The water bottle industry is one of the largest industries in the world and is currently the fastest growing as well as the most profitable segment of the entire beverage industry. Each year, 28 billion bottles are consumed across the world. This creates a great deal of waste that puts enormous pressure on our planet’s environment.

Now, in a lot of areas we have made great strides in environmental awareness through recycling efforts and other green lifestyles. However, these efforts are only a small step in the right direction. Currently only about 15% of water bottles are recycled. That leaves almost 24 billion water bottles to be dumped in landfills across the world.

But the wasted plastic is not the only problem caused by the bottled water industry. It also takes over 15 million barrels of oil to make and manufacture all that plastic. If you took all that oil and poured it into the bottles that are made with it, you could fill one fourth of each bottle with oil. Think about that the next time you throw an empty bottle in the trash.

The other problem with recycling is that the process of transporting and reprocessing all the recycled bottles takes energy. This means more oil is used to recycle them, and more oil means more waste. Recycling is still a better option than landfill, but there is something better that can be done.

How about cutting out bottled water all together? Sounds easy enough, but then what will you drink? Tap water contains harmful contaminants such as chlorine, asbestos, and lead. Home delivered water is too expensive, and it produces just as much waste as bottled water. I suppose you could wait for a rainy day and grab a bucket, but let’s be reasonable here.

There is only one reasonable choice when it comes to getting pure, delicious water that won’t cost you a fortune and won’t put unnecessary stress on the environment. Buy yourself some sort of water filter system, and make your own drinkable water. The water you get from a filter is cleaner than tap water and even most bottled water. Filtered water is more environmentally friendly and even a great deal cheaper than bottled water.

That’s right. Not only will buying a household water filter save the environment, but it will also save you money. How is that for an incentive to get clean, delicious drinking water that will also help make your world a better place?