According to Food and Water Watch, that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 90 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away.

Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charge for bottled water. If the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000!

On a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water. Producing bottles for U.S. consumers required more than 17 million barrels of oil, not including the fuel required to transport the bottles.

San Francisco banned the use of city money to buy single-serving plastic bottles of water back in 2007, and now New York and Seattle is following suit.

It’s time for us to wake up as consumers and give up this wasteful indulgence of bottled water.

Some on you may complain about the taste of water in your city. An inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparkling fresh at a fraction of bottled water’s cost.

By drinking tap water, you can avoid the fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, and other chemicals that studies have found in bottled water.

Drinking tap water will help you cut down on trash and help the environment.

It can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself. Buy a reusable bottle that lasts for a very long time instead.

The money we, as a nation, waste on bottled water could insure every single uninsured child in America!

I hope that my readers will realize the cost of bottled water, both in terms of financial costs and costs on the environment, and start using city water for drinking purposes.

Please say no to “bottled water” and join No Bottled Water Pledge.