Http://www.nauticalshipsinbottles.com/

The common tool was the jackknife most sailors carried. The masts were folded down and rigged so that they could be pulled up after the model was inserted into the bottle.

The ship in a bottle is a type of mechanical puzzle called an impossible bottle. It is called this because items thought be impossible to fit inside a bottle are placed there, leaving the observer to wonder how it came to be. Many types of items can be found in this traditional puzzle, including decks of cards, tennis balls, scissors, and of course the ship in a bottle. Grabbing a quick bottled water when you're on the go seems pretty harmless, and it would be, if you were the only person drinking bottled water and you didn't do it very often. Unfortunately, each person in the United States reached for bottled water 167 times on average in 2006. That adds up to 50 billion bottles. Since only 23% of disposable plastic bottles are recycled, 38 billion disposable plastic bottles end up in landfills each year - 100 million bottles everyday. Laid end to end, there would be enough bottles to reach from New Jersey to China and back each day!

This excessive quantity of plastic waste is bad for the environment because plastic biodegrades very slowly. in ships, trains, and trucks. One bottle of water also requires at least three times its volume of water to manufacture and fill. This is because it takes a large quantity of water to process petroleum into plastic. Finally, manufacturing and transporting one bottle of water generates about 120 grams of greenhouse gases - enough to fill 12 balloons.

Further environmental harm is caused by collecting the water needed to fill the 50 billion bottles. Communities where bottling companies withdraw millions of gallons of water each day are harassed by tanker trucks rumbling through their small towns 24-7 to keep the bottling plants supplied with water. Local ecosystems are negatively impacted when huge quantities of water are removed entirely from a watershed. These large water withdrawals from aquifers (underground water supplies) or surface water features can reduce stream flow, lower lake levels, decrease local water well productivity, and upset eco-systems such that aquatic plant growth increases and fish stock decreases. In coastal areas, salt water intrusion into aquifers and wells can be accelerated by these large fresh water withdrawals. These communities are fighting the multi-national corporations in local regulatory and other legal arenas to stop these high levels of water withdrawal.

The economic argument against bottled water is equally compelling. Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water in 2006, paying 2 to 4 times the price of gasoline for a product they can get virtually free right out of their taps. Contrary to the abundant marketing messages, tap water is potentially more healthful than bottled water; tap water is more highly regulated and monitored for quality than bottled water. About 40% of bottled water is simply filtered tap water, so why pay 1000 times more for it? Filling a reusable bottle with tap water saves an individual at least $34 per year. A family of four saves at least $136 per year using reusable bottles.

Can we afford to continue wasting our limited natural and economic resources on bottled water? There is an easy solution - fill your reusable bottle with tap water!

Ships in bottles