Plastic Bottles Essay

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A water bottle is a vessel used to hold water or other beverages for consumption. Water bottles have grown in popularity in the United States for more than a decade. Americans are increasingly relying on them due to their convenience and portability. Every year, the U.S. consumes around 50 billion plastic bottles. Some of the main features of plastic bottles are that they are inexpensive, transparent, and shatter resistant. Due to growing concern over the safety, environmental impact, and cost of disposable plastic water bottles, more people are choosing to re-fill multi-use water bottles. The popularity of water available in disposable plastic bottles continues to rise. In 2007, Americans consumed 50 billion single-serve bottles of water. Since 2001, the sale of single-serve bottled water has fluctuated by 70%, and this trend is continuing Chemicals used for making some types of plastic bottles have been shown to be detrimental to the health of humans. Inhalation of plastic is an enormous hazard for the factory workers who handle the material. Since the 1960s, workers have been documented to suffer higher cancer rates than the general population. In many developing countries plastic waste is burned rather than recycled or deposited in landfills. Rural residents of developing countries who burn plastic as a disposal method are not protected from the chemical inhalation hazards associated with this practice. Inhalation of the pollutants produced from burning plastics have been shown to result in poor health outcomes Much of the plastic that can be traced to health risks is latent in disease epidemiology and outcomes often appear months or years later. William Shotyk (2006) has performed two studies concerning contamination and leaching in PET containers in storage capacities. One study was undertaken to research the notion of “storage dose” of water in

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