Bring Back the Tap
As we discovered from reading the Bottled Water Alliance's website, more than a billion people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. In Australia, we have the luxury of quality tap water, yet despite this:
- Australians spend more than half a billion dollars a year on bottled water. Last year, the sale of bottled water increased by 10 percent.
- Producing and delivering a litre of bottled water can emit hundreds of times more greenhouse gases than a litre of tap water.
- According to British research, drinking one bottle of water has the same environmental impact as driving a car for a kilometre.
- In many cases, a litre of bottled water is more expensive than a litre of petrol.
- Department of Environment and Climate Change estimates that 200ml of oil is used to produce, package, transport and refrigerate each litre bottle of bottled water. As a result, at least 50 million litres of oil is used in the manufacture and distribution of bottled water in Australia every year.
- Australia recycles only 36% of PET plastic drink bottles.
- Australia's annual use of bottled water generates more than 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions - the same amount that 13,000 cars generate over the course of a year.
We think it's time to bring back the tap. We think it's time to stop filling our planet with plastic bottles. We think it's time for Green Canteen. If you're interested in joining the Bottled Water Alliance, click here.
