You just woke up or maybe you just finished your workout. Maybe you are eating your lunch or your sitting in a lecture hall being insanely bored as your professor is talking non stop in a monotone voice that is making you fall asleep. These situations displayed offers you the reason to be thirsty. So you proceed to unzip your backpack and browse for your drink of choice whether it be simply water, juice, soda, or a protein shake. But wait, did you ever realize that you drinking your drink can harm your environment? The answer is yes if your using plastic.

It is a duty that we preserve our environment for the generations to come. We have learned how much destruction humans have done to our planet earth and now it’s time to take some steps to reduce our mess. A big impact can be done by using less plastic and purchasing a reusable bottle. While plastic waste and ways to prevent further damage can vary from country to country, America sure hasn’t done enough. “ The United States uses over 17 million barrels of oil to create upwards of 50 billion disposable plastic water bottles every year. Only 1 out of 5 are properly recycled”. Of course, change is never easy. Adjusting to a new lifestyle would require incentives.

To begin with, a great benefit to using reusable bottles would be the factor of cost. Most of us waste about “… $5.00 per week on bottled water…”. By saving the weekly money on bottled water, it takes just one month to purchase a reusable bottle and better yet, “… save over $200/ Year by supplying your own water to drink”. The bottled water you purchase at your local convenience store is “… 2,000x more expensive than tap water”. Most of the bottled water are  “… filtered tap water…” which most people just assume is clean. In an experiment, “Only one out of every third taste tester in a tap water taste test from Boston University could correctly identify the taste of tap water compared to bottled water”. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to purchase an item that can be taken right from your home. Ultimately, it will cost you less to use a reusable bottle so it’s a win win situation.

Moving forward, another benefit to using reusable bottles is that you “Know exactly where your water comes from – and exactly what you’re putting into your body…”. There are always water refilling stations around and they are completely safe and regulated. Plastic water bottles releases “… foul-tasting or even potentially harmful chemicals into the water they hold, especially if exposed to high temperatures for extended periods” which is why people often complain about plastic water bottles having a bad taste. On the other hand, reusable bottles produced from BPA-free Tritan plastic, stainless steel, and glass are far safer to use and does not produce any chemicals that takes away from the taste of the water.

While most of us often link reusable bottles to water, that is simply not the case. Reusable bottles can store anything from hot to cold liquids. They can be utilized for soup, coffee, juice, soda, etc. While some might argue that using reusable bottles are inconvenient because it requires regular cleaning, there are a lot of dishwasher safe options on the market. Also, by having a reusable bottle, it begins to serve as part of your aesthetic. When you purchase a bottle you like whether it’s the shape or color, you would be more likely to use or drink out of it.

Recent discoveries have proven that plastic eating fungus exist in both sites in Japan as well as Pakistan. The fungus is able to break down the plastic but that shouldn’t be the reason to continue using plastic. Scientists have “… tweaked the enzyme… tests showed they had inadvertently made the molecule even better at breaking down the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic used for soft drink bottles”. If scientists are trying to produce a greater effect out of these fungus, it further proves the issue of overuse of plastic in our generation. While it is in the best interest of our environment to produce a device to breakdown the mass amount of plastic left in landfills, we should also start converting to reusable bottles to prevent further reliability on this new unstable finding of plastic eating fungus. We don’t know much about these fungus or the danger of utilizing it and who knows, they might disappear sooner or later before we need to find a new method of breaking down our plastic again.

Be a model, and start using reusable bottles. As you set an example for others, they will follow too. Be smart about your environment. 

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Works Cited

Carrington, Damian. “Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles.” The Guardian, 16 Apr. 2018,

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Charles. “10 Reasons to Use a Reusable Water Bottle.” Daily Infographic, 27 Dec. 2017,

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Davis, Josh. “Plastic Eating Fungus Found At A Landfill Site in Pakistan.” iflscience, 14 Sept. 2017,