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I have always been a big advocate of tap water—not because I think it
harmless but because the idea of purchasing water extracted from some
remote watershed and then hauled halfway round the world bothers me.
Drinking bottled water relieves people of their concern about ecological
threats to the river they live by or to the basins of groundwater they
live over. It's the same kind of thinking that leads some to the
complacent conclusion that if things on earth get bad enough, well,
we'll just blast off to a space station somewhere else.
Sandra Steingraber, Having Faith, 2001 |
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The Bottom Line: |
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Bottled water is not necessarily more pure or safer than tap water.
Consumer Reports:
article one,
article two |
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Bottled water costs hundreds to thousands of
times more than tap water, and tens to
hundreds of times more than home-treated
water. |
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Bottled water has often been demonstrated in blinded tests to taste the
same as tap water. |
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Bottled water can have
no magical properties to cure disease, help
you hydrate any better, give you more energy, balance your body's pH, or lose weight better or faster than tap (or filtered) water. |
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Bottled water wastes resources and pollutes the
earth and atmosphere at every stage of its production, distribution, and disposal of used bottles. |
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Bottled water is a 'quick fix'
commodity that diverts attention away from the necessity of maintaining and upgrading critical public water treatment and distribution infrastructure. |
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It most cases it is
inexpensive and easy to treat and bottle your own water. |
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Are there any benefits to purchasing bottled water?
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There are times and places where the immediate
availability of safe water is critical, as in the aftermath of a
disaster where normal water distribution is interrupted &/or the local water is
polluted. Bottled water can help tremendously in those situations
- but so could portable water treatment stations. |
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When traveling out of town the water quality/safety
may be unknown (or known to be bad). That would be another
instance where purchasing bottled water would make sense. Again,
however, there are portable water treatment options that could be used.
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In the absence of a disaster or travel, however, the main (and
arguably the only) benefit to bottled water is convenience - you can
take bottled water with you wherever you go or purchase it when you get "there"
and be reasonably assured of drinking safe, good tasting water.
Of course it has always been possible to take water
with you - back when I was a kid you simply filled a canteen or thermos
from the faucet and went on your way.
Today there are a wide variety of reusable water containers in plastic,
metal, glass and ceramic. Plastic and metal are most commonly used
for individual-use portable containers and glass and ceramic are mostly
limited to bulk water storage.
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“I am sorry, Evian and San Pellegrino and
Dasani and all the other bottled waters out there—Aqua
Velva, Wells Fargo, Muddy Waters, Joan Rivers, Jerry
Springer, whatever—but the current campaign against paying
good money for bottled water when tap water is perfectly
good (and very likely purer) is so sensible on the face of
it that I am now done with you.
Fini. Kaput. Ausgeschlossen. No more designer water. Water
is water. If you want lemon flavoring, add a slice of lemon.
You want bubbles, stick a straw in it and blow.
My father, a true conservative, would have smiled on this.
All his life he resisted the attempts of big corporations to
gouge him by selling him stuff he didn’t need and so he was
not a consumer of high-priced water, anymore than he
would’ve purchased bottles of French air or Italian soil.
No, San Pellegrino and Perrier got rich off the pretensions
of liberal wastrels like moi who thought it set us apart
from the unlettered masses. We ordered it in restaurants for
the same reason we read books we don’t like and go to operas
we don’t understand - we say to the waiter, ”Perrier,” to
give a continental touch to our macaroni and cheese.
Enough. Man is capable of reform once presented with the
facts, and the fact is that bottling water and shipping it
is a big waste of fuel, so stop already. The water that
comes to your house through a pipe is good enough, and maybe
better."
Garrison Keillor Sept. 29, 2007 in the Salt Lake
Tribune
(Old
Faithful Bottled Water skit - APHC
7/5/97) |
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Alternatives to
purchased bottled water
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Drink the local tap water
In most cities in the US and other developed countries the local tap water is safe.
Check when traveling, and if there is any question about
the water quality use a portable water treatment device or buy bottled water.
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Fill your own reusable bottle
Filling your own reusable bottles and effectively cleaning them between uses does
take some time and uses resources (water, soap, energy to heat the
water, and "elbow grease").
One way to minimize the time and resources needed to clean
water bottles is to pour the water into your mouth instead of sucking it out.
If you have not wrapped your lips around the bottle's mouth there will be
little
chance of contamination. You would only need to rinse the bottle
out occasionally. Problems with this approach to drinking are that it looks a
bit strange and, if you are not careful, you can pour the water down the front of
your shirt instead of into your mouth. |
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With a moderate initial expenditure and
attention to cleaning the container, bottling your own tap water will cost well
under one cent per gallon. |
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If you have concerns about using tap water to
drink and fill your reusable water containers, you can economically treat
your water with any of the home treatment methods
described on this
page
that fit your needs and budget and fill a 16oz water container for
$0.01 to $0.04. |
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Concerns have been raised about the safety of some types of plastic
containers.
National Geographic
Green Guide (the original links are gone)
Safer plastics - #2HDPE, #4LDPE, and #5PP
When choosing plastic containers, even those you'll use over
and over again, choose those that are accepted for recycling in your
area. Although #1 PETE is one of the most commonly recycled types, there
are no containers designed for re-use made from it, and one should never
re-use single-use #1 plastic bottles because their design doesn't lend
itself to proper cleaning and the bottles can harbor bacterial growth.
There are, however, a number of reusable containers made from another
commonly recycled plastic, #2 HDPE. Number #4 LDPE and #5PP plastics,
although not as widely recycled, are also good choices since, as with
#2, most research has not shown leaching of any carcinogens or endocrine
disruptors.
The
Smart Plastics Guide
Avoid polycarbonate (#7) baby bottles
and sippy cups.
For baby bottles, try and use glass (e.g.,
Evenflo), polyethylene (e.g., Evenflo, Medela, Playtex) or polypropylene
(e.g., Gerber, Medela) instead. Sippy cups made of stainless steel
(e.g., Kleen Kanteen), or of polypropylene or polyethylene (e.g., Avent,
Evenflo, First Years, Gerber, Playtex) are safer. Be sure to check the
bottle or cup to be sure of the type of plastic it contains. As for
baby bottle nipples, try and use silicone which does not leach the
carcinogenic nitrosamines that can be found in latex.
Bottled Water Backlash
None of the following plastics have been shown to leach
carcinogens or endocrine disruptors.
#2 HDPE (high-density polyethylene) is durable and widely
recyclable.
#4 LDPE (low-density polyethylene) is used in some food wraps
and sandwich bags.
#5 PP (polypropylene) is popular in reusable containers, though
not frequently recycled.
For an alternative to plastic, try the Thermos Stainless Steel Beverage Bottle #2550.
With a stainless-steel exterior and interior, it keeps beverages cold or
soups, coffee and tea hot 10 times longer than plastic bottles, or try
Sigg 's .6-liter Oval Traveler Reusable Bottle in stainless steel.
{other brands of metal containers you can look up on the web
include Klean Kanteen
(stainless steel),
Sigg
(ceramic-lined aluminum)
What You Can Do
Avoid leaving water in any plastic bottle in the heat.
{this would include purchased bottled water}
Hand wash reusable bottles gently.
Don't reuse PET bottles -
particularly baby bottles.
Fill reusable bottles with your own tap water, filtered if
necessary.
Is reusing
disposable water bottles (#1 PETE ) safe?
Research has turned up two opinion groups:
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the refillers: The refillers say that washing and re-using water bottles
is safe, particularly if they are washed regularly with hot, soapy water. |
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the non-refillers (represented, in particular, by the International
Bottled Water Association, an organization that represents the interest of companies that sell
bottled water): Those in the non-refilling camp state that only bottles specifically made to be
reused should be refilled. For starters, they say that all kinds of bacteria can thrive in
made-to-be-disposed bottles, even after washing. |
My take on this issue, as mentioned above, is that as long as the top and inside of the
bottle is not contaminated by contact with your mouth or hands, the
bottle can be reused with minimal cleaning. That, however,
involves pouring the water into your mouth instead of wrapping your lips
around the top, and you run the risk of pouring water down the front of
your shirt.
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Additional issues and
articles about bottled
water
 Kerosene and bottled water:
Ed Quillen,
Columnist for The Denver Post: 05/23/2008
Mr. Quillen coined the term
Equivalent
Kerosene Quotient (EKQ), to denote the amount of fuel required to transport
water from its source to a bottling plant. He specifically proposed a requirement to post the EKQ on bottles of
Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water if Nestle goes ahead with plans to truck
water 250 miles from a spring in the mountains near Nathrop, Colorado to
Denver for bottling. After researching the amount of water Nestle
is planning to ship, the amount of water a tanker truck can carry, and
average miles per gallon of the trucks, he calculated that the EKQ for trucking
the water to Denver would be 1.74 teaspoons of fuel per liter bottle.
1.74 teaspoons isn't much, you may say, but that works out to 1,680
gallons of fuel per day to transport the
planned 194,400 gallons of water.
Related Story 3/23/09
Update, August, 2009 -
Nestle wins approval to tap Colorado ground water - The world's
largest beverage company has won approval from
officials in Colorado to extract and bottle
spring water from the mountains of south central
Colorado...
Nestle Waters North America may
draw 65 million gallons of water a year from a
spring in Chaffee County to sell under its
Arrowhead brand, county commissioners decided
Wednesday.
June 2010 update - If things go according to
plan, in about a month someone at Nestle Waters
North America will turn a valve and water will
begin running out of a pipeline near Buena Vista
and will splash into an empty 8,000-gallon
tanker truck. It will take roughly an hour for
the truck to fill, and then another truck will
take its place. The water will run 24 hours a
day, filling approximately 25 trucks each day,
every day.
July 2010 update
Nestle Turns
Arkansas River Water Into the
Arrowhead Brand.
A study from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality,
Drinking Water: A Comparison of Bottled and Tap Water Using Life Cycle Analysis, concluded, "The study confirms that while recycling bottles is environmentally preferable to disposing of them, buying bottled water and recycling the bottles is not the best environmental choice. Drinking water from the tap (waste prevention) typically has substantially lower impacts in most categories of environmental impact. ...If you choose to drink bottled water, recycling the bottle can have moderate environmental benefits. These benefits, however, are still overshadowed by the negative impacts of making and transporting the bottle in the first place."
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Tapped
- The Movie:
(1 hour 12 minutes)
Is access to clean drinking water a
basic human right, or a commodity that should be
bought and sold like any other article of
commerce? Stephanie Soechtig's debut
feature is an unflinching examination of the big
business of bottled water.
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15 Outrageous Facts About The Bottled Water Industry:
Who got the idea to sell us something we can get for free? And how did it get so
popular that now more than half of Americans drink it? The first documented case of selling bottled water was in Boston in the 1760s.
Environmental Protection Agency:
Bottled Water Basics
Bottled water is much more expensive, per gallon,
than tap water. Because of this, consider whether
you are buying it as a healthy alternative to bottled
beverages, for its taste, or for other reasons.
Sierra Club:
Bottled Water Brochure - The bottled water industry, led by Nestlé, Coca
Cola, and Pepsi Cola, is aggressively promoting
bottled water. In the U.S., more than 30 billion
plastic water bottles end up as garbage or litter
each year. Most don’t get recycled.
Environmental Working Group:
Is your bottled water worth it? When you pay a premium price of up to 1900 times more for bottled water, you expect more. But with rare exceptions, you get less. All too often, you get nothing. Unless you count hyped advertising come-ons like “crisp,” pristine” or “essential.”
Time Magazine, Aug. 09, 2007
Water sales topped
$10.8 billion last year--all for something you can get virtually free.
"It's like marketing air," marvels Allen Hershkowitz, an industrial
ecologist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). But
the phenomenal growth in bottled water isn't just draining our
wallets--it's also putting stress on the environment. It takes oil to
make the plastic in all those bottles and oil to transport the water
from its source to the consumer, and that means greenhouse gases--a
primary cause of global warming.
Bottled Water:
Pure Drink or Pure
Hype?
This is the online version of National Resource Defense Council's March
1999 petition
to the FDA and attached report on the results of our four-year study
of the bottled water industry, including its bacterial and chemical
contamination problems. The petition and report find major gaps in
bottled water regulation and conclude that bottled water is not
necessarily safer than tap water. The online version contains all of the
report's text, tables and figures; it does not include the accompanying
Technical Report or additional attachments to the petition.
Message in a Bottle-1: Americans
spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie
tickets: $15 Billion. A journey into the economics--and psychology--of
an unlikely business boom. And what it says about our culture of
indulgence.
from
Fastcompany.com, July/August
2007
...Bottled water is often simply an indulgence,
and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign
indulgence. We're moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in
ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That's a weekly
convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (Water weighs
8 1/3 pounds a gallon. It's so heavy you can't fill an 18-wheeler with
bottled water--you have to leave empty space.)...
...Bottled water is not a sin. But it is a choice...
...Once you understand the resources mustered to deliver the bottle of
water, it's reasonable to ask as you reach for the next bottle, not just
"Does the value to me equal the 99 cents I'm about to spend?" but "Does
the value equal the impact I'm about to leave behind?"
Message in
a Bottle-2: Despite the Hype, Bottled Water is
Neither CLEANER nor GREENER Than Tap Water.
from emagazine.com September/October 2003
...A 2001 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study confirmed the widespread belief that consumers associate bottled water with social status and healthy living. Their perceptions trump their objectivity, because even some people who claim to have switched to bottled water “for the taste” can’t tell the difference: When Good Morning America conducted a taste test of its studio audience, New York City tap water was chosen as the heavy favorite over the oxygenated water 02, Poland Spring and Evian...
ABC Reports - interesting videos - although
you do have to watch an ad first.
Americans' Obsession With Bottled Water - In his book Peter
Gleick explores Americans relationship with bottled water. 07/01/2010
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Excerpt from Bottled and Sold
Is Bottled Water a Rip-Off? - As much as 45 percent of bottled
water comes from municipal water supplies - some is treated, some is
not. Jul. 08, 2009
Is Tap Water Safe to Drink - Cynthia Sass talks about the safety of
water, bottled and tap. 12/23/2009
Bottled Water Safety - Environmental Working Group study reveals
contaminants in some bottled water samples, although the levels were
below EPA limits. October, 16 2008
Bring Your Own Bottled Water
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How to improve the quality of the water you
drink and the planet you live on.
Feb. 6, 2008
Aquafina, As Good as Tap Water - A top
brand of bottled water reveals its source is no better than tap.
Jul. 27, 2007
Bottled Water, Wasted Energy? -
Restaurants serve up tap water amid claims bottled water pollutes. Jul. 8,
2007
$75 Bottled Water - Though it can
be had for free, bottled water can be pricier than fine wine. Feb.
17, 2007
The Riddle of Bottled Water - The website for
Equa, a new brand of bottled water, looks as fresh and pure as the
wilderness it describes. "Deep below the world’s largest remaining
expanse of undisturbed tropical rainforest, lies an aquifer formed
billions of years ago and made of solid rose quartz," it says. "Flowing
up from this ancient reservoir is the purest spring water ever
discovered on the planet."
Bottled Water Biz - Americans spend billions
on bottled water, but it's really no better than tap. May. 11,
2006
Selling the Air We Breathe - Some marketers
think bottled oxygen industry could be as big as bottled water.
Apr. 21, 2006
5 reasons not to drink bottled water - It's expensive, wasteful
and — contrary to popular belief — not any healthier for you than tap
water.
Inside the
Bottle is a
Polaris
Institute project designed to stimulate citizen awareness about the
bottled water industry.
Bottled Water: Why Is It so Big? Causes for the Rapid Growth of
Bottled Water Industries (2006)
Nestle Loses Sales as Alice Waters Bans Bottled Water -
1/22/08 -- Tap water is fine for Alice Waters, who stopped selling
bottled stuff last year at her environmentally conscious Chez Panisse
restaurant in Berkeley, California. That could be bad news for
Nestle SA.
Drinking from a Bottle Instead of the Tap Just Doesn't Hold Water -
Some 2.7 million tons of petroleum-derived plastic are used to bottle
water worldwide every year, and costs consumers up to 1,900 times more
than tap water. Bottled water has been a big-selling commercial beverage
around the world since the late 1980s. According to the Worldwatch
Institute, global bottled water consumption has more than quadrupled
since 1990. Today Americans consume over 30 billion liters of water out
of some 50 billion (mostly plastic) bottles every year.
Living in a
Bottled Water World by Bill Melton - I have a keen dislike for
bottled water. I’m not so much against bottled water in and of itself --
bottled water is great for helping people recover from being without
water after hurricanes and tornados or for people planning trips across
the desert. What upsets me is how so many folks have come to think the
only way they can drink water is to buy it from a store even when they
have plenty of fresh running close by. And I really get bent out of
shape at ...
Think Outside the Bottle - Responsible
Purchasing Guide from the Responsible Purchasing Network (RPN): In order to facilitate the efforts of educational institutions throughout the world that are seeking to reduce or eliminate purchases of bottled water, RPN has created an updated version of its bottled water alternatives guide, tailored specifically for universities and colleges. Most of the information in this Guide is applicable to any institutional purchaser, but a special effort was made to address the unique concerns of colleges and universities.
Fiji Water:
Fiji’s bottled water brand leaves a bad taste in the mouth - Fiji
Water is sold as the epitome of chic, but there's a darker side to its
ritzy image. The water racks up its carbon footprint by being
transported to Scotland from half way across the globe, and its sexy
uber-cool image is doing wonders for the country it hails from. Fiji
after all is a nation ruled by one of the world's most repressive
regimes... (2009)
Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle - Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it.
Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle,
imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become
the epitome of cool? — By Anna Lenzer
Fiji Water accused of environmentally misleading claims
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It is, according to the marketing spiel, “drawn from an artesian aquifer hundreds of feet below the edges of a primitive rainforest”, untouched by human hand. ...The firm also claims to be the “the first major beverage brand to give a carbon negative commitment”, meaning that buying its product is actually good for the planet.
But a documentary investigation has concluded that Fiji Water, which is stocked by some of London’s most exclusive restaurants and enjoyed by Barack Obama and Scarlett Johansson, is far less friendly to the planet than it claims.
By Andy Bloxham, June 20, 2011
Bottled water in the Comics:
The
University of Maryland used a
“Cathy” comic strip
from August 19, 2007 to encourage students to toss
their plastic water bottles in favor of a more environmentally friendly
alternative — tap water. The University of Maryland recently removed all
bottled water from the resident dining offerings and instead has installed triple filtered water stations with free student access.
The Sunday, May 18th "Doonesbury" comic strip assessed bottled
water as "... a triumph of perceived need over reason — the greatest
marketing coup in history." A Cornered strip 6/11/2000
showed a kid filling bottles from a hose telling a friend who's holding
a punch bowl "Forget Lemonade. The real money is in bottled
water."
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| Copyright © 2005 Randy Johnson. All rights reserved. |
Updated November 2011 |
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