American's use two million plastic beverage bottles every five minutes. No, you didn't blink. That is 2,000,000 in 5 minutes.

Here's what all those zeros look like courtesy of Chris Jordan's Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait (I first saw this link over at Becker's blog). Chris's studio was kind enough to let me use these photos here and I wanted to share them because sometimes things don't hit home until we see them:

Plastic Bottles, 2007
60x120"

Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes:

Partial zoom:

Detail at actual size:

That turns out to be 576 million plastic beverage bottles used every day! While some of them will get recycled, that is still an exorbitant amount of waste.

Instead of offering individual water bottles at your wedding, have the wait staff butler pass glasses filled with filtered water. Or choose to have one or two iced pitchers at each table with glasses for guests to refill. Wedding bottles as favors may be cute (and there are some beautiful ones on the market), but they are not necessary at a dining table.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule and being eco-friendly does not mean being rigid with your practices. Personalized water bottles make great giveaways for events like bridal party golf outings or in areas where glass may not be allowed (if your reception is being held near a pool or water area, for example).

I encourage you to take stock of your current wedding plans: are there elements that can be replaced with something more eco-friendly and less wasteful? And then the tough question: if so, are you willing to?

{photos from Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait by Chris Jordan}