Why You Should Stop Using Plastic Bottles Right Now!

You have numerous plastic bottles at home to store drinking water. When you step out, you buy yourself a few more plastic water bottles to quench your thirst. But did you think about how it can affect your body? What it does to the environment? Here are some effects that you miss to notice:

The Curse Of BPA

Your plastic bottles are no boon. They might seem convenient, but it is also conveniently harming your body. Most plastic bottles are of cheap quality plastic which contain the harmful chemical BPA (Bisphenol A) and dioxins. These bottles are often left exposed to direct sunlight in closed environments like your vehicle, this can melt the plastic which causes it to release toxins into the water.

Although you might not notice these changes while drinking water, according to *CBC News, people with the high concentrations of BPA in their urine are three times more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease and 2.4 times more likely to have Type 2 diabetes.

BPA can also mimic hormones and disrupt the natural hormonal levels in the body. When this occurs during pregnancy, there can be birth defects in children. Additionally, it increases the infant’s risk of breast and prostate cancer.

PET- Not So Friendly

Water stored in plastic bottles absorb phthalates- a chemical found in plastic. You may be free of the hormone mimicking substance, but this does no good either. Bottles containing PET can increase the risk of liver cancer and also reduce sperm count.
That’s not all, according to *North Dakota State University, they are often linked to bacterial contamination when they are re-used. The bottle is not cleaned properly  the bottle for reuse.

Effects On The Environment

These are some effects on your body. But in addition to that, these bottles end up accumulated on land and water bodies and harm the environment. According to recent findings, a million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute. It is a known fact that plastic is non-degradable and hence we end up with more wastage lying around, releasing toxins into the environment. Let’s take a look in detail.

• The plastic bottles that are liberally thrown around ends up in the water bodies. *About 5 Million and 13 Million tonnes of plastic leaks into the world’s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms. This plastic has also found its way to the human food chain. According to a recent study at *Ghent University in Belgium people who eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year.
• If you thought you could just dig up some soil and throw it away along with the other degradable waste in the land, that’s not a very wise idea. The plastic carefully disposed in landfills emits excess methane into the environment which causes the greenhouse effect leading to global warming.
• Most plastic bottles are meant for recycling but instead meet a deadly fate and just disposed off after one use. So, to keep up with the constant demand, more and more bottles are produced, but that’s not the worst part. *About 4% of oil production is used to produce plastic. Although plastic bottles do not decompose and help renew this essential resource, but its production definitely exhausts it. Still wanna buy that cold bottle on the refrigerator shelf at the store?

It is no secret that plastic takes hundreds and thousands of years to decompose. It’s almost indestructible or at least so without harming the environment. So, what can you do? Take a small step by switching to copper bottles. This will benefit your health and the environment. With varied sizes available, you can have one for every setting!