Going Green: Change your bottle!

Would you like to save money, protect your health and the environment at the same time? Well, you have to do just ONE thing: CHANGE YOUR BOTTLE!

The worldwide bottled water consumption is severely damaging the planet. Did you know that about 3 million tons of plastics are used to produce water bottles? And that about 80% end up in landfills?

During the last years, the plastic water bottle business has grown at a remarkable rate each year to become a US $100 billion industry. Only in Chile, the consumption of bottled water increased by more than 50% during the last decade. In 2013, bottled water consumption was 393 million liters. That is 22 liters per capita, while 10 years ago consumption was only 7 liters per person, according to the Association of Soft Drink Producers (Asociación Nacional de Bebidas Refrescantes - ANBER).

That’s quite impressive, isn´t it? Now, you might be wondering what happens with all that plastic. Well, that’s where the problem lies. In fact, up to 25,000 plastic tons go into the ocean each year in Chile¹.

This matter should concern all of us, because it’s a global issue. It’s not only the amount of plastic we’re throwing away, it’s the time that each PET bottle (polyethylene terephthalate) takes to decompose: between 100 and 1,000 years.

Isn’t it too much time? And it gets worse. I haven’t even mentioned that 1 liter of bottled water can cost up to 1,000 times MORE than tap water, according to figures from UNESCO.

In the US a bottle of 750ml costs about CLP 950, while in Colombia it costs about CLP 2,517 and in Venezuela a bottle of 500ml costs about CLP 18,000.

In Chile the price of 500ml of bottled water on average cost 750 CLP. This is incredibly expensive if we compare it with tap water, which costs 1 CLP on average.

Moreover, unlike what companies try to make us believe, municipal water is under the same and sometimes higher safety standards than bottled water. Actually, studies reveal that bottled water regulations are inadequate to ensure purity and safety. In the case of Chile, tap water is really safe. In fact, municipal water treatment has even stricter standards than those stated by the World Health Organization.

So, why do you want to be part of an industry that has more cons than pros? Why are you willing to pay so much for something when you can have it at home? Well, we’re not considering those countries where bottled water is a need because people have no access to safe water.