Posts

What reusable water bottle to use?

Image
After all the bad news about bottled water, you are probably ready to get yourself a reusable bottle. Still in doubt which one?. We provide you with a list of some of our favorites. And the good news is, they're all BPA free (a chemical used to make certain types of plastic that research shows can affect your health if it seeps into your water). 1.  24 Bottles. 24Bottles offers high-quality, sustainable stainless steel bottles that keeps your drink cool for 12 hours and warm for 12 hours. How cool is their design? The best thing is, 24Bottles is carbon neutral! €19,90 https://www.24bottles.com/product-category/bottles/urban-bottle-single-wall/ 2. Dopper Dopper is working towards a more sustainable world where the amount of single-use plastic is reduced and where everyone, near and far, has access to safe drinking water. They do this by offering a 100% recyclable bottle of Dutch design. You can wash it in the dishwasher and you can buy its parts separate, ideal if y...

A must-watch documentary!

Image
‘’Want to know more about plastic pollution in the ocean? Watch this documentary to understand how your habits are changing our natural resource, the ocean.’’ This documentary, made by a journalist Graig Leeson, was initially a search for the blue whale in its natural habitat. Soon enough, Graig found something much more interesting, or rather disturbing, to document. Our impact on the ocean, the plastic pollution and how this affect marine life became the new focal point of this documentary. He and his team documented 20 places around the world to show to the public how our ocean is being impacted by our way of living. Besides all the disturbing and alarming images , Graig also shows us some of the solutions to make you and other people aware of how little you can do to make a big impact, such as not buying bottled water anymore. A must-watch documentary if you want to find out how easy it is to change your negative impact onto the ocean into a positive one! Is one...
Image
"We will promote easy access to tap water on the streets of Europe to reduce demand for bottled water" - European Commission, May 29 2018 Breaking news: plastic bottels, Q-tips, straws, disposable cutlery, coffee cups, balloons, candy wrappers and other throwaway single use plastics that take 5 seconds to produce and 500 years to degrade need to banned, announce the EU this week. The EU is waging war against plastic waste as part of an urgent plan to clean up Europe's act and ensure that every piece of packaging on the continent is reusable or recyclable by 2030. Following China's decision to ban imports of foreign recyclable material, Brussels last Tuesday launched a plastics strategy designed to change minds in Europe, potentially tax damaging behaviour of manufacturers, and modernise plastic production and collection by investing €350m in research.  Most importantly, 9 out of 10 plastic bottles should be separated and collected in the form of deposit...

What happens if we reuse plastic bottles multiple times?

Image
Just re-using your plastic bottles from super markets might not do the trick. Even though I have a reusable bottle made of steel , I sometimes forget it at home. Since I am not a camel, going without water for a day seems pretty tough. Despite my ethical motivations, the thought and need for some water then often lures me to the next supermarket. Generally, I know how bad plastic bottles are, so I justify buying bottled water to myself, by thinking; 'It's not that bad, I'll just use it more than once'. What I know now, is that this doesn't really work. Studies have shown that the plastic used for plastic bottles actually segregates over time, leaving harmful chemicals and particles in the water you drink. That means that even the plastic bottle might be relatively safe and passes health standards for emitting chemicals, after some time and refills, this is not the case anymore. So if I reuse plastic bottles to make up for my tardiness, I actually provok...

9 reasons why you should never drink bottled water again

Image
1. Chemical Leach Plastic isn't just bad for the planet, it's not good for you either. Laced into plastic bottles are chemicals that can seep out if bottles are exposed to heat or sit around for a long time. Some of these chemicals are possible endocrine disruptors. no one knows for sure what the health outcomes are. Do you really want your body to undergo that experiment? 2. Bottled tap water Unfortunately, not all bottled water comes from heavenly fountains of pure crystalline water. Research shows that up to 25% of bottled water is just tap water. So yeah, you're just paying form the privilege to drink... what you would drink anyways. 3. Bottled Hazards Depending on where you live (especially in the US), tap water has to meet all sorts of regulations. Bottled water? Not so much. This lack of oversight means that bottled water can be worse than tap water. However, it has better marketing! 4. No proven benefits Bottled wat...

Do you want to be snorkelling in oceans surrounded by plastic or sea creatures? It's up to you!

Image
‘’In what year will there be more plastic than fish in the ocean? 2050, 2150 or 2250?'' In the last couple of years, numerous articles arose to reveal the devastating impact of plastic in our oceans. A great amount of these articles focus on the year when there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. One of these articles, from One Green Planet , highlights some of the disturbing facts about plastics in our oceans from The New Plastics Economy report. The following facts are shown, which will give an answer to the question raised on the top of this page. 95 percent of plastic packaging (with an annual value of around $80–120 billion) is lost to the economy after its first use . Only 14 percent of plastic packaging is collected for recycling . When additional costs associated with  sorting and processing   are factored in, only five percent of packaging is retained for subsequent use. Each year, at least  8.8 million ton of plastics  leaked int...

Where does your water bottle end up?

Image
One of the most obvious impacts of plastic bottles is what happens after the water has been consumed Despite recycling infrastructure that exists in order to facilitate the recycling of these bottles, according to the Container Recycling Institute, 80% of plastic water bottles used become garbage that ends up in landfills . That means roughly for every 10 bottles we drink, only two end up in the recycle bin. Considering that approximately 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the US, we can assume that nearly 18,834,000,000 end up in the landfill of the US only each year The vast majority of what's found in the sea originates from the land - from sewage, storm drains, waterways, beach and coastal litter, as well as dumping, industrial activities and landfill sites. Compared to plastic in oceans, we are able to more directly manage landfills. On average each bottle takes 400 up to 700 years to decompose . This means the biggest risk of plastic water bottle...