You may already know that if tap water cost the same as bottled water on a per gallon basis, a bath would cost $192. And that it takes 1.5 million barrels of oil per year to produce the bottled water consumed in the United States. That’s like filling every one of those bottles ¼ full of oil.
But until I started helping CamelBak Products with blogger outreach for its Sustainable Hydration Project, I didn’t, even though my family tries to be environmentally responsible. And I’m pretty sure my family isn’t unusual. We know there is an environmental cost, so we take care to recycle our soda cans and water bottles, but most of us just aren’t aware how much that bottled water is costing us financially as well as environmentally.
Now, it isn’t always easy being green, but in the case of drinking water, at least in the US, it really is. Tap water in most places in this country tastes just fine. Otherwise companies couldn’t filter it a little bit, put it in a disposable bottle and sell it at a huge mark-up. To compound the crime, most of those disposable plastic bottles aren’t recycled. To the tune of 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. Bottled water just doesn’t make sense. Environmentally or financially.
What can we do to reduce the cost, for ourselves and for our planet? There’s one simple thing that almost every one of us can do without much difficulty.
Instead of expensive bottled water, switch to tap water. At home, on the road and in restaurants. My family has. We’re even bringing our reusable bottles with us on vacation. Still not going to be much use for airplane trips but just about everywhere else, we should be able to get clean, cool tap water.
And it will be even easier early next year when CamelBak installs hydration stations in more than 50 top outdoor and bike retailers where we’ll be able to refill our bottles for free.
See, sometimes it is easy being green.
Disclaimer: as noted in the post, I did some blogger outreach this month for the Sustainable Hydration Project. Also: I love the CamelBak bottles.
Tags: CamelBak, sustainable hydration, green
We do this too.
Funny that I read this post just now becuase about a week ago I was talking with my family about the whole “going green” situation. I used to just laugh the green thing off, but then I realized that it’s not hurting anything, only helping, to change little things here and there. Perfect example, drink tap water. I find myself buying bottles of water, but I always forget to stick them in the fridge a few at a time. So, I end up with a choice between warm bottled water or ice cold tap water. What do I always end up choosing? The tap water of course. So, why am I wasting the money on the bottled water when I am not even drinking it, while I could be helping the environment and switching to tap water?