Reusable Bottle Savings Calculator
See the plastic bottles, money and CO₂ you save each year by switching to a refillable water bottle.
How it works
Bottles = per day × days · Money = bottles × price · Plastic = bottles × grams · CO₂ ≈ bottles × 0.083 kg
A single refillable bottle replaces hundreds of disposable ones over a year. Each 500 ml PET bottle weighs about 10 grams and takes roughly 83 grams of CO₂ to manufacture and ship, on top of its retail price. Multiply by how many you would otherwise buy and both the plastic pile and the cost add up quickly — usually paying back a good reusable bottle within weeks.
Worked example
Avoiding 2 bottles a day for 365 days skips 730 bottles. At $1.50 each that saves $1,095, avoids 730 × 10 g = 7.3 kg of plastic, and cuts about 730 × 0.083 = 60.6 kg of CO₂.
Frequently asked questions
How was the CO₂ per bottle estimated?
Life-cycle studies put the production and transport of a small single-use PET water bottle at roughly 80–100 g of CO₂ each; this uses 83 g. It excludes the water inside and end-of-life disposal.
Does the reusable bottle’s own footprint matter?
A little. A metal or hard-plastic bottle takes more energy to make than one disposable, but its footprint is spread over hundreds of uses, so it is repaid within days to a few weeks of normal use.
What if I recycle the bottles?
Recycling recovers some material and energy, but not all — collection, sorting and reprocessing still use resources. Avoiding the bottle entirely saves more than recycling it.
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This calculator is for educational purposes. Double-check important results before acting on them.