Despite the fact that safe and clean tap water is available across many holiday destinations, the majority of people admit they still buy bottled water when abroad.
New research from plastic waste experts at BusinessWaste.co.uk has found that over 493 million plastic bottles are likely used unnecessarily every year, wasting 40,828 tonnes of CO₂e.
Countries where tourists buy the most bottled water
How many water bottles are used annually?
Our research found that tourists drink more than 1.8 billion litres of bottled water annually, and that’s just across the top 50 most visited destinations. That’s enough to fill 723 Olympic swimming pools or 7.2 million bathtubs.
All this water equates to purchases of more than 1.2 billion plastic bottles each year, using 36,153 tonnes of plastic. Stacked end to end, this would wrap around the earth nine times.
How many of these bottles are unnecessary?
When considering countries that UNICEF states have 99% or higher access to safely managed drinking water, this means an enormous amount of plastic water bottles bought are completely unnecessary.
Taking this into account, that’s an estimated 493 million plastic bottles unnecessarily used where tap water is likely safe. Resulting in 19,724 tonnes of wasted plastic.
What’s the environmental impact?
An estimated 99,782 tonnes of CO₂e is used to produce the 1.2 billion plastic bottles used every year.
With 493 million of these bottles unnecessary, that means that 40,828 tonnes of CO₂e could be saved by reducing people’s reliance on bottled water.
That’s equivalent to burning almost 95,000 barrels of oil, 29,000 round-trip flights between London and New York, or the pollution from about 8,800 cars driving around for a whole year.
Why do tourists rely on plastic water bottles?
One study found that 72% of travellers still rely on bottled water when travelling, and 35% are likely to purchase those bottles as soon as they arrive at their destination1.
In some instances, people travel to countries where the tap water isn’t safe to drink, so they have to rely on store-bought water that has been filtered and treated.
However, people openly admit on many forums to buying bottled water regardless. Lots state a preference for taste, worries about stomach upset, or simple convenience, as they don’t bother to check the safety of local tap water.
Tripadvisor has 2,868 pages of forums discussing tap water with comments such as:
“just driink bottleded water..cheap and easy to obtain..that takes any "scare" out of the water!!! make it easy on yourself.”
“As above , for a few euros and for the relatively short time we spend on holiday and even shorter time we spend in a room why drink from a hotel bathroom tap”
Graham Matthews, plastic waste expert at BusinessWaste.co.uk, comments:
“This data shows the out-of-control scale of plastic waste, and unfortunately, much of this is avoidable. Many tourist destinations have tap water that is safe to drink, but people simply avoid it out of habit or convenience, without considering the damage to our planet.
“Where people buy bottled water as a taste preference, a simple workaround is to add some natural flavouring such as lemon. For many people, they feel that the change in water composition can affect their digestion. If this is the case, we’d recommend purchasing a reusable bottle with an inbuilt filter.
“While you should always drink tap water where you can, if you need to avoid it due to safety issues, consider buying glass bottled water over plastic, or using filtered refill stations where available. If you must buy plastic bottles, buy the biggest bottle you can and decant it.
“Bottled water is a huge source of plastic waste. It’s sometimes unavoidable, but many people admit to not even checking the safety of tap water at their destination and always opting for bottled water purely for convenience. There is simply no excuse for this.”