SPECIAL FEATURES:
Email
5 reasons not to drink bottled water
It's expensive, wasteful and — contrary to popular belief — not any healthier for you than tap water.
Mon, Mar 15 2010 at 1:04 PM
Related Topics:
BOTTLES, BOTTLES EVERYWHERE: Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. (Photo: quinn.anya/Flickr)
Bottled water is healthy water — or so marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy, active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a trip to the yoga studio.
In reality, bottled water is just water. That fact isn't stopping people from buying a lot of it. Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, with the market expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.
Bottled water is big business. But in terms of sustainability, bottled water is a dry well. It's costly, wasteful and distracts from the brass ring of public health: the construction and maintenance of safe municipal water systems.
Want some solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit? We've rounded up five to get you started.
1) Bottled water isn't a good value
Take, for instance, Pepsi's Aquafina or Coca-Cola's Dasani bottled water. Both are sold in 20 ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks — and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to 5 cents an ounce. These two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than 1 cent per gallon.
Now consider another widely sold liquid: gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to your local filling station.
In the U.S., the average price per gallon is hovering around $3. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price of gasoline at a fraction over 2 cents an ounce.
And that's why there's no shortage of companies that want to get into the business. In terms of price versus production cost, bottled water puts Big Oil to shame.
2) No healthier than tap water
In theory, bottled water in the United States falls under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. In practice, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, making it exempt from FDA oversight.
On the other hand, water systems in the developed world are well-regulated. In the U.S., for instance, municipal water falls under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency, and is regularly inspected for bacteria and toxic chemicals. Want to know how your community scores? Check out the Environmental Working Group's National Tap Water Database.
While public safety groups correctly point out that many municipal water systems are aging and there remain hundreds of chemical contaminants for which no standards have been established, there's very little empirical evidence that suggests bottled water is any cleaner or better for you than its tap equivalent.
3) Bottled water means garbage
Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water Watch, that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away.
That assumes empty bottles actually make it to a garbage can. Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world's major oceans. This represents a great risk to marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for food.
Thanks to its slow decay rate, the vast majority of all plastics ever produced still exist — somewhere.
4) Bottled water means less attention to public systems
Many people drink bottled water because they don't like the taste of their local tap water, or because they question its safety.
This is like running around with a slow leak in your tire, topping it off every few days rather than taking it to be patched. Only the very affluent can afford to switch their water consumption to bottled sources. Once distanced from public systems, these consumers have little incentive to support bond issues and other methods of upgrading municipal water treatment.
There's plenty of need. In California, for example, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the requirement of $17.5 billion in improvements to the state's drinking water infrastructure as recently as 2005. In the same year, the state lost 222 million gallons of drinkable water to leaky pipes.
5) The corporatization of water
In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies.
Water is being called the "Blue Gold" of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and population, shifting climates and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming humanity's most precious resource.
Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water.
What can you do?
There's a simple alternative to bottled water: buy a stainless steel thermos, and use it. Don't like the way your local tap water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparkling fresh at a fraction of bottled water's cost.
Consider taking Food and Water Watch's No Bottled Water Pledge. Conserve water wherever possible, and stay on top of local water issues. Want to know more? Start with the Sierra Club's fact sheet on bottled water.
Bottoms up!
Copyright Lighter Footstep 2008
You might also like:
Sign in with one of these accounts to add your comment.
EDITORS' PICKS
Advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR ON
- What causes tornadoes?
- Military dog comes home from Iraq traumatized
- 13 natural remedies for the ant invasion
- 10 false facts most people think are true
- New psychiatric manual stirs controversy
- 15 famous people who mysteriously disappeared
- 15 houseplants to improve indoor air quality
- 10 of the top U.S. cities for nature lovers
- How space tourism could help save planet Earth
- 9 habits that may do more harm than good
From our sponsor
NEWSLETTER
Advertisement
The three most common reasons given by bottled-water drinkers are healthiness, purity and taste. As we'll get into later on, the first two reasons are somewhat misguided, and the third is open for debate. For a seemingly basic food product, bottled water has generated its share of controversy.
A bunch of tree huggers. How about all the people you put out of jobs by not drinking bottled water. By the way, bottled water is very FDA regulated and is much heathier and better tasting than most city water.
yes, very little regulation...and if every time something bad needs to change and people make the argument that people will lose their jobs, then nothing will EVER change and we will keep digging ourselves into a pit of pollution and disease
It's regulated by ONE lady at the FDA.... Did you know that?
Is it one lady? I know that they are HIGHLY underrepresented and are overwhelmed to cover everything. For more information on where your bottled water comes from, how people living near the bottling plants are dying and unable to leave the hazards teh plants create, and about the FDA, watch the startling documentary "Tapped" it's quite good and well done and has been what turned me away from bottled water!
I don't care if my water comes from the same source of the tap water, tap water tastes awfull, in my country water is cheap, a dollar for 2 gallons of water, I idon't see the problem the water infrastucture sustains by home consume, bath,cooking, cleaning etc.
the plastic can be a problem since, they are not talking about soda drinks, or canned drinks that are more dangerous than plastic.
I guess buying soda pop in plastic bottles is a better alternative. Why not just let people buy and drink what they want!
, according to http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100310/why-tap-water-is-... “Bottled water contains no fluoride, and we’re seeing more and more adults suffer from a fluoride deficiency, which can lead to tooth decay.
Reading that i assume fluoride is somewhat good for u too. :)
No don't bother finding out what the industry can do to improve, corporations don't have a conscience. Just make your municipality live up to higher standards. Buying water should be rare not what it has turned into today. We The People are really asking for trouble if we continue on this path.
I love the way those with an agenda seem to try and steer us away from one unhealthful thing, by replacing it with another unhealthful thing. Stainless steel and aluminum leaches metal into the water, so how can that be any better for us? Glass is a much wiser option and the hell with any transportation/weight issues. More priority should be placed on saving the environment and our health at the same time.
Here is a trailer to the movie "Tapped"....it explains how people are drinking the chemicals that leach out from the plastic of bottled water...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72MCumz5lq4
Anyone wanting to know more about the bottled water industry and how nuts it is, watch the movie "Tapped"..you will be amazed at what you find out. It is much like "Food Inc" for water...very informative and you will probably never buy bottled water again!
Well it is up to you and your community to do something about it. Not skirt the problem by buying bottled water.
Bottled water is probably often not the best but drinking water is so important to health that I wouldn't not drink because only bottled water is available. The rule of thumb I have heard is: take your weight in lbs, divide by 2 and the result is the number of ounces you should drink in a day. For example, for a person weighing 160 lb: 160 lb/2 = 80 80 oz = 10 glasses (at 8 oz (250 ml)/glass)
Pages