The Many Ways in Which Bottled Water Hurts Our Planet

How often do you see drinking fountains anymore? That once ubiquitous, and free, source of H2O now seems quaint, while bottled water is everywhere you look. In 2006, we consumed over eight billion gallons of the stuff, which was a 10% increase from 2005. That said, more and more of us are starting to question bottled water’s impact on our wellbeing, as well as the effect it has on the environmental wellness.

 

According to Jenny Powers of the NRDC, ‘Bottled water is an increasingly growing business, and with that comes a whole lot of environmental impact that can be avoided by a turn of the faucet.’ Environmental wellness expert Janet Majeski Jemmott explains, ‘While we struggle to cut down on our consumption of fossil fuels, bottled water increases them. Virgin petroleum is used to make PET, and the more bottles we use, the more virgin petroleum will be needed to create new bottles. Fossil fuels are burned to fill the bottles and distribute them.’ Then you have Stephen Kay of IBWA, who points out that this impact is not just limited to bottled water, but also juices, fizzy drinks and other beverages packed in plastic.

 

Majeski Jemmott notes, ‘Some brands of water come from islands and countries thousands of miles away, and shipping bottles can cause carbon pollution to spill into the water and spew into the air.’ Todd Jarvis, PhD, associate director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at OregonStateUniversity, adds that there’s also the waste of the water itself. Jarvis has calculated that, across the globe, it takes about 72 billion gallons of water a year just to make the empty bottles. Therefore, it’s no wonder that David B. Goldstein, co-director of NRDC’s energy program in San Francisco, warns, ‘Bottled water has a significant environmental burden.’ But the environmental toll of water doesn’t end there. Let’s look at a few shocking statistics:

 

1. Oil: Majeski Jemmott comments, ‘The energy used each year making the bottles needed to meet the demand for bottled water in the United States is equivalent to more than 17 million barrels of oil. That’s enough to fuel over one million cars for a year.’

 

2. Energy: ‘If water and soft drink bottlers had used 10% recycled materials in their plastic bottles in 2004, they would have saved the equivalent of 72 million gallons of gasoline,’ says Majeski Jemmott. ‘If they had used 25%, they would have saved enough energy to electrify more than 680,000 homes for a year.’

 

3. Waste: Majeski Jemmott details, ‘In 2003, the California Department of Conservation estimated that roughly three million water bottles are trashed every day in that state. At this rate, by 2013 the amount of unrecycled bottles will be enough to create a two-lane highway that stretches the state’s entire coast.’

 

4. Greenhouse Gas: ‘In 2004 the recycling rate for all beverage containers was 33.5%,’ Majeski Jemmott states. ‘If it reached 80%, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be the equivalent of removing 2.4 million cars from the road for a year.’

 

5. Long-Term Impact: Majeski Jemmott notes, ‘That bottle that takes just three minutes to drink can take up to a thousand years to biodegrade.’

 

So why do we keep on drinking it? ‘A big part of the appeal of bottled water is those convenient single-serving bottles,’ says Majeski Jemmott. ‘Yet fewer than 20% of them ever make it to a second life, according to estimates by the Container Recycling Institute. The rest are tossed onto beaches and roadsides and into landfills, where they could be around for a thousand years. Nestlé Waters, Dasani and other bottlers are trying to be greener, introducing lighter-weight bottles that use up to 30 percent less plastic. It’s a good start, but more needs to be done—by them, and by us.’

Categories: bottled water, energy, Environmental Wellness, fossil fuels, greenhouse gas, jemmott notes, majeski jemmott, thousand years, virgin petroleum, Waste, year nbsp

Is Your Community Concerned about Becoming a Heat Island?

It’s easy to see how environmental wellness changes as urban areas develop; buildings and roads replace open land and vegetation, and once permeable and moist land becomes hard and dry. When this happens, you get what’s known as an urban heat island, or an urban region that’s warmer than its rural surroundings, forming an “island” of higher temperatures in the landscape.

 

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ‘Heat islands occur on the surface and in the atmosphere. On a hot, sunny summer day, the sun can heat dry, exposed urban surfaces, such as roofs and pavement, to temperatures 50–90°F (27–50°C) hotter than the air, while shaded or moist surfaces—often in more rural surroundings—remain close to air temperatures. Surface urban heat islands are typically present day and night, but tend to be strongest during the day when the sun is shining. In contrast, atmospheric urban heat islands are often weak during the late morning and throughout the day and become more pronounced after sunset due to the slow release of heat from urban infrastructure. The annual mean air temperature of a city with one million people or more can be 1.8–5.4°F (1–3°C) warmer than its surroundings.3 On a clear, calm night, however, the temperature difference can be as much as 22°F (12°C).’

 

But why should you care about urban heat islands? Does it have an impact on your wellbeing? The EPA notes, ‘Elevated temperature from urban heat islands, particularly during the summer, can affect a community’s environment and quality of life.’ Some of the impacts of heat islands seem positive, as they can lengthen the season of plant-growing, for example. However, most of the heat island impacts are, unfortunately, negative. These include:

 

• Increased energy consumption: The EPA explains, ‘Higher temperatures in summer increase energy demand for cooling and add pressure to the electricity grid during peak periods of demand. One study estimates that the heat island effect is responsible for 5–10% of peak electricity demand for cooling buildings in cities.’

 

• Elevated air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions: ‘Increasing energy demand generally results in greater emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants,’ the EPA says. ‘Higher air temperatures also promote the formation of ground-level ozone.’

 

• Poor human health and comfort: When the days and nights become warmer, and the air pollution level rises, this can contribute to general discomfort, as well as respiratory difficulties, heat cramps and exhaustion, non-fatal heat stroke, and heat-related mortality.

 

• Poor water quality: ‘Hot pavement and rooftop surfaces transfer their excess heat to stormwater, which then drains into storm sewers and raises water temperatures as it is released into streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes,’ details the EPA. ‘Rapid temperature changes can be stressful to aquatic ecosystems.’

 

Heat islands, then, are no picnic – but what can be done about it? According to the EPA, there are four main strategies that, as a community, you can take to reduce the heat island effect:

 

1. Increase cover from trees and vegetation.

2. Create green roofs, otherwise known as rooftop gardens or eco-roofs.

3. Install cool—mainly reflective—roofs.

4. Use cool pavements.

 

The EPA concludes, ‘Typically heat island mitigation is part of a community’s energy, air quality, water, or sustainability effort. Activities to reduce heat islands range from voluntary initiatives, such as cool pavement demonstration projects, to policy actions, such as requiring cool roofs via building codes. Most mitigation activities have multiple benefits, including cleaner air, improved human health and comfort, reduced energy costs, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.’

Categories: air temperatures, energy demand, EPA, gas emissions, greenhouse gas, Health Risks, heat island, Heat Islands, human health, nbsp poor, urban heat

Ozone vs. Greenhouse Gas: Which Has Shifted the Jet Stream?

Depletion of Antarctic ozone has played a larger role in shifting the Southern Hemisphere jet stream in a southward direction, compared to increasing greenhouse gases. This is according to research appearing in the February 1^st issue of the journal Science, which is the first to determine the extent to which each of these two forcings has contributed to the shift using observational data.

According to Sukyoung Lee, professor of meteorology, ‘Previous research suggests that this southward shift in the jet stream has contributed to changes in ocean circulation patterns and precipitation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, both of which can have important impacts on people’s livelihoods,’ and environmental wellness. Professor Lee explained, ‘Understanding the differences between these two forcings is important in predicting what will happen as the ozone hole recovers. The jet stream is expected to shift back toward the north as ozone is replenished, yet the greenhouse-gas effect could negate this.’

With colleague Steven Feldstein, another professor of meteorology, Lee developed a new method to distinguish between the effects of the two forcings, using a cluster analysis to observe the effects on several wind patterns. Feldstein noted, ‘When most people look at ozone and greenhouse gases, they focus on one wind pattern, but my previous research suggests that, by looking at several different but similar patterns, you can learn more about what is really happening.’

He continued, ‘Climate models are usually run for many years; they don’t look at the day-to-day weather, but we learned that the four wind patterns fluctuate over about 10 days, so they change on a time scale that is similar to daily weather. This realization means that by taking into account fluctuations associated with the daily weather, it will be easier to test theories about the mechanism by which ozone and greenhouse gases influence the jet stream.’

Feldstein added that the research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, is innovative in several ways. ‘Not only are the results of this paper important for better understanding climate change,’ he said. ‘But this paper is also important because it uses a new approach to try to better understand climate change; it uses observational data on a short time scale to try to look at cause and effect, which is something that is rarely done in climate research. Also, our results are consistent with climate models, so this paper provides support that climate models are performing well at simulating the atmospheric response to ozone and greenhouse gases.’

Categories: greenhouse gas, ozone depletion, Research