At my high school I belong to a 5-credit course called the Environmental Leadership Program. It is a course mainly based on geography and issues of the environment.

In this program we attend many conferences and lectures about ways to help preserve the environment, but the topic that really caught my attention was the horrors of bottled water.

We are all so fortunate to have access to free water in Canada, yet we still go outside and buy bottled water. Canada spends 20 billion dollars on bottled water a year, whereas many developing countries have no fresh water at all. It would only cost 10 billion dollars to solve the problem for safe drinking water to those who are unfortunate in developing countries. It is much more efficient to buy a reusable bottle and refill it with tap water everyday.

Most people who drink bottled water are not aware of how bad it really is such as the expiration date, (my sister being one of them). The reason there is an expiration date on the bottle is not for the water but for the bottle itself, because it will soon leak chemicals into your water. On the bottle it also reads “Protect from freezing” because by freezing it the chemicals are ignited to be released sooner than the expiration date.

In my opinion bottled water does not even taste that great, it is a waste of money especially when we have the advantage of it from our own homes. The water that comes from our own taps undergoes 64 different tests to ensure that it is safe for us to drink, while bottled water only undergoes 4. On top of the bottled water being unhealthy for us, it is also unhealthy for our environment because it contributes to global warming. Transporting the water by trucks, ships, and trains releases carbon dioxide emissions into the air.

It would be a grand contribution to boycott bottled water altogether, but its going to take a lot more convincing and teachings to reach that goal. I know that I at least contributed because today my sister and I are going to buy a reusable Nalgene bottle, seeing as she’s rather terrible with letting bottled water go.

~ Jessica from Ontario