Say NO To Plastic Bottled Water

We're putting our foot down on the plastic bottled water industry in Australia.

Drinking water from a tap in Australia is extremely safe and cheap yet Australians are now paying more per litre of bottled water than for petrol. Did you know tap water costs 1 cent per litre compared to bottled water which costs $2.53 per litre on average? One of the most popular brands; Mount Franklin, made by bottling company Coca-Cola Amatil has 40% of the market share in Australia. With companies pouring a lot of money into marketing we are being sold a 'healthy' image of bottled water over tap distorting the truth.

Australians purchased over 726 million litres of water in 2015, therefore Australians may have spent up to $2 billion dollars on bottled water in that year. Where does all this bottled water come from? Clean, peaceful rivers and bubbling mountain brooks as shown on the bottles? Not so much. It’s mostly drilled and pumped from the ground, at almost zero cost creating over 60,000 tons of greenhouses gases a year in Australia alone. Oh, and 25% of bottled water is sourced from you guessed it... the tap.

The making and moving of the plastic bottles for all this water use more than 460,000 barrels of oil. Less than 40% of these bottles are recycled; the rest ends up in the tip or in our waterways and oceans. It takes 450 years for a plastic bottle completely biodegrade, with some bottles it can take 1000 years to biodegrade! New studies say that even if they don't contain BPA, most plastic products release estrogenic chemicals.

Can we get back to the tap? In 2009, the New South Wales town of Bundanoon voted to become the first town in the world to outlaw bottled water. Its citizens voluntarily chose to ban bottled water in response to a bottling company's desire to sell water from the town's local aquifer, prohibiting the selling or dispensing of bottled water within the town precinct. Bundanoon's six stores removed bottled water from their stock. The town now offers public drinking fountains and filtered water dispensers where people can fill up reusable water bottles and canteens.

Doesn't it seem absurd to ship bottled water around the world, load it on a truck, haul it to a shop, where they are sold for a final time for a single use?

So what can we do?

• Don't buy bottled water.
• Carry a reusable bottle or container with you. We use glass jars from cooking sauces!
• Find a water fountain or ask a nearby establishment for tap water.
• Contact your Council to put drinking taps in your parks and shopping centres.
• Contact your MP’s to ban one-use plastic bottles in your area.
• Contact the big brands like Mount Franklin to make biodegradable bottles.
• Buy a water filter for your home.

Thanks for your support! Choose tap!

References

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/bottled-water-costs-2000x-more-than-tap-2013-7,https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jun/01/should-i-stop-drinking-bottled-water, http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/bottled-water-producer-admits-consumers-paying-for-plastic-not-pure-safe-water-20160715-gq6oif.html

http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/bottled-water-boom-why-australians-are-paying-more-per-litre-than-for-milk-and-petrol-20160506-goo1h1.html

http://oceancrusaders.org/plastic-crusades/plastic-statistics/

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jul/09/bottled-water-shipped-halfway-round–world-madness,http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014009/pdf;jsessionid=00E8DBB2D6F64F73A917E6C9703CF67B.c5.iopscience.cld.iop.org

https://thewaterproject.org/bottled-water/bottled_water_wasteful, http://www.belmont.edu/green/bottled_water.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water_ban#Bundanoon.2C_New_South_Wales.2C_Australia