Another pervasive product with a severe environmental footprint, which can be eliminated by small lifestyle changes, is bottled water. In 1976, the average American consumed a gallon and a half of bottled water each year. By 2008, the number had grown to about 30 gallons of bottled water per person in the U.S.

For starters, plastic bottles are made from oil - an obvious problem. Oil is continually increasing in price and our peak oil production (many scientists believe) has already been reached, meaning scarcity will increase indefinitely. Why allocate an increasingly limited resource to the production of bottles? It is estimated that (if one includes all the energy into producing and transporting a bottle of water) that the amount of oil used to produce a single bottle would fill it 1/3 of the way.  The cost is reason enough to give up bottled water. The average price of a bottle of water is a buck. When one fills up a glass at the faucet, the cost of that water is a fraction of a penny.  

Lastly, proper disposal is rare. 40 million plastic water bottles go into the trash every day. Overall, only 12 percent of the plastic water bottles get recycled. The bottles are adding to landfills at an increasing rate. Recycling plastic bottles cuts down on the emissions that are inherent in burning fossil fuels to create new ones.

There are obvious solutions to this problem: purchase a BPA free bottle or re-fill-able water bottle and keep it with you. Find a drinking fountain instead of purchasing water. And please, if you want to recycle your plastic bottle, make sure you do it in the proper location to avoid cross-contamination.

Check out this article and many more suggestions like these at:  

http://www.monroecc.edu/depts/sustainability/tips.htm