Water bottles seem harmless and easy to grab when you’re on the go. But did you know a lot of energy and fossil fuels were used to produce those water bottles? A lot of water bottles end up in landfills and pollute the earth.

The United States consumes more bottled water than any other country in the world! Ouch. You can start making a difference now and help create a cleaner, greener planet!

What you can do:

• Find a sturdy, reusable water bottle that you can refill instead of buying a new water bottle every time. Stainless steel bottles last a long time, and a lot of these bottles come with cool designs and colors to choose! Have a parent check first to make sure it’s a good, safe brand.

• If you do use a plastic water bottle, recycle it instead of throwing it away. (The caps aren’t recyclable though so make sure you throw the caps away!) Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.
   

• When you’re at home, try to pour yourself a glass of water from the faucet instead of using a water bottle. American tap water is fairly clean due to regulations made by your local government.

• If you’re still worried that tap water isn’t clean enough, ask your family to install a water filter. One water filter saves more energy than to  continuously purchase water bottles for the rest of your life.

• Don’t forget to turn the faucet off when you’re done! And tell mom and dad immediately if there’s a leaky faucet—all those drops of water that get wasted add up!

• Here are some additional helpful links:

National Geographic for Kids- “Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap?”

Drinktap.org – Kids Page (this is where I found out that one drop every second from a leaky faucet wastes 2,400 gallons of water in a year—that’s about 30 bathtubs!)

Water conservation games and activities for families

PBS Kids – Meet the Greens (this is a fun site about looking after the planet, plus it has cool episodes to watch and activities to try!)