Each year, more than 193 countries around the world celebrate Earth Day on April 22. This year, the Earth Day Network is focusing its efforts on the Protect Our Species campaign. Our planet has millions of species that we know and love, but unfortunately, many of them are experiencing a rapid population decline caused by human activity, including plastic pollution.
The Plastic Problem
Plastic litter is an ever-increasing global issue and one of our key environmental challenges. Over the past four decades, global plastics production has quadrupled. If this trend continues, the greenhouse gas emissions from plastics will reach 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050.1 And with global plastics production expected to triple by 2050, along with the fact that some plastics can take hundreds of years to biodegrade, plastic pollution is a problem that isn’t going away.2
An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean every year on top of the already 150 million metric tons of plastics that currently circulates our marine environments – whether the waste is from plastic bottles and straws or from errant plastic bags – that’s like dumping one garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day for 365 days! And that much plastic is already having an impact on our ecosystems.3
Plastic Bottles
Bottled water production and consumption comes at the expense of our environment. In 2016, about 480 billion plastic bottles were purchased globally but less than half get recycled, meaning most of this plastic waste ends up in our waterways and landfills. Even worse, it is expected that the world’s increasing thirst for bottled beverages will bump these figures up another 20 percent, or 583 billion plastic bottles, by 2021—fueling a crisis that experts believe will be as serious as climate change.4
The Quench Solution
At Quench, enhancing the sustainability efforts of our customers is a core value of our service. We help our customers eliminate the use of bottled drinking water delivery services and the incumbent fossil fuel depletion, carbon emissions, and additional plastic waste by filtering a building’s existing water supply at the point-of-use (POU).
A standard Quench water cooler prevents approximately 150 five-gallon plastic water jugs from ending up in landfills and waterways each year and reduces all the associated production and transportation pollution! By adding a Quench water cooler to your business, you are taking the next step to becoming an eco-friendlier company and possibly LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified.
Not only does Quench strive to make the businesses we work with eco-friendlier, we also incorporate sustainable environmental practices in our operations wherever possible. Quench continually seeks to improve product offerings and business practices to reduce our own environmental footprint.
So, say goodbye to plastic jugs and switch to Quench filtered water coolers to positively impact the planet today, and every day. Click here to view our products.
Show us how your company is becoming more sustainable on social media by following us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter using the hashtag #EarthDay2019.
1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0459-z
2 http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf
3 https://oceanconservancy.org/trash-free-seas/plastics-in-the-ocean/
4 https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-bottle-crisis-2450299465.html
