In recent years, water bottles have become very popular with brands like Hydro Flask, Owala, and Stanley entering the mainstream media. These brands focus on sustainability, but once the trend starts it’s hard to stop. With these water bottles becoming the next big thing people have already started collecting them in mass amounts, begging the question. Is it really sustainable anymore?
“The alternative is that they keep making plastic water bottles because people use them,”
sophomore Irelynn Titman said, “but now you have Stanley’s that are reusable and not going into the ocean.”
The use of plastic water bottles has declined with reusable water bottles growing in popularity, people refill water bottles helping to reduce the amount of plastic pollution in the oceans. Trend Brands that promote sustainability with their water bottles. When people collect water bottles, that brings new conflict to the table.
“The metal lasts longer and won’t decompose like the plastic,” sophomore Bella Shropshire said. “Would you rather have people collect the plastic ones making more trash?”
Plastic water bottles take years to decompose when some of the reusable ones take years to break, But collecting the water bottles still might make waste too.
“I think it’s silly,” Jimena Andazola Franco said. “I thing sticking to one and reusing that is enough.”
Whether it be one Stanley or multiple, keeping plastics out of the ocean is a great thing to do. When sustainable trends become more of a collection, that might increase plastic usage and bring its sustainability into question.
