What really happens to all these bottles of water?

[Smoked Toag]

This whole Jackson water stuff reminded me about an issue I've been a little concerned about for a long time. I'm an environmental-type conservative by nature, so litter is one of those things that agitates me. And it's not about Jackson. I remember seeing all that trash in Buenos Aires right before the Olympics. Been to India and saw all the garbage generated there in a newly-modernized society. You go to Starkville and see bottles handed out like candy. Ever been to a travel baseball tournament? Garbage cans packed to the brim, NONE ever reused.

I try to reuse the damn things but I realize it's like shooting a BB gun at a freight train. But think about this....this mass use of bottled water has only been around about 20 years. Yeah I realize glass bottles were around before that. And I know we do have SOME recycling, but I'd say 80% ends up in a dump or the water somewhere, ultimately the ocean.

Just kind of a scary situation in my mind. Am I alone? No one seems to care at all. And I guess by and large our society 'handles' it. The oceans are probably big enough to make them disappear until the next asteroid hits and burns everything up.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

I refill the ones I find from my water hose. Hand them back out to the neighborhood kids.

 

[patdog]

What happened to a few cases of them last Friday right in front of me on I-55 just south of the I-220 overpass is they slipped off the back of the truck that was carrying them and exploded all over the interstate. I wish I had a dashcam to document the spectacle.

 

[DAWGS1.sixpack]

Plastic bottles and plastic grocery bags are are just a convenience that fills up landfills and oceans and stays around a hell of a lot longer.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

This whole Jackson water stuff reminded me about an issue I've been a little concerned about for a long time. I'm an environmental-type conservative by nature, so litter is one of those things that agitates me. And it's not about Jackson. I remember seeing all that trash in Buenos Aires right before the Olympics. Been to India and saw all the garbage generated there in a newly-modernized society. You go to Starkville and see bottles handed out like candy. Ever been to a travel baseball tournament? Garbage cans packed to the brim, NONE ever reused.

I try to reuse the damn things but I realize it's like shooting a BB gun at a freight train. But think about this....this mass use of bottled water has only been around about 20 years. Yeah I realize glass bottles were around before that. And I know we do have SOME recycling, but I'd say 80% ends up in a dump or the water somewhere, ultimately the ocean.

Just kind of a scary situation in my mind. Am I alone? No one seems to care at all. And I guess by and large our society 'handles' it. The oceans are probably big enough to make them disappear until the next asteroid hits and burns everything up.

Short answer: landfills.

 

[Junction John]

 

[mstateglfr]

People do care, but there aren't enough to actually move the needle.

High Schools around me are filled with kids walking around holding reusable bottles. It's trendy, so the bottles cost $20-50 which is nuts, but they last a long time so maybe it's better than the alternative.
Hopefully this next generation does better than us and uses fewer single use plastics.

 

[57stratdawg]

I refill water bottles too. It's a good habit. I also don't use the small plastic bags at grocery stores for vegetables. They really add up when it's numerous bags on every trip, and your food is perfectly fine without them. Honestly, I'm sort of surprised they're still used as commonly as they are.

I think plastics is one of those things future generations will look back on and be like 'what were they thinking'.

 

[mcdawg22]

Bottled Water has always been funny to me. I realize it is needed in situations like Jackson and post hurricanes, but when you have perfectly good tap water I can’t understand why you would pay for bottled water. People complain about gas prices but willingly pay $6 a gallon for something that is pennies.

Penn and Teller did a ******** episode on it years ago. Most of it comes from municipal water supplies and when they did a bling taste test with NYC tap and 4 other bottled water brands. Most people picked the tap in their top 3 for best tasting.

 

[Drebin]

Bottled Water has always been funny to me. I realize it is needed in situations like Jackson and post hurricanes, but when you have perfectly good tap water I can’t understand why you would pay for bottled water. People complain about gas prices but willingly pay $6 a gallon for something that is pennies.

Penn and Teller did a ******** episode on it years ago. Most of it comes from municipal water supplies and when they did a bling taste test with NYC tap and 4 other bottled water brands. Most people picked the tap in their top 3 for best tasting.

I saw that. I loved their show.

I've always felt the same way. We've got clean tap water and a purified water dispenser on the refrigerator, and the wife still stocks the fridge with bottled water.

I don't know how I lived this long with all the water I drank from the dirty water hose in the yard during my youth.

 

[She Mate Me]

My solution is to never buy bottled water. I find it maybe the most ridiculous thing humans have adopted in my lifetime.

I can't imagine talking to my grandfather about the fact that people in my era commonly pay more for water in a plastic bottle at gas stations than they do for the same quantity of gasoline.

I salvage every stout energy drink plastic bottle I see and use them for drinking water storage in the fridge. I also continually berate my friends and family about this issue.

I'm very popular.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Bottled Water has always been funny to me. I realize it is needed in situations like Jackson and post hurricanes, but when you have perfectly good tap water I can’t understand why you would pay for bottled water. People complain about gas prices but willingly pay $6 a gallon for something that is pennies.

Penn and Teller did a ******** episode on it years ago. Most of it comes from municipal water supplies and when they did a bling taste test with NYC tap and 4 other bottled water brands. Most people picked the tap in their top 3 for best tasting.

It's insane how many people simply will NOT drink tap water anymore. I went and picked up a pack right before a hurricane once, and there were only about 10 left in this particular gas station. This woman behind me in line says, "I'll take the other 9". I look at her and say what the 17, do you know there's a hurricane coming and others may need it? She says it's not for the hurricane, that's just what her family drinks, because they don't drink tap water anymore. I called her a piece of **** and she just sat there and looked at me.

In the face of opposition like that, I guess I just have to accept that this battle is lost.

 

[RocketDawg]

Reuse can cause chemical leaching in elevated temperatures, and harmful bacteria growth. So they say.
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/is-it-safe-to-reuse-plastic-water-bottles

 

[thatsbaseball]

I've always said that my number one barometer of our economy is bottled water. When we stop buying it then money is really starting to get short but as long as we're willing to pay more for bottle water than beer (in many cases) we're not hurting.

 

[Smoked Toag]

I salvage every stout energy drink plastic bottle I see and use them for drinking water storage in the fridge. I also continually berate my friends and family about this issue.

I'm very popular.

Same. I even buy the powder Gatorade mix. It's exponentially cheaper.

I can't say I never buy any though. Sometimes, like when traveling, it just makes sense, or in an emergency. But just in day to day life? No way.

 

[dorndawg]

This whole Jackson water stuff reminded me about an issue I've been a little concerned about for a long time. I'm an environmental-type conservative by nature, so litter is one of those things that agitates me. And it's not about Jackson. I remember seeing all that trash in Buenos Aires right before the Olympics. Been to India and saw all the garbage generated there in a newly-modernized society. You go to Starkville and see bottles handed out like candy. Ever been to a travel baseball tournament? Garbage cans packed to the brim, NONE ever reused.

I try to reuse the damn things but I realize it's like shooting a BB gun at a freight train. But think about this....this mass use of bottled water has only been around about 20 years. Yeah I realize glass bottles were around before that. And I know we do have SOME recycling, but I'd say 80% ends up in a dump or the water somewhere, ultimately the ocean.

Just kind of a scary situation in my mind. Am I alone? No one seems to care at all. And I guess by and large our society 'handles' it. The oceans are probably big enough to make them disappear until the next asteroid hits and burns everything up.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Will anyone here ever feel safe drinking Jackson water again ?

 

[Hugh's Burner Phone]

Plastic bottles and plastic grocery bags are are just a convenience that fills up landfills and oceans and stays around a hell of a lot longer.

I still remember when we went to plastic grocery bags to "save the environment". Pack three things in there and they rip five feet from your car. I miss the good old paper bags. Now get off my lawn.

 

[patdog]

I haven't felt safe drinking Jackson water in over a decade. So, no.

 

[dog12]

Plastic bottles and plastic grocery bags are are just a convenience that fills up landfills and oceans and stays around a hell of a lot longer.

Loudoun County Virginia recently started charging grocery shoppers 5 cents for each plastic bag they use to haul away their groceries. This same tax also applies to convenience stores and drugstores.

Interestingly, this tax does NOT apply to restaurants, food banks, farmers markets or clothing stores.

https://www.loudoun.gov/5665/Disposable-Plastic-Bag-Tax

 

[maroonmadman]

The solution to most of the problem would be extremely unpopular with most folks. That solution is mandatory recycling. Make everyone separate their garbage and make municipalities responsible for getting that separated garbage to an approved recycling center. Paper, plastic, glass and metals can all be recycled. Bio-degradables would be the only stuff left for landfills. Think of how many items can be made with just the aluminum we throw into the trash every day that winds up in a landfill. If done intelligently recycling could be profitable.

 

[The Peeper]

We never buy bottled water, never really have. When its hurricane season or ice storm coming and we're expected to lose power I've got 7x 5 gal water coolers I fill up. The rest of the year we've got a whole house filter just outside the house in a valve box that I have to change the filter out in once or twice/yr for under $40.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

The solution to most of the problem would be extremely unpopular with most folks. That solution is mandatory recycling. Make everyone separate their garbage and make municipalities responsible for getting that separated garbage to an approved recycling center. Paper, plastic, glass and metals can all be recycled. Bio-degradables would be the only stuff left for landfills. Think of how many items can be made with just the aluminum we throw into the trash every day that winds up in a landfill. If done intelligently recycling could be profitable.

That's not a solution, because "recycling" is mostly ******** meant to fool people into believing they're doing something that helps. It's theater. Most of it goes into landfills these days. It was better when China took it for next to nothing, but since they stopped it's mostly a farce. And even if you recycled everything you could, at high cost....it's not really making a significant impact on landfill use.

Now if you want to pay more overall to "recycle" rather than just landfill it all, you can, but I don't think we're lacking for landfill space.

 

[Yeti]

Wow I bet you felt bigger and better after you called her a piece of ****!

 

[mcdawg22]

I saw that. I loved their show.

I've always felt the same way. We've got clean tap water and a purified water dispenser on the refrigerator, and the wife still stocks the fridge with bottled water.

I don't know how I lived this long with all the water I drank from the dirty water hose in the yard during my youth.

My 11 year old daughter has done a lot of things that made me proud. On the top of the list is liking her steak medium rare and drinking straight from the hose when we are playing outside.

 

[johnson86-1]

This whole Jackson water stuff reminded me about an issue I've been a little concerned about for a long time. I'm an environmental-type conservative by nature, so litter is one of those things that agitates me. And it's not about Jackson. I remember seeing all that trash in Buenos Aires right before the Olympics. Been to India and saw all the garbage generated there in a newly-modernized society. You go to Starkville and see bottles handed out like candy. Ever been to a travel baseball tournament? Garbage cans packed to the brim, NONE ever reused.

I try to reuse the damn things but I realize it's like shooting a BB gun at a freight train. But think about this....this mass use of bottled water has only been around about 20 years. Yeah I realize glass bottles were around before that. And I know we do have SOME recycling, but I'd say 80% ends up in a dump or the water somewhere, ultimately the ocean.

Just kind of a scary situation in my mind. Am I alone? No one seems to care at all. And I guess by and large our society 'handles' it. The oceans are probably big enough to make them disappear until the next asteroid hits and burns everything up.

If you're talking about the US, our plastic doesn't really end up in the Ocean. It's landfilled. We actually do have a ton of space that will last a long, long time. Not saying we shouldn't avoid unnecessary waste (drinking bottled water at home in places that are not Jackson or Jackson equivalent is largely just stupid; even if you think the tap water isn't good enough for some reason, you can add a filter to your sink, ice maker, etc.) but plastic waste is not to my knowledge an impending problem for humanity, at least in developed worlds. And in undeveloped worlds, I'm not sure plastic is the problem as much as just trash in general, but certainly if trash is going into the rivers and oceans, paper would be better than plastic.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

Growing up in the 70s (before plastic soda bottles become common) drinks came in glass bottles or aluminum cans. There was deposit on the bottles, so they was an incentive for them to be recycled/turned back in, there seemed to be much more aluminum can recycling back then too. I'm sure costs are the reason we moved away from that, but going back to that is something we may need to consider. Some European counties still do it (at least Germany does on beer bottles).

 

[mcdawg22]

That's not a solution, because "recycling" is mostly ******** meant to fool people into believing they're doing something that helps. It's theater. Most of it goes into landfills these days. It was better when China took it for next to nothing, but since they stopped it's mostly a farce. And even if you recycled everything you could, at high cost....it's not really making a significant impact on landfill use.

Now if you want to pay more overall to "recycle" rather than just landfill it all, you can, but I don't think we're lacking for landfill space.

The other issue I saw was they only want certain clean recycling material and everyone I know, me included put items in there that probably didn’t fit the description. A good example is corrugated cardboard wasn’t supposed to be in recycling and every Wednesday you could see recycling bins with Amazon boxes sticking out the top.

 

[peewee.sixpack]

If you're talking about the US, our plastic doesn't really end up in the Ocean. It's landfilled. We actually do have a ton of space that will last a long, long time. Not saying we shouldn't avoid unnecessary waste (drinking bottled water at home in places that are not Jackson or Jackson equivalent is largely just stupid; even if you think the tap water isn't good enough for some reason, you can add a filter to your sink, ice maker, etc.) but plastic waste is not to my knowledge an impending problem for humanity, at least in developed worlds. And in undeveloped worlds, I'm not sure plastic is the problem as much as just trash in general, but certainly if trash is going into the rivers and oceans, paper would be better than plastic.

The problem here are many of the landfills are built in or on natural wetlands. I did jurisdictional determinations for seven years and I can't tell you how many JD's I did for landfills in wetlands. Often times they would take some of the best wildlife habitat and vibrant ecosystems and turn them into landfills. One area I can think off right off the top of my head is the landfill just East of Monroe.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

The other issue I saw was they only want certain clean recycling material and everyone I know, me included put items in there that probably didn’t fit the description. A good example is corrugated cardboard wasn’t supposed to be in recycling and every Wednesday you could see recycling bins with Amazon boxes sticking out the top.

The cost to separate that stuff kills the profitability. China used to do it for basically nothing, but since they stopped years ago its all basically going to landfills.

 

[mstateglfr]

Reuse can cause chemical leaching in elevated temperatures, and harmful bacteria growth. So they say.
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/is-it-safe-to-reuse-plastic-water-bottles

Yup, its why they are called 'single use plastics'- they are designed for a single use. Anything with scratches/wear and tear shouldnt be used again. And god forbid you dishwash and dry them to sanitize since that is also not recommended.

Just dont use em at all.

 

[paindonthurt]

Tap water is arguably healthier for you than bottled water also. I buy a lot of bottled water but i'd venture to say I reuse each bottle at least once.

Sometime I don't reuse any and sometimes i might fill the same one up 4 or 5 times.

 

[paindonthurt]

Hold on. You can buy beer for less than $0.75 a bottle?

 

[MS-halfstep]

Loudoun County Virginia recently started charging grocery shoppers 5 cents for each plastic bag they use to haul away their groceries. This same tax also applies to convenience stores and drugstores.

Interestingly, this tax does NOT apply to restaurants, food banks, farmers markets or clothing stores.

https://www.loudoun.gov/5665/Disposable-Plastic-Bag-Tax

Used to .10 cents a bag here, but this year they've banned plastic bags completely. Hell, I gotta pay a quarter when I go to the drive thru if I want my egg McMuffin in a bag.

Wait till paper straws reach your location, that'll change your life.

 

[mstateglfr]

Wait till paper straws reach your location, that'll change your life.

Paper straw? Its a race to see if you can drink your Big Gulp in less than 8min. If you cant, that straw is worthless.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

The oceans are probably big enough to make them disappear until the next asteroid hits and burns everything up.

As a fellow environmental-type conservative - and an old one at that, this is the correct answer.

Or at least the one that lets me rest easier at night.

 

[Shmuley]

In actuality what is happening is that China is sampling container vessels loaded with recyclable material from the US and other western countries at the port of entry. If the sampling reveals "contamination" in the sample (contamination meaning any material that is not recyclable) of greater than 3%, the entire vessel is rejected. Guess what happens to all of the waste contained in the vessel that has been "rejected?" Do you think that the shipper returns all of the waste to the port of origin? Or do you reckon that it ends up in the Pacific?

 

[johnson86-1]

The problem here are many of the landfills are built in or on natural wetlands. I did jurisdictional determinations for seven years and I can't tell you how many JD's I did for landfills in wetlands. Often times they would take some of the best wildlife habitat and vibrant ecosystems and turn them into landfills. One area I can think off right off the top of my head is the landfill just East of Monroe.

That's not a problem with the landfills. That's a problem with people claiming these wetlands are so valuable but not willing to pay for them.

 

[mstateglfr]

In actuality what is happening is that China is sampling container vessels loaded with recyclable material from the US and other western countries at the port of entry. If the sampling reveals "contamination" in the sample (contamination meaning any material that is not recyclable) of greater than 3%, the entire vessel is rejected. Guess what happens to all of the waste contained in the vessel that has been "rejected?" Do you think that the shipper returns all of the waste to the port of origin? Or do you reckon that it ends up in the Pacific?

I thought China stopped accepting recycling from foreign countries like 4 years ago.

 

[kired]

The other issue I saw was they only want certain clean recycling material and everyone I know, me included put items in there that probably didn’t fit the description. A good example is corrugated cardboard wasn’t supposed to be in recycling and every Wednesday you could see recycling bins with Amazon boxes sticking out the top.

My neighbors will throw anything in that recycling bin that they don't want to put in a garbage bag. Styrofoam, large wads of bubble wrap, air filters...