Refill Your Bottle

Up to 13 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year—the equivalent of a garbage truck load’s worth every minute. Fish, seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals can become entangled in or ingest plastic debris, causing suffocation, starvation, and drowning. Plastic particles also end up in the seafood we eat. (Source: Pew Trusts)

San Franciscans currently enjoy high-quality, great tasting water from the SFPUC Regional Water System. The majority of this water comes from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Unlike bottled water, our delicious tap water costs less than half a penny per gallon, is quality tested over 100,000 times a year, and goes straight to your tap. (Source:San Francisco Public Utilities Commission)

Plastic is made from petroleum, and making all the plastic for the water bottles Americans consume uses 17 million barrels of crude oil annually. That is equivalent to the fuel needed for $1.3 million vehicles for a year! If you were to fill one quarter of a plastic water bottle with oil, you would be looking at roughly the amount used to produce that bottle. (Source: SF Board of Supervisors Bottled Water Fact Sheet)

Many plastic water bottles contain chemicals called phthalates that it has been shown can leach into the water. Phthalates are known to disrupt testosterone and other hormones, which can lead to infertility, cancer, miscarriages and other health problems. (Source: SF Board of Supervisors Bottled Water Fact Sheet)