Purchasing a reusable water bottle is perhaps the easiest thing anyone can do to move towards a more sustainable lifestyle. One plastic bottle can take up to 1000 years to decompose and, needless to say, they are filling up our landfills faster than they can do so. Not to mention that America’s demand for bottled water uses over 17 million barrels of oil annually (and that’s not even including the oil used for transportation.)
People think that recycling is the solution to this problem, but I’m going to debunk this myth for you right now: plastics degrade when they are recycled and typically, can only be made into the same product one time before being downcyled. Eventually, the fibers become too short for any type of continued recycling, period. On top of this, not all water bottles are even being recycled; the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent—wasting approximately 38 billion water bottles each year. I’m certainly not telling you not to recycle, as it is imperative that we do so, but rather that is certainly not the only solution to the problem. Simply not purchasing/using throwaway water bottles is a better option than purchasing and recycling them.
And if I haven’t convinced you yet, the cost and health benefits of reusable water bottles far outweighs that of the throwaway plastic bottle. Moving from plastic water bottles to green water bottles can save you thousands of dollars a year and drinking tap water exposes you to local microorganisms in the water—helping you develop immunities and increase your resistance to common colds.
Last but not least, reusable water bottles can be fun! Use yours to advertise or make a statement; decorate it with stickers, doodles, sequins, or even glitter! This idea is already trending in many college towns (and if it isn’t already, hopefully soon yours too):
– Brittany L.