The article “Goodbye, Bottled Water?”, by Gail Hennessey, was written to convince bottled water users to stop purchasing bottled water due to environmental impacts. To begin with, Hennessey pointed out such serious toxic pollution cause by throwaway plastic bottles. According to San Bernardino’s mayor, “ More than 1 billion plastic bottles end up in California's landfills each year.” Then, the plastic bottles will sit there for 1000 years to biodegrade and leaving toxic pollution. Likewise, Hennessey states that the oil needed for producing plastic bottles affect the environment as well.…
Humans poor decision making and lack of knowledge of how we pollute the waters will soon be…
The documentary “Tapped” sheds some light on the dangers of bottled water. One of my favorite points the documentary talks about is how the thousands and thousands of plastic water bottles are affecting us and our world. Yes, while bottled water may be convenient for us humans who are always going and going, it's not very convenient for the rest of the world. Our environment was not grown with plastic. Plastic is not nature based, therefore it is not organic, meaning it can’t decompose, or give anything to the environment except pollution, death, and trash.…
In 1972, for the “burning river and the “dead” lake”, people started the “Clean Water Act” to improve water quality. As a result of changes of environment made more phosphorus, what algae fed by, to be worse, USA and Canadian government spent billions to reduce it. Also, plastic waste washed into Lake Erie caused aquatic organisms eating them and die. So, industries and organizations are trying to reduce plastic…
Further, the world’s surface waters are suffering massive pollution by humans (Barlow & Clarke). Simultaneously, the groundwater resources are being depleted faster than nature can replace…
Water has been around for millions of years. The dinosaurs drank it and it is being drunk by civilization today. But, technology evolves and the demand for energy is high. There are many ways to produce the energy that people use to fuel their everyday lives whether it is powering a light bulb or to fuel up their eco-friendly electric car the need for energy is endless. For the past years the production of this energy has not have a very positive effect on the environment or on the atmosphere.…
A world without clean water to drink is what we as a universe are approaching. In North Carolina and everywhere else in the world, there ultimately isn’t enough being done to help preserve our freshwater supply as day in and day out things are being done to further harm and damage our water through all types of pollution. At the current rate of pollution were going at as of right now it can easily be said that by a little over a decade that we will not have any reliable source of water considered drinkable, something needs to be done now as we ultimately aren’t doing enough to protect it today. Water pollution is essentially classified as when one or more substances have built up in water to such an extent that they cause problems for animals…
Plastic is extremely useful in our culture. Some items that are commonly made of plastic are cups, containers, and bags: all of which are meant to be disposed of immediately after its use. The main problem with plastic being discarded in this manner is that plastic was made to be durable and last a lifetime. All of the plastic that has been made up since its creation is still present in some shape or form on this planet, and plastic that has not been properly discarded or recycled hurts aspects of our…
Water covers up more of the Earth than the land that people occupy, and it is a source that people rely on to live. If so, it should be expected that people will take good care of water. If it should be like that, then why is it that water pollution is one of the largest problems in society today? The ever growing human development and the high demands people put on the world result in the buildings of factories which results in increased severity of water pollution. “In some areas, depletion and pollution of economically important water resources have gone beyond the point of no return, and coping with a future without reliable water resources systems is now a real prospect in parts of the world”, (secretariat of the convention on biological diversity, 2010).…
Plastic is a material that never decomposes back into its original form; this means it lasts forever. While this plastic is laying around it poisons people and mammals, chokes animals to death daily, and is an eyesore on Earth. A decisive action needs to be taken to get the existing plastics removed from the environment and use alternatives to this deadly material… before it’s too late. Plastic is currently the number one most preferred material in today's industrial world; this is posing an extreme threat to the environment and to the health of most organisms. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a mere 12 percent of all plastic gets recycled; which poses the question of “Where does the rest end up?”…
On average, thirsty customers in the U.S. throw away sixty million water bottles a day, and for every five water bottles consumed, one is recycled. The length of time for plastic water bottles to decompose is between four hundred and one thousand years. People may choose to drink bottled water over tap water with the misconception that it is the cleaner, tastier, or even a healthier choice. The rate at which people are consuming bottled water is causing landfills to be filled with approximately seventy-five percent of the plastic water bottles that are made. While bottled water sales increase, the consumption of tap water is the most advantageous choice for health benefits, environment conservation, and affordability as a choice for the consumer.…
Gail Hennessey talks about wasting energy, ¨1.5 million barrels of petroleum are used to produce plastic water bottles in the United States each year.¨ If plastic bottles were not allowed to be used in schools, with this intention 250,000 homes could be supplied with electricity for a year. That is wasting resources that can be used to feed the homeless or starving kids in Africa. Bottled water is taking away from the people of the world, and something should be done about it. Companies that sell bottled water are not telling the truth about what is in them.…
Although more than seventy percent of the Earth is covered in water, people are slowly running out of water because almost every life form on Earth needs water to live and grow. Unfortunately the ocean contains more than 97 percent of all the water on Earth which is undrinkable due to the high levels of salt. With the Earth’s population increasing the level of pollution in the water is raised as well, and if people do not start taking care of the little fresh water that we have then the water will not continue to support the entire human race. One example of companies not caring enough about the environment was the huge BP oil spill in 2010. Although the spill happened in the Gulf of Mexico, some of the contaminated water traveled into the rivers making the fresh river water not safe to drink.…
These statistics are frightening and should be known by the general public so people can take action against contamination. Conserve Energy Future lists 14 different causes of water pollution including industrial waste and marine dumping, oil leakages, fossil fuel burning, fertilizers, pesticides, and outdated and unkept water distribution systems. This example is a major one because the majority of our nation’s water is treated in plants or in private filtration systems, but as the water travels through these obsolete pipes, rust and other pollutants enter the water supply which in turn pollutes the water. However, the main cause of contamination is human related. Because we are so unaware of how poor our water is, we unknowingly make matters worse.…
Many colleges and universities have banned the sale and distribution of bottled water on their campuses. Bottled water is allowed on campus, but the institution has decided not to sell or distribute bottled water on campus themselves. Hope College does not have a policy of banning plastic water bottles, however, they should. Plastic water bottles are harmful to the environment, are not as convenient as the free water provided by water fountains on campus, and do not contain better water than tap. Plastic water bottles are harmful to the environment in many ways; the first problem is through the manufacturing.…