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Today, a bottle of water is so common that few of us think about the impact that that bottle has on the environment once we throw it away. In our effort to make healthier beverage choices, people all over the world purchase water packaged in plastic bottles. This market has grown astronomically. But this “healthy” choice and convenience has come at an expensive price for our environment and us. We want our community to use reusable water bottles. This way, you don't have to sacrifice the on-the-go convenience of bottled water and, at the same time, you are helping reduce the negative impact that the bottled water industry has on the environment! Here are some numbers: When was the last time you used a plastic water bottle? When was the last time you saw someone use one? Was it yesterday? Today? How about within the last hour? ACUA estimates that our Atlantic County recycles ** about 22,212,500 bottles. With a rate of 24% recycled in our county, this means that 70,339,583 bottles are in our landfills. (5) ** These are very scary numbers when you consider that only 24% of plastic bottles are recycled in our county and the national average recycling of the empty bottle is 21-27%. The rest of those bottles go into landfills or is dumped in the ocean. Even when things are recycled, it doesn’t mean that the plastic is used to make new things and even when you recycle a plastic water bottle, it doesn’t mean that you are saving energy. Recycling plastic containers uses an incredible amount of energy, which harms our environment. To top it all off, what we believe is cleaner, better-treated water, really isn’t. As NRDC states, 40% of bottled water is tap water, so why are you paying more? Worse, the bottled water industry does not have to follow the same rigorous standards and tap water tested by local, state and federal agencies. Furthermore, The World Health Organization warns that bottled water is frequently stored for long periods of time and thus may contain more micro-organisms than tap water. NRDC revealed that 1/3 of bottled water contained contamination levels (including E. coli and fecal coli forms) that exceeded allowable limits. (6) Thus, bottled water is not the healthier choice. Finally, bottled water is expensive. If families use reusable bottles ($20) and a filtering system ($40-$60), they save hundreds of dollars a year. Avoiding plastic water bottles makes sense for a multitude of reasons: 1) it reduces the plastic in the landfills: 2) it reduces our carbon footprint through less transportation and manufacturing of bottled water: 3) it is healthier and: 4) it is cheaper. Any reason that a person switches from plastic to reusable bottles is a good reason. We have asked the people of Northfield Community School to “think before they drink” and take the Water Warrior pledge to stop using bottled water and start using reusable bottles. With the average person drinking 167 bottles of water per year (7) and 1100 students taking the pledge, we estimate a savings of 183,700 bottles per year being manufactured and 137,775 ending up in our landfills. (1) [] (2) [] (3) [] (4) [] (5) ACUA email correspondence in February 2011. (6) [] (7) []
 * Worldwide, bottled water consumption surged to 200 billion liters in 2007, up 100 percent from 98 billion liters in 1999. (1)
 * Costs range from $.25 to $2.50 per liter ($1-$10 per gallon), bottled water can be more expensive than gasoline in the United States.
 * Fossil fuels are used in packaging and transporting the water. Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a plastic made from crude oil. In America, demand for bottled water requires more than 70 million gallons of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year. (2)
 * According to the Container Recycling Institute, 79 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter. We needlessly add billions of plastic bottles to landfills each year that take up to 1000 years to biodegrade and as they do they leach chemicals into the water supply. (3)
 * The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) issued a report that stated that around 40% of the bottled water sold in the United States comes from tap water. (4)