Distribution of bottled water should only ever be a temporary emergency activity whilst permanent sustainable safe water sources are established.

Bottled water creates many environmental hazards, including, the use of fossil fuels to make the water bottles and to distribute them, return them, refill them and dispose of them at the end of their life; bacterial pollution of drinking water bottles when they’re left standing in the sun; leaching of chemicals from some types of plastic into drinking water.

Since plastic is impermeable, it can easily become a focus for vector breeding in the stagnant water that accumulates. This can increase mosquito-borne diseases, which particularly affect children and people with disabilities or compromised immune systems.

Air pollution
Water pollution
Deforestation
Desertification
Climate change
Loss of biodiversity and ecosystems
Natural Resource depletion
Soil erosion
Increased drought / flood

Accumulation of waste due to the provision of bottled water without a recycling scheme, or where waste collections are not sufficiently frequent.

Release of greenhouse gases from water bottle distribution.

The distribution of bottled water should only ever be a short-term, temporary method of providing people with clean water.

Water demand and availability can vary seasonally based on rainfall patterns as well as usage patterns (e.g. water for cooling or seasonal crop rotations). This should factor into the sizing to ensure sustainable year-round access to water, and when the provision of bottled water is necessary, accumulation of waste can impact soil, water sources and ecosystems, and biodiversity.

Since plastic is impermeable, it can easily become a focus for vector breeding in the stagnant water that accumulates. This can increase mosquito-borne diseases, which particularly affect children and people with disabilities or compromised immune systems.

Plan for drinking water alternatives to bottled water.

Create waste collection schemes, provide sensitization about waste separation and disposal and aim to avoid the use of single-use plastics where alternatives can be developed (e.g. reusable flasks with water treatment tablets, drinking fountains, etc).

Plan to implement alternatives to bottled water distribution, such as piped water networks or home water filters/treatment kits.

Used bottle collection schemes should be created to avoid plastic pollution and adverse effects on the environment and negative effects on hosting communities. Bottle deposit return schemes could be supported.

Study the possibility of delivering reusable flasks along with water purification tablets, in order to reduce the amounts of waste of single-use plastic bottles.

Prioritize suppliers whose packaging is biodegradable. Link to any local businesses that reuse or recycle plastic (e.g. for making insulation or plastic construction blocks and similar).

Determine the most sustainable source of water bottles by assessing the materials they are made from, the quality of the bottles, their probable lifespan, durability, and potential for recycling at the end of their use.

Americans buy 29 billion water bottles a year. For every six bottles people buy, only one is recycled. That leads to a big problem given the fact that water bottles do not biodegrade, but rather photodegrade. This means that it takes at least up to 1,000 years for every single bottle to decompose, leaking pollutants into our soil and water along the way.

As a result, U.S. landfills are overflowing with 2 million tons of discarded water bottles. And because plastics are produced with fossil fuels, not only does that make them an environmental hazard, but also an enormous waste of valuable resources. The most dangerous ways bottled water is polluting the earth, one bottle of water at a time, as well as six things you can do about plastic water bottle pollution. Americans consume more than 25 percent of the planet’s natural resources. The production of bottled water uses 17 million barrels of oil a year. It takes 3 times the amount of water in a bottle of water to make it as it does to fill it. Plastic water bottles are made from a petroleum product called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which requires giant amounts of fossil fuels to make and transport.

The production of bottled water uses 17 million barrels of oil a year. That’s slightly more than it would take to fill one million cars a year with fuel. It takes almost 2,000 times the energy to manufacture a bottle of water than it does to produce tap water. If you fill a plastic water bottle so it is about 25% full, that’s about how much oil it took to make the bottle..

% of bottles recovered through waste collection schemes

Number of weeks/months affected populations are dependent on bottled water.

Prevention of environmental damage

Time and money for researching, designing and developing alternative water sources / treatment.