My brother’s fiancée Melanie recently shared a scary idea with me. The topic was bottled water. Some people, she noted, don’t finish all the water in a bottle. They put the cap back on and throw the bottle away with water still in it. I’m sure I’ve done this many times, especially at airports.

Big deal, right? Actually, consider what you’ve done. You’ve entombed precious water in a plastic time capsule that will sit in a landfill and won’t break down for hundreds of years. This water has been removed from the hydrogen cycle. One bottle might be just a drop in a pond. But multiply it by a billion and consider the impact this might have on our environment.

My first reaction was one of deep concern. I shall never again throw away a partially-full, sealed plastic bottle. I will empty the bottle or leave the cap off. It’s the right thing to do for the earth.

My second reaction was to snort at the idea that bottled water habits (already not an especially earth-friendly idea) might actually be upsetting the balance of the entire planet. Ha! Now I will chuckle with sadistic delight each time I toss out a half-full water bottle. Take THAT, hydrogen cycle!!

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/114/bpa

The Bisphenol-A Debate: A Suspect Chemical in Plastic Bottles and Cans

I think it’s pretty unlikely that a plastic bottle would get tossed into a garbage truck and go through the entire garbagey process without getting broken most of the time. The water will leak out. Even more concerning should be all the toxic substances that the plastic emits into the water, as noted above, and include ESTROGEN. Plastic is kind of the devil.