This year we consumed more than 250 Bn single-use plastic bottles worldwide. Of which less than 10% were recycled. Europeans now buy more bottled water than soda despite the fact that we have drinkable tap water.
Consumers are buying, lifting, consuming and disposing of single-use bottles. For this, they pay 500 times more than tap water. As if this wasn't enough 90% of bottled water contains microplastics, plastic leaches into the water and our bodies get contaminated with BPA and phthalates of which we don't yet understand the long-term impact.
Furthermore, most of the plastic ends up in landfills where it breaks down into microplastics that end up in the groundwater, rivers and eventually the oceans polluting all living organisms.