With rise of water pollution and increase in the number of cases of reported contamination, the consciousness for the need for safe drinking water has also increased tremendously. Nowadays people are more aware of the importance of safe drinking water. As a result, there is a huge demand for packaged drinking water. More numbers of companies are now in the market for production and supply of such package drinking water bottles. Though we all know about the statutory message “crush the bottle after use” printed on the packaging, we continue to throw away the bottles without crushing. We also witness during train or bus journeys that some small children collect such discarded bottles from all sorts of places.

What happens to these bottles then?

These bottles end up being misused as “duplicate packaged drinking water bottles”; and there are many such cases reported in different states of India so far. This scenario is quite dangerous for our health. So we need to take this issue very seriously, and ensure that we crush the bottles before discarding them into proper bins. We can thus reduce the chance for misuse of these bottles. This is just a simple message to create awareness. Avoid buying packaged drinking water if you can. But if you must buy, then please ensure proper disposal.

Please share this as much as possible. Thank you.

Moharana Choudhury,

Independent Researcher