Americans now consume more than 28 gallons of bottled water per person per year. Only about 23 percent of the bottles are recycled.
New water bottles engineered with cornstarch biodegrade in 80 days, compared with traditional plastics, which may take several hundred years.
Mountains of “e-waste” have been shipped to China, where
A worker at a recycling center in Shanghai sifts through the plastic
families who used to work on farms have taken to scavenging among the
bottles that arrive in China by the boatload. Bottled water is now a $100
piles of keyboards, motherboards and discarded computer components in
billion a year industry, second only to soft drinks in the beverage sector.
Chaoyang County in southern Guangdong Province, among other places.
In the United States, the leading consumer followed by Mexico and China,
The e-waste contains hundreds of extremely toxic substances, including
fewer than 25 percent of the bottles are recycled, contributing 2 million tons
lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury and other heavy metals that leach into
per year to landfills.
the groundwater.
Reuters
Alessandro Digaetano
76 Blue Planet Run
Poisoning the Well 77