# "last year the US used enough plastic water bottles..." **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 12, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-year-the-us-used-enough-plastic-water-bottles/668632 "2013-09-12T03:34:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TashaKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TashaKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TashaKitty)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-year-the-us-used-enough-plastic-water-bottles/668632/1 "2013-09-12T03:34:52Z")
“…to stretch around the earth 190 times.” - Brita filter advertisement I’m sorry, but that sounds like an exaggeration to me. I totally agree that we need to reduce our plastic waste, but that number just sounds ridiculous. Maybe we use enough in a year to stretch around the earth a few times, maybe even twenty times, but 190 times? Sorry, not buying it. If that was true, wouldn’t there be massive piles of water bottles that could be seen from space? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-year-the-us-used-enough-plastic-water-bottles/668632/2 "2013-09-12T03:47:03Z")
The earth is about 40,000km around. I don’t know the average height of a water bottle but it seems that they range from about 20cm to about 30cm so let’s go with 25cm. I make that a claimed 30.4 billion water bottles. That equates to about 100 per person per year in the US or one every three days. Not sure the number is completely implausible ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-year-the-us-used-enough-plastic-water-bottles/668632/3 "2013-09-12T03:53:48Z")
I did a little googling and found several claims (note I said claims!) that the average person goes through 167 plastic bottles a year. I presume this includes soda, water, cheap vodka, and your favorite antifreeze beverage. Just doing a little math, even assuming this average is for adults, it seems to work out that these bottles would circle the earth way more than 100 times. Have you heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-year-the-us-used-enough-plastic-water-bottles/668632/4 "2013-09-12T04:05:25Z")
If you are looking for actual numbers try this scientific, peer-reviewed article: [ul] [li] **Energy implications of bottled water** [/li][li][http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/1/014009/pdf/erl9\_1\_014009.pdf[/li][/ul]](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/1/014009/pdf/erl9_1_014009.pdf%5B/li%5D%5B/ul%5D) Also, … [ul] [li]Americans buy an estimated 34.6 billion single-serving (1 liter or less) plastic water bottles each year\*.\*[/li][li][http://www.container-recycling.org/index.php/issues/bottled-water[/li][/ul]](http://www.container-recycling.org/index.php/issues/bottled-water%5B/li%5D%5B/ul%5D) Play with those numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-year-the-us-used-enough-plastic-water-bottles/668632/5 "2013-09-12T04:10:34Z")
Which matches my reverse engineering from Brita’s figure quite closely.