Bottled Water is Bad
July 3rd 2007 02:58
This excellent article in Fast Company illustrates how bad bottled water is for the environment and for our collective social responsibility.
In the past 10 years, bottled water has become a consumer phenomenon, with over $15 billion in sales last year - just in the United States.
Yes, it's become ubiquitous to see bottled water everywhere... in fridges, at meetings, in bars, at restaurants. Tap waters is too common for elegant consumers that demand a higher degree of purity for their super-evolved tastebuds.
Except that it's all crap. Nearly every city in the United States has excellent quality drinking water, which is monitored constantly for cleanliness.
We think bottled water is a healthy alternative to soda, which is is, except that we're paying a massive premium to drink something that flows freely in our cities:
"And for this healthy convenience, we're paying what amounts to an unbelievable premium. You can buy a half- liter Evian for $1.35--17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren't paying attention."
Sure, $1.35 seems cheap. But it's more like 3-4 dollars at a Sydney restaurant.
The worst part is that bottled water comes at a high cost - to the environment. No one can argue that the production of millions of plastic bottles is a benign product. Those bottles were made from hydrocarbons, and, though they may be recyclable, only around 20% of bottles are recycled.
Additionally, those millions of bottles have to be shipped from whatever ridiculous part of the world that they're from.
In Canada, we get Italian water. Apparently, Canadian water isn't good enough. Except that Canadian water gets shipped overseas to some other unlucky chumps. Every place thinks another place is cleaner, I guess.
"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?""
In the past 10 years, bottled water has become a consumer phenomenon, with over $15 billion in sales last year - just in the United States.
Yes, it's become ubiquitous to see bottled water everywhere... in fridges, at meetings, in bars, at restaurants. Tap waters is too common for elegant consumers that demand a higher degree of purity for their super-evolved tastebuds.
Except that it's all crap. Nearly every city in the United States has excellent quality drinking water, which is monitored constantly for cleanliness.
We think bottled water is a healthy alternative to soda, which is is, except that we're paying a massive premium to drink something that flows freely in our cities:
"And for this healthy convenience, we're paying what amounts to an unbelievable premium. You can buy a half- liter Evian for $1.35--17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren't paying attention."
Sure, $1.35 seems cheap. But it's more like 3-4 dollars at a Sydney restaurant.
"In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It's so good the EPA doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000."
The worst part is that bottled water comes at a high cost - to the environment. No one can argue that the production of millions of plastic bottles is a benign product. Those bottles were made from hydrocarbons, and, though they may be recyclable, only around 20% of bottles are recycled.
Additionally, those millions of bottles have to be shipped from whatever ridiculous part of the world that they're from.
In Canada, we get Italian water. Apparently, Canadian water isn't good enough. Except that Canadian water gets shipped overseas to some other unlucky chumps. Every place thinks another place is cleaner, I guess.
"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?""
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Comment by Lara M
Love Speaks
Food Slate
Well said! Bottled (and perhaps with bubbles) = *chic*, and tap/regular = *un-chic*...
There will be those who do succumb to the marketing and hype...
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Plus (like with so many other things to do with marketing), it's hard to know who's right, what's best for us and what's the best brand.
So I just use the tap, it's easiest, cheaper and it's there.... it's gotta be better than drinking none?!
Comment by Stanley
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Comment by D. Armenta
The Florida Keys and Everglades
The Black Sheep Chronicles
What constitutes bad manners?
The male mystique
Debate Fan
L.A.M.P.
Water in S. Florida gets pretty nasty in drought (now) because the aquifer levels get low and it's treated w/chlorine, so we've opted for a rainbarrel. I'll let you know how it works out.
P.S.--amazing that we're in drought right now with the amount of rain we're getting.....
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Tracy, water from the tap in Sydney? So deliciously clean... when I arrived here after being in Asia, I could barely tear myself away from the tap.
lara M, it's all about the chic, isn't it?
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Yeppie, I've been in some countries where the water is well dodgy, but I think it's pretty good in Syd-I'm satisfied.
Tracy
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Bottled water had WAY more bacteria per 100mls than ordinary Melbourne tap water. Evian had 100x the number of bacterial colonies than tap water. Which doesn't surpries me cos Evian tastes like something my dog has been swimming in.
Comment by DuskDevi
Rugby World Cup 2007
I first read about this when Lilla wrote a post...and I was drinking my bottle of 'pure' Mt Franklin then.
Needless to say...I immediately visualised green slimy bacteria swimming around my mouth and down my gullet...and my monitor is not waterproof.
Drinking bottled water is habit for me. It's not that I believe it's 'better...it's a psychological habit.
When I was younger, we moved from England to a country beseiged by cyclones so the drinking water was not safe...and then we moved to Asia...and we were ordered not to drink the tap water.
...but then I'd drink sugar cane juice with crushed ice in it, bought from a hawker's stall in a local market street....
I didn't care about that because I have ye ol' proverbial cast iron stomach...but...with drinking plain water...it's habit.
So even though I have lived in Australia on and off for the last 23 years...I could not get my mind around the whole tap water is good thing.
I have since weaned myself off bottled water but it has been fairly difficult...we're talking a looong time habit.
It's really just about drinking water....becaus hypocrite nut that I am...I brush my teeth with this water, bathe, wash my hands, etc...
...and yes, Sydney water is beautiful. I'm drinking it now.
(My husband is convinced that some of the NSW bottled water is just bottled tap water!)
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Fiji doesn't have clean water for all its citizens, but veritable lakes of water are siphoned off the Fijian ecosystem, bottled and shipped around the world. Crazy, a'int it?
Comment by DuskDevi
Rugby World Cup 2007