Drinking Water

Bottled water for Rs. 12/ : Can the environment afford it ?

Bottled water for Rs. 12/ : Can the environment afford it ?

Author : Bottled Water India A, Tushar Trivedi

An average trekker leaves behind approximately 100,000 kgs of water bottles per year. During average trekking of a week , trekker drinks up to 50 litres of water. Each trekker leaves behind 50 PET bottles along the track. PET bottles can take 1,000 years to biodegrade. Nine out of 10 water bottles end up as garbage or litter, and that means millions per day. PET bottles require massive amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport, leaving behind carbon foot prints. Billions of bottles show up at landfills every year. The entire energy costs of the lifecycle of a bottle of water are equivalent, on average, to filling up 250 ml of each bottle with oil. "Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 US cars for a year," according to the study. "Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year." Recently, anti-bottled water brigades in western countries, especially USA, have intensified their stir against bottled water production and consumption. Roughly 70,000,000 PET bottles end up being dumped in American landfills every year. Bottled water consumption, which has more than doubled globally in the last six years, is a natural resource that is heavily taxing the world's ecosystem. The bottled water units are producing unmanageable garbage apart from consuming vast quantities of energy. The ever increasing demand for bottled water soared in developing countries between 2004 and 2007 and India was no exception. It is time , 1840 Indian licensed units foresee such opposition and take few steps before such tirade in west snowballs here.

Major Factors Disturbing Ecology:

Steps that can be taken:

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