Stop buying Bottled Water

Today is Blog Action Day, and the topic is on environmental protection. I've decided to challenge you guys to do one thing to help the earth that should be possible for all of you.

After some thinking, I've come up with bottled water.

Apart from my wallet and my keys, there are two things I bring every day wherever I go. One is umbrella, the second is bottled water. I use the same bottle over and over until it gets old, and refill the water at home/work/church.

It is plainly unwise to buy bottled water- both financially and environmentally. Recycling/reusing them is easy to do, and helps the environment.

According to a 2001 report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year.

Besides the sheer number of plastic bottles produced each year, the energy required to manufacture and transport these bottles to market severely drains limited fossil fuels. Bottled water companies, due to their unregulated use of valuable resources and their production of billions of plastic bottles have presented a significant strain on the environment.

From PBS.org
"There's been a major public relations campaign launched to convince the people that bottled water is safer, and better, and purer than tap water; what our study found is: it ain't necessarily so."

And a story of a guy who broke up with his girlfriend because he refused to pay for a new bottled water.

I thought I was extreme already, carrying all the bottles in my bag until I can find a recycle bin, even when they are all empty and even when I'm travelling overseas. (I also do the same thing with paper. I never put paper into rubbish bin. =P) Btw, my water bottle is regularly cleaned.

The problem of reusing is that water stored in old plastic bottles are of poorer quality, no one is sure of the long term effects, but for most of the stuff we use, we're not sure of the long term effect anyway, so it's ok for me. If you're really afraid, you can buy a safer reusable water bottle. Scroll down this page to see safer water bottles.

PLEASE START HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT IN WHATEVER WAY YOU CAN STARTING FROM TODAY!!

Check out my other blog for another environmentally related post.