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If there's one fad that needs to be given the old heave-ho this year, make it our addiction to bottled water. We spend roughly $100 billion every year on bottled H2O, while 1.1 billion people around the globe languish without a secure drinking-water supply. Because most water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate, which is derived from crude oil, American demand for bottled water gobbles up 1. 5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for an entire year.
That's not even the worst of it: Despite our best efforts to recycle, an estimated 86 percent of plastic water bottles in the United States becomes trash. Meanwhile, almost half of the remaining 14 percent that is earmarked for recycling gets exported to distant climes such as China. Bottled water isn't even necessarily better for you than what's on tap, since about 40 percent of bottled water, including brands such as Aquafina and Dasani, begins as tap water. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets higher standards for the quality of tap water than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does for bottled water.
Lend the environment a hand, and save yourself some extra coin in '08, by investing in a water filter for your faucet, as well as in a reusable aluminum or stainless-steel bottle from a company such as SIGG or Klean Kanteen. Now that is something we can all drink to.
Difficulty level: Easy
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