The Reno Waste Management team is taking steps to ban the bottle by encouraging employees and the local Reno community to use ban one-time-use plastic bottles and use more eco-friendly reusable bottles like those from Nalgene.

Americans grab 60-million bottles of water per day. But now, instead of just asking you to recycle those plastic water bottles, Waste Management is saying maybe you shouldn’t use them at all. “If you really want to do something good for the environment it is to get one of those plastic bottles you can reuse,” said Justin Caporusso a spokesman for Waste Management.

That’s also the message behind the Washoe County Health Department’s newest campaign, “I refill.” Instead of buying a bottle of water, they want you to invest in a refillable bottle for water. “We want people to stop using so many single use plastic water bottles,” said Tracie Douglas of the District Health Department.

Considering 8 of 10 plastic bottles aren’t recycled, you’d decrease the amount sent to the landfill and that’s good for the environment.

Considering a gallon of bottled water could cost up to $10 you’d also decrease the amount you spend and that’s also good for you wallet.

And considering most plastic bottles contain a chemical called BPA (known to cause diabetes and liver disease) you’d decrease your exposure and that’s good for your health.” There are tons of different chemicals used when you make a plastic bottle, but that particular one does leech into whatever particular beverage you’re drinking,” said Douglas

Money used to promote reusing actually comes from the recycle fee you pay every time you buy a new tire. It’s a campaign, meant to keep the environment rolling in the right direction.

[via KTVN TV]

A recent article on Newsday.com noted that many states are beginning to cut back on bottled water and help the environment by reducing waste.

The New York City Council called for an end to bottled water purchases for city offices and city-sponsored events last June, and numerous restaurants and cultural venues have followed suit.

“Bottled water is wasteful and requires large amounts of energy to bottle and transport,” NY Gov. David Paterson said. More than 450 million gallons of oil per year are used to transport water from bottling plants to stores, and plastic water bottle manufacturing uses 17 million barrels of oil, he said.

Four billion pounds of water bottles end up in landfills or incinerators in New York annually, Paterson said. That number should decline when the state’s new 5-cent deposit on water bottles takes effect June 1.

“Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars to ensure that we have clean drinking water supplies,” Paterson said. “If we are going to make such significant investments, we should reap the benefits and use that water.”

Statehouses target bottled water to reduce waste [via Newsday.com]

Petrolia, California, a city near Ontario, is considering banning the sale of all plastic water bottles.  This move is aimed at curbing the effects of plasitc water bottle waste.  However, the mayor of the city is questioning the usefulness of such a ban:

McCharles concedes plastic water bottles are an environmental hazard if they aren’t disposed of properly. But he questions whether an outright ban is the answer.

“There’s definitely an environmental problem with plastic bottles, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But if people were more conscious about recycling them, they wouldn’t be such a problem.”

Only 30% of all plastic water bottles are recycled.  That means millions of wasted bottles end up in landfills each year.  We encourage the citizens of Petrolia to write their mayor and voice their support of banning the bottle as well as recycling as there are benefits to doing both.