So I realised I have managed to go for 18 days without mentioning one of the biggest topics in plastic free life at the moment, and that is the water bottle. Statics say that the UK uses over 3 billion litres of bottled water every year, which is around 15 million wasted plastic bottles every day! This is an absurd amount of unnecessary plastic used when there are easy alternatives to solve the problem. For one, i'm sorry but if you buy bottled water for your house then you sir are a moron. You have tap water that costs 0.097p a litre, and you could get 1000 litres for just £1. Bottled water will cost you in usual circumstances around 50p-£1 for a 500ml bottle.. If you tally that up how much it would cost you for 1000 litres of bottled water at a rate of 50p per 500ml, then it would cost you £1000 a year just on water. If you were thinking of trying to cut your budget somewhere to save money, and you use bottled water, i'd suggest you cut it here. Tap water is not dirty, it is not dangerous and actually is well filtered by our water boards. A lot of effort goes into supplying fresh, clean tap water for our homes, at such a cheap price too, so you'd be insane not to drink it. Bottled water isn't any better for you than tap water, in fact tap water has a lot of the same elements as bottled water, just in varying ratios across the country, which is why tap water in different places tastes well... different. I have been brought up drinking tap water and i love it. I only ever used to buy bottled water if I really couldn't get tap water safely - going abroad, or at airports/ festivals where there is no where to top up bottles. I have been using my aluminium and stainless steel bottles for a decent amount of time now. I carry them everywhere I go and I use them at work (usually keep 2 in the fridge and 1 with me at all times). I do drink a lot of water as well, I kind of have a problem where i probably drink too much, but i'm always hydrated and it's better than spending money on fizzy drinks or other random drinks. I decided I needed another bottle to take with me on my outings, because I have 3 small 250ml bottles which don't appear to be enough, I could get through those in a couple of hours, so I figured I should buy some bigger ones. I bought a bottle from Amazon which claims to be an eco friendly bottle. It is mostly bamboo and stainless steel, with the most minimal amount of plastic compared to any of the others online. It is super insulated keeping drinks cold for 24 hours and boasts to be leak free. It contains an infuser, so you can make loose leaf tea or fruit drinks, it has a wide top for adding ice to it and best yet has a Lifetime guarantee if you are ever unsatisfied with the bottle at any time. Seems a tad good to be true. It came today and it does look good to me, but I will be putting it to the test and i'll let you know how it goes. If anyone is interested it is by Vireo and is a 400ml - £22.
So basically the moral of this story is buy yourself a reuseable metal bottle, and get drinking tap water to help stop this madness! Also if more places could install water fountains that would be bloody fab! Cheers!
ZSL Zoos are currently running a plastic free bottle campaign, where they have replaced all their single use plastic water bottles with paper bottles, which are much better for the environment. It's a good start and a good way to start raising awareness for people.
So you may have noticed that a lot of this stuff i'm buying i'm having to get on the internet.. Which in itself is causing me some internal quarrels. Yes, I want to buy plastic free, eco friendly amazing products - but NO, i do not want the ridiculous amount of packaging that comes with it (especially plastic). Unfortunately it's annoying, but i've come to the realisation that if I want to buy things that are long lasting, and will do the time, I will have to search further afield than my local area. It does mean more packaging now, but in the long run it will help me replace a lot of the plastic that could have been wasted in things like water bottles, shopping bags etc. I'm not aiming to get everything on the internet either, and smaller companies I am trying to ask that where possible could they avoid plastic for the packaging, which has been okay so far. Places like amazon can be good, but it depends on the products. At least their external packaging is all cardboard and paper.
Anyhow, i'm pretty tired, so until tomorrow!
Thanks for reading!
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