Jun 22, 2009

Bottled water has no health advantages over tap water, but because of its convenience, bottled water is still widely used.  Look around the office.  Does your company provide bottled water at meetings or in the break room?  Switching from bottled water to tap water is one of the easiest ways to go green.

Bottled water is a drain on resources.  One bottle takes about 6.7 gallons of water to produce.  Usually, the bottle has to be shipped across the ocean; the transportation for each bottle consumes about .26 gallons of gas.  Each bottle requires oil to be produced, and in the United States, approximately 1.5 million barrels per year are needed to produce those bottles.

Simply recycling bottled water containers is not a sufficient step to reduce the waste associated with production and transportation of bottled water.  However, if your organization still uses bottled water, make sure to recycle the bottles, as currently only approximately 23 percent of bottled water containers are recycled.

Learn more about the safety of our nation's existing water system.

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