Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Death of Bottled Water
I don't know that any of us can fully understand it, but we know that over the last decade bottled water has become as normal a part of the American life as milk and gasoline. In 2006 our country alone spent over $15 billion on bottled agua. As an article in The Week points out, that is more than we spent on going to the movies! When Aquafina is beating out Spiderman 3, you know it's a love affair.
But, new environmental, economic, and even safety concerns related to bottled water are beginning to change public perception. The facts (as reported in The Week):
- OUR LOVE AFFAIR: A recent Gallup poll finds that 1 in 5 Americans drinks bottled water exclusively, finding tap water to be taboo.
- BAD TASTE: Yet in a blind taste test, 75% of New Yorkers preferred city tap water to bottled water.
- NOT AS SAFE: US Environmental Protection Agency safety standards are stricter for tap water than for bottled water. Bottled water plants must test for certain impurities once a week while most cities test their water hundreds of times per month.
- A recent university study found that about 50% of bottled water samples had twice the amount of bacteria as Cleveland tap water.
- WASTE: If Americans were good at recycling it would be one thing, but as it stands an appalling 2 billion pounds of plastic a year end up in land fills or by the side of the road due to bottled water.
- FRIVOLOUS SPENDING: Bottled water costs about 1000 times more than tap water.
- TIME FOR CHANGE: San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Ann Arbor, and New York City have at least one thing in common . . . they have all started campaigns to banish bottled water. In San Francisco, for example, it is now illegal to use municipal funds to buy the stuff.
So if it tastes worse, isn't safer, costs more, and pollutes the environment . . . how long will it be before we see the death of bottled water? Are you willing to change your habits?
P.S. Did you know that up to 40% of bottled water is simply purified tap water anyway? Both Coke and Pepsi's subsidiaries (Dasani and Aquafina respectively) share these 'noble' origins.
# posted by pk : 12:36 AM
Comments:
It's amazing just how much more it costs to drink it, too. The much easier solution? A Nalgene bottle and a pitcher kept cold in the fridge. (I won't even go near the standards for city water versus bottled water -- things my new job has taught me!)
I'm rather relieved to hear that some cities are turning back a bit on this one -- anytime something comes exclusively in plastic it makes me worry.
I'm rather relieved to hear that some cities are turning back a bit on this one -- anytime something comes exclusively in plastic it makes me worry.
I wonder where in the process tap water is tested? Does anyone know? Because it will only be as clean as the last pipe that it came through. So if your home/apartment building has rusty, calcified, 60 year old pipes that is what you will be drinking and that would make bottled water more appealing. That being said I drink tap water everyday! Oddly enough this is something that I was thinking about last week. :)
Bottled water continutes to amaze me... in that perhaps the #1 humanitarian challenge of our time is to get clean drinking water to the 1 billion+ humans who don't have it... while tap water in the US is by-and-large a smashing success as far as value (1000x less expensive).
Our day to day lifestyles often seem much slower to catch up to our words, blogs, and high thoughts.
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Our day to day lifestyles often seem much slower to catch up to our words, blogs, and high thoughts.
