This document discusses the environmental issues with plastic water bottles and proposes solutions. It notes that producing plastic water bottles requires significant energy and produces carbon dioxide. It then suggests redesigning water bottles to use less plastic, passing laws requiring less plastic usage, and incentivizing the use of reusable canteens by adding filtered water taps to vending machines so people can refill canteens for less money than buying bottled drinks. The goal is to greatly reduce unsustainable plastic bottle usage.
1. Do You Want Some Water
With that Plastic?
By: Lorena Zeppilli
2. QuickTimeª and a QuickTimeª and a
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Before attending UCSC (and learning about
their environmentally friendly ways) I used
plastic water bottles daily! Oh no!
3. The Design Problem
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According to the plastics manufacturing
industry, it takes around 3.4 mega joules of
energy to make a typical 1 liter cap, bottle,
and packaging.
Making enough plastic to bottle 31.2 billion
liters of water required 106 billion mega
joules of energy!
The manufacture of every ton of PET
produces around 3 Tons of Carbon Dioxide
(Co2).
4. The Design Problem (cont.)…
In addition to the water sold in plastic
bottles, the Pacific Institute estimates
that twice that amount is used in
production…Every liter sold=3 liters of
water.
Then, the transportation of this bottled
water requires even more energy!
5. What Kind of Design Problem?
This design problem has
to do with production and
content QuickTimeª and a
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Production: it uses plastic.
This is bad for the reasons
stated above and it is not
sustainable because it does
not biodegrade and it
pollutes.
Content: Bottled water is
much more expensive than
tap water. This discrepancy
in price is not proportional
to its benefits over tap
water.
7. Redesign
Water Bottles using
less plastic
There are now
bottles using 30%
less plastic and
smaller labels, this QuickTimeª and a
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more flexible (easier
for recycling), and
reduces CO2
emissions
8. Redesign Cont…
A bill could be written and passed requiring
all plastic manufacturing to reduce to 30%
less plastic.
Less plastic still means plastic however, and
plastic production requires tons of energy…
and there is still the issue of bottled water
versus tap water!
So….
9. Redesign cont…
Instead people should
use canteens!
Anticipate: people may
think that canteens are just
the “latest thing” instead of
sustainable since all bottles
used to be glass then went
to plastic
Canteens are reusable and QuickTimeª and a
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safe (no Bisphenol A are needed to see this picture.
[BPA])
They allow people to drink
tap water by filling their
canteens at the sink (much
more cost effective!)
And for those who don’t
trust tap water…
10. Incentives to use canteens?
Connect: metal is known
for being durable; if its
durable it can be reusable.
We can’t just expect
people to use canteens,
QuickTimeª and a
there has to be incentive TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
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to do so!
My proposal involves a
redesign of our every-day
vending machines to
include a filtered water-
tap.
11. Incentives/ redesign cont..
If cold drink vending machines
were redesigned to include a
filtered water tap (much like the
glacier vending machines), then
people would have a choice
between buying a cold drink or
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refilling their canteen at the
vending machine while out of the
house.
Appropriate: Carrying around a
canteen fits our daily life and
would be accepted because its
no different than carrying around
a plastic water bottle other than
12. Incentives/redesign cont…
There would be incentives to choose refilling
a canteen over purchasing a new bottled cold
drink because a bottled cold drink costs about
$2.00 while using the filtered tap add-on to
the machine would only cost $0.30.
Consumers would save money while still
being able to have portable water (in their
canteens), and once more people switch to
canteens instead of purchasing bottled water,
plastic production would decrease (and thus
CO2 emission would also lessen).
13. The unsustainable use around
plastic bottles would then be
greatly reduced!
Reflect: This makes the problem better, but
it still raises some questions such as: if
people will continue to use plastic simply due
to brand name loyalty?
Recount: spread the word of reusable water
canteens and the new vending machines
with purified water taps!
