The Major Effects of Bottled Water on Our Environment
The impact of certain items that we use in our everyday lives might be much larger than what we assume. Bottled water is one of these products. The processes used in manufacturing and bottling water have an overwhelming impact on the environment. Majors effects of bottling water include depletion of wetlands, death of ocean life, and the increased use of landfills for disposal. There are options for recycling most plastic bottles, but unfortunately many bottles do not even make it to the recycling bin. The widespread impacts of bottled water work in a sort of domino effect with each other, one causes the next.
Have you ever thought about where the water in plastic bottles comes from? Most of it comes from groundwater sources. As a part of the water cycle, groundwater feeds bodies of water such as wetlands, rivers, and streams. By removing water from these sources, the flow of water is interrupted.
As a result of water interruption, less water makes it into wetlands, making them less plentiful and allowing for undernourishment of surrounding wildlife. Less water means an environment that is less secure, as water is essential for almost all life on earth. The impacts of bottling water are not limited to the manufacturing process, there is also environmental danger after the product has been bottled and consumed.
Lakes, rivers, streams– they all eventually end up running into the ocean. The flow of such bodies of water expands worldwide. Unfortunately, worldwide, there are people throwing trash such as water bottles into these bodies of water. Because they all lead to the ocean, the litter that is in them also flows to the ocean. This type of situation is exceptionally common with the lids to plastic bottles. Most of these lids are incapable of being recycled at all and they are so small that they can slip through almost anything, ending up in the ocean.
When marine life stumbles upon litter in the ocean, they often assume the litter as something that they can consume. Marine animals are not familiar with the chemical makeup of man made plastics, their bodies will not break it down. The intestines and other organs in these animals are often interfered with, causing death. Countless aquatic animals are killed on a daily basis, due to the consumption of foreign toxins.
As for the bottles of water that make it to the trash can and cannot be recycled, they almost all end up in in-ground landfills. Landfills are large holes in the ground where we put garbage that is not reused or recycled. When a landfill is full, layers of dirt are put onto the top in order to barry the garbage. Another landfill is dug after the exhaustion of one, creating even more land that is no longer usable. There is a problem with the amount of space in landfills before you add the water bottles that are put into them. Water bottles only add to the problem, as a contribution that could be controlled.
Bottled water has an extensive impact on the environment. It has an impact not only during the manufacturing process, but also after the fact. The effects of bottled water are far from beneficial. Finding alternatives is what can be done to prevent these harmful effect. Investing in a reusable water bottle that you keep on your person all the time is one way to greatly reduce your contribution to the bottled water problem. If less bottled water is purchased, less will be produced. On a larger scale, movements to limit the use and production of bottled water might be the solution.
