Repeat after me: "No more plastic bottles"

Practically, it's so difficult to do sometimes.
I go to the gym and there's something gross in the drinking fountain, so I buy a bottled water. I'm traveling in an airport and really thirsty, so I purchase a big bottled water to stay hydrated on the plane. I'm on the go in the summer, running a bunch of errands, and run into a Starbucks to grab some water so I don't melt. In case you haven't heard the rhetoric, plastic bottles are bad. Some people feel like plastic bottles should be the new cigarettes: if you see somebody using one, you should guilt them into submission. >>>

It's Environment 101: don't buy plastic bottles.
Practically, it's so difficult to do sometimes. I go to the gym and there's something gross in the drinking fountain, so I buy a bottled water. I'm traveling in an airport and really thirsty, so I purchase a big bottled water to stay hydrated on the plane. I'm on the go in the summer, running a bunch of errands, and run into a Starbucks to grab some water so I don't melt.

In case you haven't heard the rhetoric, plastic bottles are bad. Some people feel like plastic bottles should be the new cigarettes: if you see somebody using one, you should guilt them into submission.

Even the bottled water manufacturers are getting such a bad rap they are inventing different bottle shapes that supposedly reduce packaging. Of course, they reduce the water contained inside too. By the way, this is called "greenwashing". Definition: when a company pretends like something they are doing is environmentally friendly, markets themselves as such, but they are most definitely not.

But why are plastic bottles so bad? We can recycle them right?

Plastic is made from oil
I say this all of the time, but plastic is largely made from oil, a finite resource that is getting more expensive and more rare.

3 fl oz. of oil are required to make every plastic bottle. With 28 billion bottles manufactured in the US last year, we're talking 645 million gallons of oil.

Plastic is difficult to recycle
Even though US consumers have taken to newspaper and aluminum recycling, plastic production continues to outpace plastic recycling at a pace of 5 to 1. Why is it so hard to recycle plastic?

For starters, those numbers on the bottoms of your plastic jugs represent different formulas of plastic. When you melt aluminum to recycle it into cans, all of the aluminum melts the same and can be mixed up in one big vat. When you melt plastic, unless it shares the same number, and thus the same formula, it just won't stick together. So plastic needs to be sorted, either in homes (which is hard), or at recycling facilities (which is also hard).
Also, because plastic containers commonly contain dye and additives, they become less reusable than other materials we recycle.

Bottled water is a HUGE scam
1. It's usually tap water. It is no safer than what your sink gives you.
2. It's way more expensive than out of the tap
3. It takes five liters of water to make the one liter of bottled water.
Still, in 2004, more bottled water was consumed in the US than coffee and beer combined. 70 million bottles PER DAY.

I'm quitting Diet Coke right now. It's been a rough couple of days: the cravings are pretty bad and I'm having to regularly dose with ibuprofen to ease my throbbing head. I need to make sure I don't get dehydrated, so, I am going to invest in a good water bottle. A good water bottle can come with me to the gym, to the airport, and on the go so I never have to buy plastic again.

There's a lot of active debate on which water bottles are the safest and greenest, but SIGG water bottles come highly recommended from several green sources. A percentage of their profits go to environmental organizations. They also make great bottles for kids too. I'm going to pick one up.