Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22, provides a great opportunity to share ideas on how to be good stewards of the land:
- Cut back on water use
- Reduce, reuse, and recycle
- Volunteer for cleanups
- Convert your lawn into a desert-friendly and water- efficient landscape
- Learn about environmental issues and share them with others
Another way to do your part regularly is by using a reusable water bottle–a convenient and easy way to stay hydrated, live sustainably, and conserve resources.
Here are more reasons to use reusable water bottles and ditch the plastic:
- Save money on water costs. Water that is bottled or sold in vending machines or stores costs up to a thousand times more per gallon than tap water. CVWD tap water costs less than a penny per gallon.
- Reusable water bottles are an eco-friendly alternative to single-use plastic water bottles, which often end up in landfills and pollute our waterways and oceans. According to projectcleanwater.org, of the plastic water bottles purchased in the United States, only 23% are recycled.
- On average, Americans use about 13 disposable water bottles per month, according to Earthday.org. By using a reusable water bottle, you could save about 156 plastic bottles annually.
In addition, most bottled water is filtered tap water from a municipal source like CVWD’s system.
CVWD customers enjoy groundwater pumped from the aquifer that is nearly pristine and requires little to no treatment to meet all state and federal water quality standards. Throughout most of the Coachella Valley, only a small amount of chlorine is added as a precautionary measure to ensure compliance with drinking water regulations. CVWD employees also monitor the water system and test over 17,000 water samples per year.
To learn more about CVWD drinking water and ways to be more environmentally sustainable, visit cvwd.org.
