Please Stop Drinking This Water. The Truth Behind It Is Horrifying.
#1
How often are you out and think to yourself, "I could use some water right now." Then you go off and buy a bottle of water at a shop - usually a light PET bottle, because you can hardly find anything else. It is quite easy to take one with you when you go jogging or or when you're traveling. These are exactly the kinds of water bottles that the organization Storyofstuff made an informational video about. It makes clear the effects of plastic bottles on our life. In it the following points are addressed:
#2
There is another situation that we all know very well, namely the flip side: a beautiful landscape, a beach, full of plastic bottles and trash. This can be fatal not just for animals that can choke on them.
#3
Why do we even drink water from plastic bottles? Nowadays most people that the residues from the oil that is used to make plastic is dangerous to your health. During a test in Detroit, USA, it was determined that expensive $2 bottle water actually has a poorer quality than that of tap water and on top of that it tasted worse. But how is it that most people are more likely to grab a bottle of water nonetheless?
#4
Producers sell bottled water at a markup price of up to 2000 times compared to what tap water would cost. Who would pay $10000 for a sandwich, just because it's packed in plastic? Originally the companies that generate the most revenue on the water market sold soft drinks in the 1970s such as Coca Cola. But soon people determined that soft drinks are very unhealthy and began to drink tap water again. In response companies began to sell bottled water. Initially people laughed about it because it seemed to them as though the companies were selling air. So, companies had to artificially create demand. In ads they warned about drinking tap water, because it was allegedly too dangerous and should only be used for showering or to do the washing up. Then they added colorful images of mountains to the packaging on water bottles.
#5
These images are meant to suggest the naturalness and healthiness of water. This is quite absurd when you take into account that this is usually just filtered tap water. Plastic is also one of the biggest dangers to the environment. It cannot be broken down thanks to its long life. The main problem starts with the production of the bottles. The large amounts of petroleum that are required corresponds to the same amount that is needed for cars in the US. The international distribution is yet another factor. An unbelievable sum when you consider that a water bottle is used up within 2 minutes.
#6
The next problem is the disposal. Even if there is a recycling symbol on many bottles, these products don't usually get recycled.
#7
80 percent of the bottles end up in the trash where they can either be stored for 1000 years until they decompose or they get burned. When they are burned, environmental points get unleashed. The rest gets tossed into the recycling bin. In that case, it sometimes happens that shiploads of empty bottles are transported to India. There they are unloaded into piles of trash. Instead of being recycled, they get "downcycled", that is to say, they are changed into lower quality products. And these end up in the trash later on.
#8
Consumers who use water bottles are led into buying them in three steps: Fear, temptation, and misinformation. In many places, tap water (the biggest enemy of the water industry) is now unenjoyable. But this is partly, for example, to do with factories in which water is filled into plastic bottles. They channel their wastewater and filth into rivers. How can you confront this industry? The video from Storyofstuff definitely offers some ideas. Here it is: