Cut the plastic wate - say no to bottled water

It is everywhere - in the gym, on the air plane, on sale at every corner store and handed out on field trips. Bottled water has become an everyday item.

What would you rather drink: a fancy bottle of water with a pretty picture of mountains and a stream on it, or a glass poured from the tap?

Many people only drink bottled water, and some restaurants refuse to serve tap water. Some people think tap water is unsafe, or that it tastes funny.

Around the world people spend billions of dollars on bottled water. But it is no healthier and it produces a huge amount of rubbish.

A third of all bottled water sold in the US is just plain old filtered tap water. In fact, when researchers tested bottled water in the US, they found that in many cases it contained more bacteria than tap water.

Bottled water is also about 1,000 times more expensive. Meanwhile, public water systems in many cities are poorly built and maintained due to a lack of funding. Governments spend millions of dollars collecting and disposing of our empty bottles, but one billion people around the world do not have clean drinking water. Maybe if we produced less waste we would have more money to provide clean tap water for everyone.