Credit: Wikimedia/Afouchardiere

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I'm starting a new G Challenge: for the next month, I'm not going to buy any bottled water at all.

I don't like the impact bottled water has on the environment, but I keep making little excuses every time I get thirsty while I'm out and about. So this is a challenge I'm really looking forward to beating.

This month's G Magazine gave us a few facts about the difference we make by turning a tap instead of a new bottle cap.

For each litre of bottled water you don't drink, you’ll be saving:

• 200 mL of oil, used to make the bottle and bring it to you
• up to 30 litres of water, used to produce the one litre you drink
• 372 g of greenhouse gases from your carbon footprint

Over 250 million litres of bottled water were sold in Australia in 2006, and I bet sales have improved since then. That's a lot of oil, water, pollution and money spent on a product we can get for free from a tap. If we all give them up, even just for a month, we're helping our environment in a lot of different ways.

Over the next few weeks I'll be looking at the health concerns that make us try bottled water, the energy it takes to make it, and what our other options are. For now, I've brought my (very pretty!) Sigg water bottle in to work to stop me from buying a plastic bottle of water from the vending machine downstairs.

If you're taking on the challenge, leave a comment and let me know how you're going - I'd love to hear from you!