Bottled water does contain microplastics. Matter of fact microplastics are abundant everywhere, even found in seabirds on remote islands.
I believe they are more of a threat to the environment than “climate change” will ever be.
My packaging professor researched biodegradable plastics for this very reason.
The problem is such plastics are more expensive. Engineers can certainly produce them, but if one adds even 1/100th of a cent to costs management will not want it.
In some areas, namely Europe, Taiwan, Korea and Japan the end user of non-recyclable, non-biodegradable packaging must pay a disposal fee.
This is one instance where government does have a role; companies should not be able to externalize their costs on the general public and wildlife.
When I was growing up, bottled water wasn’t a ‘thing’. But we got milk and sometimes orange juice in waxed cardboard containers that worked fine. Orange juice also came in glass, soft drinks in glass and later aluminum.
When I was very young, there was an insulated metal ‘milk box’ outside the front door; we’d put empty glass milk bottles in it, and the milkman would come several times a week and bring new milk and take the old bottles.
In essence, these very bags are the more immediate problem, because they leach out micro and nano plastics, upon simple starch components breaking down.
‘This is one instance where government does have a role; companies should not be able to externalize their costs on the general public and wildlife’
Nonsense. First, plastics were the evil. Now, it’s microplastics then nanoplastics.
Stop the hysteria and find a single scientific evidence that they have caused any harm.
And repeating ad nauseam the same stupid luddite anti-plastic claims doesn’t count as evidence.