The Life Cycle of a Plastic Bottle
The average American consumes 167 bottles of water each year. There are many steps involved in making a bottle of water and throughout the process many natural resources are used. Make a note of how many times the bottle is transported throughout the process and remember that transportation also uses gasoline and releases a lot of carbon dioxide into the air which contributes to air pollution.

First, the oil is extracted from the earth

Then the oil is cleaned at the refinery

The bottles are ready for you so they are transported to the store.

You purchase the bottle of water and bring it to your house. At a plastics factory the oil is transformed into plastic pellets then bottle pre-forms.

The bottles are brought to the bottling plant where they are filled with water.

The pre-forms are heated and shaped into bottles. Most of the plastic bottles are thrown in the trash and end up in landfills.
Some are recycled and brought to a factory that turns them into other items like carpet, fleece and other plastic items. Eventually, those items are disposed of in the trash and also end up in the landfill.

Water Bottle Facts: Did you know...?

Americans buy an estimated 29.8 billion plastic water bottles every year.
On average, each
American consumes
167 bottles of water a

80% of our bottles are not recycled – they end up in the landfill or are incinerated with other regular trash.

Each year 17 million barrels of oil are used to make the plastic for the bottles
– that’s enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year!

More than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) are released in the production of plastic bottles.

Each year 16.4 billion gallons of water are used to make the plastic for the bottles – that’s not including the water used to fill the bottles!

At least
40% of bottled water comes from

YOU can help by using reusable water

All plastic that is used for food and drink is brand new plastic – for health reasons we cannot use recycled plastic.