LogFAQs > #931087266

Muscles posted...

adjl posted...

Obviously single-use plastic water bottles are bad. This isn't even an opinion thing. That said, sometimes they're the lesser of two evils, such as in places where the tap water isn't drinkable (though that's not a situation that should ever be allowed to persist for more than a few weeks outside of extreme emergencies).

Why are they considered single use when you can easily refill them plenty of times?

Mostly because most people don't do that. For those that do, however, the plastic itself doesn't last forever before it starts leeching into the contents, so it's not advisable to use them indefinitely. Even aside from that, they're not the most durable, so using them long-term isn't the most viable idea.

Basically, reusing them helps, but not as much as simply getting a reusable water bottle would.

BeerOnTap posted...

What if you recycle the bottle? I recycle all of mine?

Depends where you are. For a long time, most municipalities sent their recycling to China to be processed, but China recently stopped taking all but the highest quality plastic waste because they're generating enough of their own to saturate their recycling facilities. Some municipalities have found alternative buyers, but others have ended up just sending their recycling to landfills anyway. There's also the point that many public locations like malls have recycling and organics bins and therefore look like they separate their waste, but just end up combining them all into one landfill bag when they take them out (which is part laziness on their part and part a consequence of how hard it is to make sure people don't mix them up). And then even once you do get the plastic recycled, that's still an energy-intensive process that would be better to avoid.

Basically, remember that there are three R's, and recycling is the last of the three for a reason. Ideally, just don't create the waste in the first place. Try to recycle it if you do, because it's better than ending up in a landfill, but it's best to not even have to consider that.