Say No to Bottled Mineral Water

Interesting facts and figures from Star Online Opinions "Bottled water is not so eco-friendly":

Bottled water is one of the world’s fastest-growing commercial beverages. The United States remains the largest consumer of bottled water, with some of the prized brands, such as Fiji Water, coming from distant corners of the world.

... the consumption of bottled water more than doubled between 2000 and 2005. Major bottled water companies now employ hundreds of thousands of technicians, workers and salespeople. One company claims that each of its three state-of-the-art assembly lines churns out 800 bottles every minute.

According to Worldwatch Institute, undue extraction of natural mineral or spring water to produce bottled water threatens local streams and groundwater. Plastic bottles, most of them not recycled, create unnatural waste.

At the same time, the production and shipping of bottled water consume a lot of fossil fuel. The cost of producing bottled water is some 10,000 times more than tap water, higher than drilling for fossil fuels, according to some experts.