Solutions & Solubility: How Bottled Water Kills Everything

Article: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/whats-the-problem-with-plastic-bottles/

By this point in our species' development, we've come to learn that plastic is bad for the environment. We also know that we like to use it, a lot. While we as a population are for the most part, aware of these facts, many don't have to live with the consequences of our actions. Your plastic isn't dumped in your backyard after all. So whose is it dumped in?

First off, what specifically makes plastic horrible for both you and the environment? They contain Biphenol A (BPA), which makes it hard and clear. Through skin exposure, it disrupts endocrines which are hazardous to human health, strongly linked to many health problems including cancer, neurological difficulties, early puberty in girls, reduced fertility in women, premature labour, and newborn defects.

(Some national pride here though: Canada was the first in 2010 to declare BPA

as a toxic substance, while the American Chemical Council still states otherwise.)

They also contain phthalates, commonly used to make plastics such as polyvinyl chloride more flexible. They are also endocrine-disrupting, linked to other developmental and reproductive effects such as reduced sperm count, testicular abnormality, tumors and gender development issues. The FDA actually doesn't regulate phthalates, due to their supposedly minute quantities present in plastic bottles. However, we are exposed to the bottles all the time, and the concentration increases the longer they are stored and when in heat.

For animals, pollution is a huge issue. The plastic caps, not recyclable, end up at the bottom of the ocean, or in their stomachs - where they often cannot be gotten rid of. For marine life, this happens often. The article elaborates on a sperm whale found dead whose small intestine was blocked by a plastic gallon bottle, as well as other plastic bottles, caps and bags.

For the environment in general, the petroleum product polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used to make plastic bottles require a massive amount of fossil fuels to make and transport them. 25% of the bottle's volume is quantity of oil that went in to making it, and for every gallon, two more gallons were lost in the purification process. Most plastics cannot decompose, even in small pieces, within the human lifetime. They then end up in landfills polluting the soil, or in many cases, shipped around the globe to end up in some other countries' 'landfill' - often at the expense of other people's safety as well as quality of life.

As for what you can do to help, it's fairly simple. Avoid bottled drinks altogether, use your own bottle and refill it - as well as recycle whenever you can. If you want to go the extra step, do the research on water companies - they're full of false marketing about how their brand is somehow of a higher quality, when it's often just filtered tap water. (And the oil used to ship it across the globe -cough Fiji cough- is really quite ridiculous.)

Think of the whales.

(Do you currently own/use a water bottle? And have you ever bought a bottle of Fiji just because, Fiji, and because the bottle was oddly square-shaped? How well do you think our school is doing in terms of the 3 R's to help reduce our negative environmental impact as a whole?)