More and more people are realizing the importance of living a healthy life, taking care of yourself and the importance of paying attention to what you eat and drink. We have seen a growth of people working out, veganism has grown 500% since 2014 in the U.S. and as this is the first year when bottled water consumption has surpassed the consumption of soft drinks.
While these statistics prove a change which should be supported, more people are living a health-conscious lifestyle, there’s another side to it. When we make our choices on what we consume, health shouldn’t be our only concern. In order to be able to keep our health in the future, we also have to think about sustainability.
The word “sustainability” sounds dull and most probably the majority automatically connects it with obligations, limitations and difficulties. While there are new trends, like zero-waste lifestyle which do require focus and determination, but there are several ways we can reduce our ecological footprint, reduce the toll we take on the environment. It all comes down to the little things in our daily habits.
Just asking the waiter to not put a straw in your drink can already make a difference. Did you know that 500 million straws are used every day in the U.S. alone which is 175 Billion a year? What use is the use of a straw in our drink anyway? Same applies to bottled water. Not only are we polluting but we are also wasting an enormous amount of money.
One can say that bottled water is worth it, because it is healthier than tap water. This is a general mindset our society has because of the advertisements but actually, there’s more to it. In the United States, tap water can be considered safer and healthier than bottled water because while tap water is controlled by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), bottled water is considered “food” from a legal point of view and is therefore regulated by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) which has less strict regulations than the EPA.
So if it’s not a health issue, then why are we drinking bottled water? Some say it still tastes better, which is a personal opinion but it is then still to decide if that is worth the price difference. Bottled water can cost 2000 times more than tap water. And if not for health or an economical reason, we should avoid drinking bottled water to help the environment. We drink 11.7 billion gallons of bottled water a year which contributes strongly to the 79 million plastic bottles we discard every single day. To read more shocking facts like these, take a look at the following infographic!
What this really shows us that paying attention to details really pays off, may that be taking a closer look at what we eat, what we drink and how we do it. Let’s try to live a healthy life, healthy for us and for the environment.
