Bottled water is a huge threat facing our environment and health today. The energy being used to extract, manufacture, and distribute bottled water could be used to power 190,000 homes2, but instead it is wasted on the production of a pointless expensive product that we could be getting out of our sinks. Bottled water costs 1,900 times the amount that tap water costs and in many cases bottled water companies like Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle bottle municipal tap water which has a very low cost to them (about 6 cents a gallon) and sell it to the public for a profit. These companies have spent millions of dollars and many years using celebrities, commercials, ads, etc. to convince the public that bottled water is better, safer, and healthier than tap water when many times bottled water and tap water are practically the same. In fact, tap water is tested more often than bottled water.
Bottled water also harming our environment. It is contributing the growth of the pacific garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean which is affecting many fish and aquatic species. Green house gases in our atmosphere have also increased from the fossil fuels used to manufacture and transport these bottles and from the production and incineration of the bottles. In all bottled water is harming ourselves and the environment and its effects are only going to increase in years to come.
My goal is help stop the sales of bottled water and to raise awareness about the effects of bottled water on my campus in Washington state, Bellevue College, and throughout my community. With this petition I can help people see that bottled water is overpriced, harming the environment, and damaging the health of many.
