Naturally, all of us drink water, and many of us opt for bottled water instead of tap in an effort to stay healthier. But drinking from a disposable plastic water bottle isn’t necessarily a healthier option—and it has a highly negative impact on our environment.

It starts well before a plastic bottle even touches your lips. Creating one year’s worth of bottled water requires 17 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel 1.3 million cars or power 190,000 homes. And after a plastic bottle is disposed of, it might become one of the 38 billion bottles that end up in our landfills each year. Even worse, it might wash into the ocean, where plastic waste kills 1.1 million marine creatures annually.

What’s more, plastic water bottles sometimes contain harmful chemicals like BPA, which means that “healthier” bottled water could actually be causing serious health problems.

This infographic from Printwand is a helpful breakdown of the most important facts and statistics that you should know about disposable water bottles, along with the criteria to look for when choosing a reusable alternative (such as those available here).

Infographic by Printwand

Knowledge is Power. Please share this Infographic:

<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.printwand.com/blog/plastic-water-bottle-pollution-effects-facts" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-2980 size-full" title="Plastic Water Bottle Pollution [Infographic] | ecogreenlove" src="https://www.printwand.com/blog/media/2018/04/plastic-water-bottle-pollution-infographic-facts-environmental-effects.jpg" alt="Plastic Water Bottle Pollution [Infographic] | ecogreenlove" width="600" height="5656" /></a>
Infographic by <a href="https://www.printwand.com/blog/plastic-water-bottle-pollution-effects-facts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Printwand</a></p>

💚 Indonesia: dead whale had 1,000 pieces of plastic in stomach | Guardian, November 2018

Refills, not Landfills ♻