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Bottled Water

Quick facts about bottled water versus
cleaning up the drinking water supply

  • Members of the United Nations estimate that if the world took half of what it currently spends on bottled water ($100 billion annually) and invested it in water infrastructure and treatment, everyone in the world could have access to clean drinking water.
  • But bottled water is cleaner, right? Actually, the U.S. EPA sets more stringent quality standards for tap water than the FDA does for bottled beverages, and roughly 40% of bottled water is actually just tap water.
  • 1.5 billion barrels of oil are consumed each year to produce the plastic for water bottles, enough to fuel 100,000 cars.
  • According to the Container Recycling Institute, only 14 percent of plastic water bottles are recycled.
  • A water bottle in a landfill or lying around as litter will take over 1,000 years to biodegrade.

More info:
organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/Bottled020606.cfm