10 CENT REFUND ON BOTTLED WATER

 
America consumes 31.2 billion water bottles a year taking 17.6 million barrels of oil to create them. Enough to fuel 1.5 million cars a year.

America consumes 100 billion plastic bags a year taking 12 million barrels of oil.

The world consumes 154.3 billion water bottles and 500 billion-1 trillion bags which takes 147-207 million barrels of oil a year to create!!!

Bottled water and other beverages (energy and sports drinks) sold in plastic bottles have become an enormous source of environmental waste and will llikely surpass soda sales by 2010.

The container recycling institute (CRI) a in Washington, D.C. non-profit states that if bottled water were covered under just 11 state bottle bills currently granting 5-10 cent refunds on returned soda bottles , the PET plastic waste could drop three fold or more nationally.

Oregon is the first state to update it's bottle bill to include a 5 cent refund on PET plastic water bottles beginning in January of 2009.

This petition calls on all state legislatures not only in the U.S. but world wide to introduce or expand bottle bills which include water, energy and sports drink bottles to be included as refundable containers to increase recycling rates, reduce pollution and reduce oil consumpion on local, state, national and worldwide levels. 

Recent news reports state that there is now a plastic debris field in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas!!!

This is not acceptable and a horrendus environmental tragedy.

Furthermore the citizens of the U.S. and other developed countries have some of the safest drinking water supplies in the world with our tap water reported to oftentimes be cleaner than the bottled water that we still insist on purchasing.

The real crime behind all this is that millions of citizens in many impoverished countries of the world suffer and die from water born parasites and diseases every year because they have no access to clean water.....most of those killed are children.

We in the developed world should make an effort to refrain from buying bottled water or reduce our consumption of bottled water and send the money to various aid organizations that drill and dig wells for impoverished communities in Africa and elsewhere whose governments and citizens don't have the resources to drill their own wells. (one such organization is World Vision).

This is easily done in about 5 minutes over the internet.

This petition once again calls on all governments including their citizens to get behind and sponsor or lobby for their state and federal governments to create and/or expand existing bottle refund bills to include PET plastic water bottles, energy and sports drinks and also to discuss the above issues with family and friends when possible to increase awareness of this issue.

Also to refrain from buying bottled water once or twice a week and sending the money to aid organizations that help impoverished  communities around the world dig and drill for clean water sources for the poor.

We the undersigned agree with the ideas expressed in this petition and wish for it to be used to lobby our state and federal legislators/governments for positive change concerning this issue.