Grand Canyon bans bottled water sales, March 10

Grand canyon

Plastic used in bottled water is one of the biggest wastes created by humans. Despite efforts to recycle the material, an enormous amount of plastic waste causes handling problems.

Our national parks are having their own share of headaches due the plastic bottles brought and discarded by people visiting these parks. 

The National Park Service (NPS) will ban sales of bottle water in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, starting March 10, 2010. NPS has spent about

$290,000 and installed 10 water stations inside the park. Visitors can refill their water bottles from these water stations. Reusable water bottles are available for sale Visitors can use the stations to refill their own reusable bottles which can also be bought at the park concessionaires.

The Grand Canyon is visited by about 4.5 million tourists each year, The waste left behind by the visitors has been harming the park. Disposable water bottles make about 20 percent of the park’s waste  In addition, the caps and labels removed from water bottles along with cigarette butts are some of the top waste items the park staff ends up picking on the ground.

Bottled water sales have been banned in some other national parks also such as, at Zion National Park in Utah and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

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Reference

http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm