Hillary Clinton once said “Bottled water has been part of us since 1960, and has saved us from many people from being dehydrated from disgusting tap water. We cannot leave plastic water bottles behind.” While plastic bottles had saved our dehydration on the go, the water inside a plastic bottle isn’t a good combination. Plastic bottles need to be banned.

According to Mayor Gavin Newson, a mayor at San Francisco, California had said that over one billion plastic bottles end up at California’s landfills each year, taking over 1,000 years to biodegrade. Not only that, but they leak out toxic additives such as phthalates into groundwater. Jennifer Gitlitz, research director for Container Recycling Institute(CRI) told Scholastic News that only 14% of plastic bottles are recycled. Therefore, about 86% of water bottles have been either wasted, landfilled, incinerated, or littered.

Another reason to think why bottled water should be left behind is that plastic has contained dangerous microorganisms and minerals. Natural News had said that plastic bottles contain Bisphenol A(BPA), which is detrimental to human health. BPA acts similar to estrogen, meaning there will be negative effects. These negative effects include obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, and hyperactivity. Dangerous minerals like lead, can also harm a human body. At CNN, the website had said that lead can lead to behavior disorders, hearing problems, delayed puberty, and impaired cognition. The reason why lead is included in bottled water is that bottled water comes from tap water in pipes. Some pipes leach lead into tap water and into a plastic bottle, says CNN.

On the other hand, some people might say that we shouldn’t ban bottled water because if we use another material like glass, it can be a safety hazard. This point makes sense glass remnants can cause 1,000 injuries a year. However, the Chicago Tribune had said that glass is made out of sand, while plastic is made out of BPA. And Eat Right had also said that the glass is reusable too. Sure, plastic can be reused also but it’s thrown away after a person is done with it. Eat Right also said glass has no risk of the environment or personal health, and doesn’t leach harmful chemicals when in contact with water.

It is important to know and understand the dangers of plastic bottles. Earth has been already damaged by pollution, climate change, crude oil, and global warming. There are better materials to use for water other than plastic. We can just simply put tap water on glass other than buying a water bottle from a store, since glass is a better material. So instead of buying bottled water from a store, we should grab a glass cup and pour tap water in.