12 surprising facts about bottled water…
Part of our mission with sharing Kangen Water is reducing (or better yet - eliminating!) plastic water bottles from our communities, families, and ultimately - the world. Here are 12 surprising facts you may not have known about bottled water:
every second of every day in the united states, 1000 people buy and open a bottle of water.
And, every second of every day, 1000 plastic bottles are thrown away.
93% of bottled water contains microplastics.
A study that analyzed samples taken from 259 bottled waters sold from countries all over the world found that 93% of them contained “microplastic” synthetic polymer particles. Not only that, but Sherri Mason, author of the study & sustainability researcher at Penn State, said, “some were definitely visible without a magnifying glass or microscope.” The average across all the 11 brands tested was 325 microplastic particles per liter of bottled water. Nestle had the largest concentration - one sample from the brand was found to contain more than 10,000 microplastic particles per liter.
producing & transporting bottled water takes up to 2000 times the energy required to produce & distribute tap water.
Researchers Peter Gleick and Heather Cooley from the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, have estimated the energy required to produce bottled water, including the energy required to manufacture plastic, fabricate the plastic into bottles, process the water, fill and seal the bottles, transport the bottles, and chill the bottles for use. They found that when combining all the energy input totals, producing bottled water requires between 5.6 and 10.2 million joules of energy per liter, depending on transportation factors (a typical personal-sized water bottle is about 0.5 liters). That’s up to 2,000 times the energy required to produce tap water, which costs about 0.005 million joules per liter for treatment and distribution.
bottles take over 1000 years to biodegrade.
And if incinerated instead, they produce toxic fumes into the air such as chlorine gas and ash laden with heavy metals.
water used for bottling is taken from places that are running dry.
Many companies bottle water in California, a state that is has been in megadrought and water shortage for the longest stretch of time since at least 800 A.D. Even though bottled water companies are distributing drinking water, they can drain sources that local communities, wildlife, and landscapes rely on.
more than 17 million barrels of oil are required to make enough plastic bottles to meet america’s bottled water demands.
And that’s just one country. There are 195 countries in the world with most, if not all, consuming bottled water in some capacity.
1 million bottles of bottled water are consumed worldwide - every minute.
Did you do the math? That’s okay - we did.
1 million bottles per minute equates to 525,600,000,000 bottles of bottled water consumed every year throughout the world.bottled water companies do not need to use certified testing.
The FDA requires that companies test for bacterial contamination in water only once per week, and they must test only four empty bottles once every three months for bacterial contamination. When it comes to chemical, physical, or radiological contaminants, a sample of water must be checked only once a year (!!!). On top of that, the FDA doesn’t test bottled water for phthalates like DEP — a chemical that is used to produce plastic water bottles and is also a potential cancer agent in humans.
it takes 3 liters of water to create 1 liter of bottled water.
And that is with as much as 40% of bottled water actually coming from the tap, which means bottled water consumers are paying hundreds or thousands of times more for an illusion of purity while water is being wasted.
bottled water is 3000% more expensive than tap water.
Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89-$8.26 per gallon charged for bottled water!
86% of water bottles become garbage or litter.
The bottled water industry likes to tell us that PET plastic is completely recyclable. And while that’s true, there’s a big difference between recyclable and actually recycled, and the truth is that most people aren’t diligent when it comes to recycling. Things that are recyclable but aren’t recycled go to landfills, or worse - littered!
plastic bottles release antimony into the water within them.
Antimony is a regulated contaminant that poses both acute and chronic health effects in drinking water, such as nausea, vomiting, lung diseases, heart problems, and stomach ulcers. Numerous studies have now been done confirming antimony leeching in bottled water in numerous countries.
