{"id":577,"date":"2014-04-01T00:12:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T00:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/?p=577"},"modified":"2014-04-01T00:12:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T00:12:01","slug":"ban-the-bottle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/2014\/04\/01\/ban-the-bottle\/","title":{"rendered":"Ban the Bottle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should we be able to cause major environmental damage just because it is convenient? Individuals purchasing bottled water seem to think so. In addition to harming our world, water bottles can cause risks to human health, are a waste of money, and are a drain on water and energy sources. Colleges and universities all over the country are recognizing this and as of 2012, more than 90 schools<\/a>\u00a0either banned or restricted the sale of plastic water bottles on campus.\u00a0To continue sustainability efforts, Duke University should take similar action, banning these bottles and encouraging the use of reusable water bottles and existing water fountains and hydration stations.<\/p>\n

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Source: http:\/\/www.shopdukestores.duke.edu\/webitemimages\/106\/65495.jpg<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite attempts to encourage recycling, 38 billion<\/a> water bottles, or 80% of bottles purchased<\/a>, end up in landfills each and every year.\u00a0This wouldn\u2019t be so horrifying if it weren\u2019t for the fact that waste from these products never really goes away.\u00a0The bottles that we get rid of, end up poisoning us. Because most water bottles are made of petroleum-based polyethylene terephthalate (also known as PET), they break down through photodegradation<\/a> into smaller and smaller pieces instead of biodegrading.\u00a0This does not frequently happen in landfills since bottles are not likely to be exposed to the sun. However, ten percent of plastic<\/a> (3.8 billion water bottles annually) ends up in the ocean\u00a0as a result of trash being deposited in waterways<\/a> by humans, wind, and heavy rains.\u00a0Once exposed to sunlight, breakdown of these plastics results in toxic chemicals, including BPA and PS oligomer. These toxins are ingested by ocean animals<\/a>, which can be ingested by humans and cause serious health risks.
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Source: http:\/\/images.nationalgeographic.com\/wpf\/media-live\/photos\/000\/139\/cache\/ngkids-waterbottles470_13983_600x450.jpg<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to damaging our health and environment, these bottles damage our economy. Would you be willing to pay $1.45 every time you wanted to fill up a water bottle using the faucet in your kitchen? As it turns out, you may be doing that without knowing it. The Natural Resources Defense Council found that 25 percent or more<\/a> of bottled water is really just tap water.\u00a0Tap water itself costs only about 0.9 cents per gallon, meaning that when we buy bottled water, we are paying 560 times<\/a> what that amount of water is worth.\u00a0As a country experiencing hard economic times, does it make sense for us to be paying this much for a resource that we can get from a faucet for free? Americans spent $11.8 billion<\/a> on water bottles in 2012 alone.\u00a0This is $11.8 billion that we are able to put right back in our pockets by making a simple behavioral change. Duke University should play a part in helping us make better economic decisions by having students and faculty take advantage of water fountains and water bottle refilling stations that have already been installed all over campus.<\/p>\n

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Source: http:\/\/www.ntid.rit.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/imagecache\/newsphoto_big\/hydration.jpg<\/p><\/div>\n

Lastly, the production of water bottles is a huge waste of oil and water.\u00a0 Despite the fact that water bottle companies claim to be a \u201chealthy and eco-friendly choice\u201d<\/a>, the production of bottled water uses 17 million barrels of oil each year, which is enough to fill a million cars for a year<\/a>\u00a0and takes three liters<\/a> of water just to bottle one liter.\u00a0 When taking into account production and transportation of these bottles in the United States, the Environmental Research Letters <\/i>journal estimated that 32 to 54 million <\/a>barrels of oil are used annually, which represents almost a third of our entire country\u2019s energy consumption. This is energy that does not have to be used if we just turn on our tap. As Duke University moves towards becoming carbon neutral, banning water bottles on campus will be an important step.<\/p>\n

Our university needs to recognize and communicate the implications of selling water bottles on campus. If banning water bottles seems too extreme, the administration should, at a minimum, post and distribute information telling consumers of the impacts of their choices. Misinformation or lack of information is not an excuse at one of the best universities in the country. However, I think that the best option is simply to ban them. We already have the infrastructure available for individuals to quickly adjust to this change. Free water bottles are distributed regularly and there is no lack of places to fill them. Duke needs to step up, ban the bottle, and end consumer irresponsibility.<\/p>\n

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Should we be able to cause major environmental damage just because it is convenient? Individuals purchasing bottled water seem to think so. In addition to harming our world, water bottles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":719,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[106,104,105],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solid-waste","tag-duke-university","tag-sustainability","tag-water-bottles","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nicholas.duke.edu\/loribennear\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}