The Problem With Your Water Bottle
Climate change is not a hoax created by the Chinese. (I hope), we all know that. Climate related issues are becoming more and more urgent. Yep, know that too. They key point is however what we often DON’T know, is how to act, how (and if) we can make a difference.
I am a strong believer that we can all make a difference with our daily choices and attitudes. It is key that governments take the right steps to protect our environment, and while it is our responsibility to push them to do this, we often cannot trust in the fact that this will happen as soon as it is needed. But we do have full control of our day-to-day routine. I am a bit of an sustainability nerd, and so are most of my friends. This means that I often circulate in-between people who are often aware and have the time to research into sustainability, letting this influence their daily choices. Because of this, I often forget that some things that are obvious to me, habits that I gave up years ago, might not be to other people, and that they are not fully aware of the environmental burden linked to their actions. No shame. There is lot of stuff I don’t know (so let’s commit to research more and more on how to be better to our planet yayy), and there is loads of stuff I do know, am fully aware of their impacts, but still haven’t managed to kick them out of my habits. But hey, in the end, it does affect us all, so it is important that we do talk with each other - understanding that not everyone has the same interests/time that we have, and that sadly, environmental education is lacking in schools and is often not being focused as enough of a priority in mainstream media - and take the time to explain the things we know and discuss solutions.
Anyways, long story short, last week I had a discussion with one of my work colleagues as they were teasing me about me showing concern about chemicals in plastic bottles that can be damaging to human health. I then tried to go deeper in the issue trying to explain the problem with littering and plastic bottles. So I was asked “and what if I throw it into the recycling bin? What’s the problem with my water bottle then?”. After having a moment of shock, not even knowing what to respond to their genuine belief that once a plastic bottle is thrown into the bin that’s it - problem solved, I figured, well how can they think any different? It is that that we are taught to believe.
Well, so what is the problem with our plastic bottles?
Let’s start with the health issues. BPA is a chemical used in most water bottles to make plastic hard and clear. It is also an endocrine disruptor, which means it’s shape can either cause your body to produce too much of a certain hormone or block it from producing a certain hormone. This can cause certain types of cancer, neurological difficulties, early puberty in girls, reduced fertility in women etc.
Is used to make plastic more flexible and is also an endocrine disrupting chemical. It causes reduced sperm count, testicular abnormality and tumours.
If this wasn’t enough to at least make you consider buying yourself a reusable water bottle, you should consider following things:
Plastic water bottles are one of the most unsustainable inventions, like, ever. There are millions of gallons of water involved to make these bottles. You are basically wasting more water in producing water bottles than your water bottle can even fit. The huge amount of water needed for their production also further fuels inequalities. The huge environmental stress put in regions where water bottles are produced affects residents of these areas, especially farmers, who often face shortages. This then affects food production, affecting the farmer’s financial gains, but also food prices and food security in the region. To add to all of this, most water bottles are produced of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which requires huge amounts of fossil fuel to make and transport. Take any water bottle and fill 25% of it with water. That’s how much fossil fuel was needed to produce this single bottle. That’s a lot.
Only certain bottles can be recycled in certain places. Recycling is a business, which means, it will only occur if there is profit coming out of it. In other words, if you are not making sure you are buying plastic bottles which have been recycled, you are undermining the likelihood of investment in recycling occurring. Municipalities will often only make sure that the plastic bottles recycled are the ones whose recycled outcome are being bought by companies in the area. The other ones end in the landfill. On top of that, many plastic bottles are made of different kinds of plastic which not every region has the capacity to separate and recycle properly. To conclude, most plastic bottles you use will end up stagnant in landfills, leaching dangerous chemicals into the ground, infiltrating streets as litter and often ending up in rivers and being washed up into the ocean.
But what happens to plastic bottles once they end up in the ocean? They break into smaller bits called micro plastics. Let’s keep one thing in mind: plastic will never decay. And it very very often ends up in the ocean. There, because of the saline environment, it breaks in million tiny pieces called micro plastics. These pieces are so tiny that they easily pass through water filtration systems, and are basically therefore impossible to clean out of our oceans. Our whole ocean is basically turning into a huge plastic soup. This is a huge threat to aquatic life, as stated by the marine scientists Karen Lavenden Law and Richard Thompson: “(the) problems will only get worse unless drastic action is taken to curb the sale of disposable plastic products worldwide and dispel the idea that plastic waste can just be thrown away.” Since clean up of this plastic soup is basically impossible, the urgent action to be taken is the reduced consumption and the identification of the main polluters.
Due to their small size, micro plastic are often ingested by habitants of the sea. It is also important to know that micro plastic containing toxic PCB’s and the pesticide DDF become enhanced in contact with marine life. Also, take in consideration that these are being ingested by organisms which are in the end going to be ingested by us humans. Yummy?
Be aware that micro plastics are often purposely placed in exfoliators, soaps, creams and toothpaste for hygienic/cosmetic purposes (but there are enough alternatives which don’t require micro plastics!), and these have a even easier way to end up in the ocean: they just get washed down the sink, and due to their small size, escape any kind of filtering system.
The good thing about this issue and all the major problems linked to it is, it is so goddamn easy to avoid. Start the plastic diet with us. For the love of our planet, just do it.
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