Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is rapidly becoming an important goal for a lot of people lately. However, sometimes making those green lifestyle changes are not the easiest on the pocketbook. There are some ways that you can do things differently that will actually save you money and make a huge impact on our world. One of those is to stop buying bottled water.

It seems that having bottled water has almost become a necessity in this country; we buy it like we buy milk and bread. Everywhere you look there are people with bottle in hand. Actually, the United States is the largest consumer of bottled water in the world. Unfortunately, we are also are not doing a very good job of recycling all of those bottles. According to The Container Recycling Institute we are only recycling about 20% of plastic water bottles. Yes, you read that right, only 20% are being recycled! To make matters worse, a lot of the bottles that are deposited for recycling are actually exported, sometimes to as far away as China, which just adds to the resources used by this product.

The manufacturing and transporting of bottled water uses massive amounts of fossil fuels. Most of the bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, which is derived from crude oil. Just making the bottles for the demand in America requires 17 million barrels of oil annually. That is enough to fuel more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year. The energy used to transport the product to consumers just adds to this number. Nearly a ¼ of all bottled water crosses national borders, transported by boat, train, and truck. The US does produce about 94% of its bottled water domestically, but we do also import some water shipped from faraway places like Fiji simply to satisfy the demand for chic and exotic bottled water. Compared to tap water, which is delivered through an energy-efficient infrastructure, bottled water is an extremely wasteful product.

Let’s just stop and think for a moment, is it really necessary to have water pre-packaged in a bottle? Before the bottled water craze we seemed to get along just fine. A lot of people are under the false belief that it is healthier for you than tap water, when in fact using a water filter removes more contaminants than any other purification system. Many may be quite surprised to learn that about 40% of bottled water actually begins as tap water and usually the only difference is added minerals that have no health benefit anyways. Furthermore, in the U.S., there are more regulations governing the tap water quality than bottled water. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency mandates that local water treatment facilities provide a detailed report to the citizens outlining the water source and any test results, including contaminant level violations. There are no requirements like this in place for bottled water companies. Also, public water systems must test for harmful microbiological content in water multiple times a day while bottled water companies are only required to test for these once a week.

Aside from being better for the planet and for your health, drinking filtered tap water is also much more economical. It is not uncommon for somebody to purchase 1 case of water per week for about $7. That is an annual cost of $364, just to drink water and I’m willing to bet that is a lower figure than most spend. Do any of us spend anywhere near that much per year for our entire household water usage? Many justify the purchase touting the convenience factor, but the same convenience can be achieved by simply purchasing a few reusable water bottles. There are a variety of them on the market and they are specifically designed for this purpose. You will make back the money spent on a reusable bottle in no time once you stop spending money on cases of bottled water.

Do something great for your pocketbook, your health and your world. Get yourself a water filter if you don’t already have one as well as a few reusable water bottles and stop buying bottled water. This is definitely one way everyone can contribute to the future well-being of our planet!

Michele Dupper is Mom to her almost 2 year old son and the owner of Truly Organic Beauty. She lives in sunny FL and has been transitioning to a green lifestyle since starting a family. Michele enjoys educating others about living a more natural lifestyle that is beneficial for the health of our bodies as well as our planet.

Environment