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Ban the Bottle

Ban the Bottle SignBan the Bottle is a campus-wide initiative to raise awareness in The Evergreen State College community about the negative impacts of plastic bottles on social, environmental and economical health as well as alternative, safer options for drinking water. The long-term goal of this initiative is to discontinue the purchase of plastic bottled water on campus and provide re-useable water canteens and to install bottle fill stations across campus.

2009 Events:

In May 2009, and again in December, students held a taste test sampling different brands of bottled water versus water from the tap.  Responses indicated that there was not a distinguishable taste difference for most participants between tap and bottled water.  Along with the taste test, information was presented on the negative environmental and social impacts of bottled water. 

In November 2009 Evergreen hosted the documentary Tapped as part of a series of screenings on campuses nationwide. 

"Stephanie Soechtig's debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water [...] From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never become a commodity: our water."

Visit http://www.tappedthemovie.com/ for more information on the documentary and some great resources on issues surrounding bottled water. 

2008 Event:

Katie Taylor, Sustainability Intern with Residential and Dining Services and Halli Winstead, Sustainability Intern with Dining Services collaborated to make the first event happen during Graduation and Super Saturday 2008. The focus for this first event was on raising awareness about the negative impacts of plastic bottle waste. To visually quantify how bottle waste quickly adds up Katie Taylor build a wood-frame chicken wire structure to house all plastic bottles that were thrown away or recycled during the two days. Stephen Tagriss helped to collect and clean all of the bottles for safe display. To help spread the word and to give an alternative to bottled water, Halli applied for a Clean Energy Grant that supplied 350 stainless steel canteens and 4 different custom designed vinyl stickers. The canteens were sold at a subsidized price to make them both an affordable and a responsible purchase. The bottles sold out on both days in less than 2 hours.

Facts about Bottled Water:

  • In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. Nearly a quarter of all bottled water crosses national borders to reach consumers, transported by boat, train, and truck. (v)
  • The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes. (ii)
  • Last year, the average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38. (ii)
  • Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. However, the U.S.'s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles - more than $1 billion worth of plastic - are wasted each year. (ii)
  • About 86% of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States end up in the garbage instead of being recycled. (i)
  • Plastic bottles take 700 years before they begin to decompose in a landfill.
  • Some companies pump groundwater for bottling.  This pumping can have significant environmental impacts, sucking water from underground aquifers that are the source of water for nearby streams, wells and farms.
  • The Pacific Gire, a naturally occurring giant whirlpool in the Pacific Ocean currently hosts a Texas-sized island of trash in its center.  Water tests from the area indicate there are more plastic particles in the water than plankton by a factor of six!
  • Making bottles to meet America’s demand for bottled water uses more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year!
  • A filter can remove chlorine. Most water filters remove or reduce this chemical disinfectant. On the other hand, fluoride is more of a challenge. Typically, only reverse osmosis filters and distillation units reduce or remove fluoride.
  • Most Tap Water is just as clean and safe as bottled water. (i)
  • The Natural Resources Defense Council’s study tested 1,000 bottles of 103 bottled water brands for a range of pollutants, including arsenic, microbiological contaminants, and toxic chemicals. About one-quarter of the brands tested contained bacterial or chemical contamination in some samples at levels that violated "enforceable state standards or warning levels" and nearly one-fifth of the tested brands "exceed state bottled water microbial guidelines in at least some samples.(i)
  • Many people drink bottled water because they consider it safer and cleaner than tap water.  This is not true!
  • In the U.S., public water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requires multiple daily tests for bacteria and makes results available to the public.  The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water, only requires weekly testing and does not share its findings with the EPA or the Public.
  • About 40% of bottled water is filtered tap water.
  • A home water filtration system will remove or reduce the amount of chlorine in tap water.
  • Polyethylene terephthalate, PET, is a potential human cancer agent that can leach from the plastic into the water even under normal conditions.
  • In the United States, 24 percent of bottled water sold is either Pepsi's Aquafina (13 percent of the market) or Coke's Dasani (11 percent of the market). Both brands are bottled, purified municipal water. (ii)
  • In the U.S., public water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requires multiple daily tests for bacteria and makes results available to the public. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water, only requires weekly testing and does not share its findings with the EPA or the public.(iii)
  • In the United States in 2006, bottled water consumption reached a record 8.3 billion gallons, 185 million gallons of which was imported. The total amount spent on bottled water was over $11 billion. (Beverage Marketing Corp.)
  • Making bottles to meet America's demand for bottled water uses more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year1. And that's not even including the oil used for transportation. (ii)
  • Tap water on average costs $0.002 per gallon whereas bottled water ranges front $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon. (i)
  • In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.
  • Groundwater pumping significantly effects the water table in local areas and is a method of privatizing a public resource
  • American's are drinking a lot of bottled water: 8.3 billion gallons - about 26 gallons per person - in 2006.  And they are spending a lot of money for this myth of purity packed in plastic.  In 2005, consumers shelled out more than $8.8 billion for almost 7.2 billion gallons of non-sparkling bottled water.  That was some $850 million more than they paid for 6.4 billion gallons in 2004.(i)
  • Bottled water is costing consumers 240 to 10,000 times more per gallon than tap water that is as good, or better, and far more monitored. (i)
  • 40% of bottled water is nothing more than the tap variety. (i)
  • The costs associated with purchasing bottled water do not include the external economic, social, and environmental costs that society must pay, such as loss of groundwater, toxic emissions from plastic production and destruction, air pollution from transporting the products, and the disposal of loads of empty bottles. (i)
  • 74% of the 1,000 survey respondents to a 2003 Gallup survey commissioned by the EPA reported that they purchased and drank bottled water; 20% drank bottled water exclusively.  When asked why they treated their tap water or purchased bottled water, 33 percent of respondents cited health and safety concerns. (i)
  • In a separate poll, 86% of Americans expressed concern about their tap water.  Forty-one percent of respondents reported using a water filter, bottled water, or both.  About 56% of the bottled water drinkers cited safety and health as the primary reason they sought out alternatives to straight tap water. (i)

Check Out how safe your water is at: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/index.html

Lots of people purchased bottlesSources:

i. Take Back the Tap, Copyright June 2007 by Food & Water Watch.
ii. http://filterforgood.com/learn_the_facts.php; Filter For Good Website. Burros, Marian. "Fighting the Tide, a Few Restaurants Tilt to Tap Water." The New York Times [New York City, NY] 30 May 2007: Section F, Page 1.
iii. http://www.refillnotlandfill.org/facts.html Refill not Landfill Campaign Website
iv. Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” Natural Resource Defense Council, March 1999. Available at: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp
v. The Earth Policy Institute, http://www.earth-policy.org/

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