of plastics on the planet,..they have all the crap in their purses so they can hide their real faces,..tampon applicators are made of plastic,..how about it ladies, are you gonna start using the old fashion method and just use a cotton cloth instead of the plastic applicator.
If your gonna do it do it for real,…anyone can go wothout plastic water bottles, but can women go wiothout the aforementioned plus the eyeliner container, lipsticks container, fake nails, fake eye lashes,..I doubt it very much!!!
May 14th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I have quit using bottled water at home, I’ll try to start using a water glass at work. But like spwondering questioned, what about the soda bottles? What can we do about that? Should we petition to go back to the aluminum cans?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
For all of you who want to get away from plastic bottles — check out this website. This is the first environmentally responsible water carton available in the US. Europe has used aseptic packaging for years. Good Morning America showed this product as the packaging for the future of water. Request your local supermarket and retailer to carry this product.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
The website is: http://www.ecochoicewater.com Convenience packaging without the environmental issue. Packaging produced in a plant that runs on wind energy – 0 carbon footprint.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
OK, I get all this about tap water and I feel appropriately guilty and try very hard not to buy bottled water. But don’t tell me tap water tastes just as good. It tastes like chlorine and it upsets my stomach. Spring water does not. I try to actually go to springs and wells and fill my water bottles which I reuse until they die. My brother laughs at me, but I have been carrying water since 1969 because I don’t like the way municipal water tastes. And believe me, that’s not because of laziness.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Mastroantonio, Are you a woman hater? Why are you just singling them out. How about the men with their plastic combs, and razor handles, etc. We’re talking about plastic bottles here. You sound like a LOSER.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:08 am
I can attest to the usage of bottled water as not what it is cropped up to be. I boiled the bottled water in my kettle and it leaves a sediment in the bottom of the kettle. This water seems like there is a lot of chlorine in it. On the other hand I have boiled the tap filtered water and and that water is clear with no sediment remaining. What is that saying? Promote the use of going green and use your own filtered water and not the bottled water. In the long run it cost you nothing and you are saving over the years.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Come on people…this is not the first time global warming has happened. Our grandparents grandparents weren’t alive when it happened. Granted, the plastic bottles aren’t helping the matter, but it can’t be stopped.
I atempted to recycle, but the ignorant city workers kept putting my recycling bags (that I paid a fortune for) in the garbage truck. So much for separtating everything, rinsing everything out and waisting my time.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am
What if there is no recycling in your area, but there used to be? Also there is about a 3% chance that the recycling plant will be put back online.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
“New York yesterday joined Illinois and Virginia and dozens of cities in banning purchases of bottled water by state and municipal agencies.”
Anybody see a trend in all these articles? Gov’t, gov’t, gov’t. Forget freedom of choice.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Steve, this has to do with wasting money and polluting for nothing when there is tap water available for drinking. The government is just making a decision to stop wasteful spending. That is their job. You can have your freedom and waste your money by going to another state to get your
stupid bottled water. Or if you don’t like what the government is doing, move to another. Or if you don’t like what the government is doing in this country, move to another country. There are countries out there where there is no clean tap water to drink at all. Besides, if you read the article and what you yourself posted it states that “state and municipal agencies” not the whole state itself.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:34 am
Green appears to be only the money involved. The 0 carbon footprint Jennifer spoke of??? I am involved with wind turbine production and installation all of which has a very large carbon footprint; does this not count because it was made elsewhere, or paid for? Wind is never constent and therefore requires some type of energy backup. It is only useable a small presentage of the time. We talk GREEN and sell GREEN but as I said that is the money thrown at it in order for us to feel better about driving that SUV or as I refer to it, UAV (Urban Assualt Vehicle). We will find a better way or kill ourselves; whichever comes first the earth will still be here but we may not be.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I use the same 7 gallons I’ve collected since several months ago. I just refill them at one of those “windmill” looking places for 25 cents each when we run out.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:45 am
At the beginning of July I wrote a newsletter hinged on this subject. The facts are astounding and a real wake-up call to all people everywhere. In 2008, the volunteers for The Great American Cleanup picked up 189 million plastic bottles from our rivers, roads and parks. Unbelievable! I personally have installed a whole house filter and drink my water from an Eco-Canteen. No plastic taste when it warms up and not one water bottle going to the landfill.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:44 am
My daughter in law changed to glass baby bottles.The baby broke the bottle then crawled through the broken glass.(She bled alot,but she is OK. She bled for The Cause.) I worked in natural foods for years and I can tell you these scares are often driven by competing companies. Just get the message to the green loons and they will get it out there for free!(useful fools) Someone needs to do a campaigne on municipal water and water filters. I’m old enough to remember the Coming Ice Age and hairless babies with large heads to contain their superior evolved brains!(yes,taught in public school) I am now an EPA;HAZMAT,First Responder,and accessibility tecnition. I was green when green wasn’t cool. I think we are cowards before these crazy fanatics! Our media will sell anything!Where have the Americans gone?
September 10th, 2009 at 10:35 am
At home and locally we drink tap water (exceptin a nearby city that has notorously BAD water), but we travel alot and always take bottles with us. Changing water upsets my stomach as it does with many people. We refill our plastic bottles with our local tap water for our doggies, when they go with us as different water really messed up their tummies. I no longer drink any soda or beer, just water, tea, lemonade and koolaid that I make, so I don’t feel quilty for the few bottles that I use.
It’s like everything else – MODERATION and CONSERVATION (which means to use resources wisely – not cease to use them)
September 11th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
What about Cokes? My daughter changed to glass baby bottles. My wife looked down and the baby was crawling through broken glass and blood.Baby is OK,but it’s back to plastic for now. I thought that maybe the glass bottle could be dipped in tool handle liquid rubber but, is it safe for baby?There are some great opportunities for invention here.But until then,some of you folks can pour scorn on yourselves and others: that always helps.Better yet,we can do this together in a positive way.New green products,better inviroment,better economy. (The American Way)
October 15th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Come to think of it, when I was growing up in the 60′s, 70′s and even in the 80′s, the country where I was born and lived (before migrating to the US) was already being “green”. For example, we see beauty on those glass instant coffee containers that we use them as drinking glasses after consuming all of the instant coffee granules. And when we had more than enough for our use, we’d sell them to roaming buyers of used bottles who in turn sell them to bigger businessmen who had a big storage housed in an old building. We called them as “Bottle people” but now has a more respectable sounding title of “recycler”. The came the plastic containers, we would use the wide mouthed ones as storage for sugar, flour and other stuff. For the ones that are similar to the milk gallons, we would cut them diagonally in half, nailed a scrap piece of wood as handle and its use would be similar to a “dustpan”. Pretty crude looking but it served its purpose. But times have changed and we have lost our ingenuity and creativity. Our lives are getting too hectic. And I think there is a good reason why we elect people in public office whose business would be to remind us how we should take care of our environment for our sake and for the ones after us.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:06 am
While everyone is up in arms about these states and municipalities pushing new legislation we are all missing the point. None of these laws prevent you as a private citizen from going to your usual shopping center and buying all the bottleed water your heart desires. What the laws do is prevent your tax dollars from being spent on water coolers and individual bottles of water for government employees. I’m sure there are still exceptions for public services such as fire and police to have bottled water for emergencies but the end result is that government offices will be more likely to install filtration systems and force employees to either drink the filtered tap water or bring their own bottled water. I’m pretty sure we can all think of better things to spend tax dollars on than bottled water. Decaying infrastructure anyone?