Did you know that a plastic bottle can take up to 400 years to decompose?
It's as if a bottle thrown away by René Descartes in 1630 would just end up degrading today! And a million plastic bottles are sold every minute in the world!
Some countries have introduced plastic recycling processes, but most countries that consume large quantities of bottled water have no recycling system, and a large proportion of these bottles end up in oceans, rivers and streams. They remain there for hundreds of years, degrading, fragmenting and giving rise to billions of tonnes of microplastic, which will end up polluting beaches, the stomachs of mammals and fish, affecting seafood such as mussels and oysters, and even lobsters in the depths of Norway.
And this plastic will also migrate to our own stomachs through our consumption of these polluted organisms.
It is a global scourge that pollutes, harms terrestrial and aquatic fauna and flora, contributes to climate change and poisons our organisms.
What can you do to help reduce this scourge?
Stop buying bottled water
Plastic bottles are polluting our planet, and the quality of our water is far from being as impeccable as you might think. Take a reusable bottle with you and fill it with your filtered water, and you'll be helping to reduce the 20 billion plastic bottles that end up in the bin and in our oceans.
Reduce your purchases of disposable plastic items
Many plastic objects are single-use and then thrown away. These include shopping bags, often useless plastic packaging, plastic cutlery, straws and so on. Be careful with these objects and refuse them or replace them with reusable versions or ones made of a material other than plastic.
Keep informed about water-related problems and inform those around you
It's important to understand and read up on the environmental impact of disposable plastics. Firstly, so that you can convince yourself and find alternative solutions. Secondly, because if you are aware of and concerned by this problem, you can talk about it effectively to those around you and convince others to make an effort.
