Today’s guest post is written by Anne. Anne has some hippie tendencies and studied both economics and international development. Most of the time, she blogs about gift ideas, including fun ways to give cash presents, over at Unique Gifter.
There are a myriad of reasons that I often equate bottled water with evil, so I will only touch on a few here. If you feel passionately about additional reasons, please add them in the comments below! In short:
- Landscapes and Ecosystems
- Cost (direct and indirect)
- Health
- Fossil Fuel Use
- Greenhouse Gases
- Poor Quality
- Global Water Security
Bottled water has been a pet peeve of mine for several years and it became even more so when I traveled through South America. For virtually all of us living in North America and Europe (+ Australasia), we have the option to drink the water that comes out of the tap. It is even a condition of membership into the European Union, to have most of your population serviced with potable water! This is not so everywhere in the world and unfortunately that often comes with limited recycling facilities and garbage disposal. In my travels, I saw thousands and thousands of 2L water bottles strewn throughout towns, across landscapes and in riverbeds. That plastic will stay there, cluttering up the landscape, with animals negatively interacting with it for 5 to 1000 years, depending on the type of plastic. [1]
Not only do we have access to potable water, paid for through our taxes, we also spend tonnes of money to deal with litter and recycling. Yes, we have to pay for water-related services not once, but twice! Going way back in time for this fact, 1,500 water bottles end up as garbage every second! Given how much more advertising I see for bottled water, I can only guess that this statistic has unfortunately gone up. In terms of direct costs, bottled water costs more than gasoline in most cases. Put another way, bottled water is usually around 1,900 times the price of tap water.
For a decently large amount of plastic, the portion that actually makes it to the recycling depot, the recycling is actually downcycling. Many things which are recycled cannot be used for the same caliber of product again, as the recycling process changes the properties of the material and controlling impurities in the recycled input is very difficult. Recycling is also energy and chemical intensive.
Water bottle plastics leach, especially when heated and cooled repeatedly. That flat of water that you keep in your car? Not only are you driving excess weight around in your vehicle, you are likely ingesting bonus chemicals that have leached out of the bottles! So you don’t keep it in your car, but you still buy it? Do you know what temperature it was during transport? During storage? When it went on sale so it was taken from the cooler to the floor again? Sometimes people worry about additives in tap water, justifying the purchase of bottled water. The Health Canada has easily accessible information on the benefits and risks of chlorine.
Plastic water bottles come from petroleum. The 26,000,000,000 liters of water sold in 2004 translate to around 17,000,000 barrels of oil used just for the production of the plastic bottles. The average US citizen uses about 24 barrels per year. That means that the energy needs of 708,333 people could be “saved” if we avoided making those bottles. That is also energy savings measured by the highest per capita users of oil! Those bottles haven’t yet been shipped (full and heavy) to a warehouse and then to a retailer and then purchased by you, with refrigeration somewhere along the line. There are also 2,500,000 tons of carbon dioxide released from the manufacturing of just the bottle.
Check out the Story of Bottled Water, to find out even more reasons why it is so ridiculous that our society consumes it in such large quantities.
These are just a few of the reasons that bottled water should be avoided. Yes, it will take a few more seconds to clean your own bottle, but think about the time savings! You don’t have to go to the store, pick up the product, lug it to the register, pay and take it out. Some solutions to your eco-hydration needs: Clean Bottle has two screw off ends to make cleaning easier. There are glass bottles, collapsible bottles, bottles with filters in them, large bottles, small bottles, camel baks. Plain old water glasses even!
In 2004, it was estimated that $100 BILLION was spent each year on bottled water. In contrast, the UN estimates that the planet only spent $15 billion on water supply and sanitation in 2004. If you are tempted to buy a bottle of water, consider redirecting that money to a group that works to create sustainable access to safe drinking water for everyone instead. Next time, remember your water bottle or find the fountain.
Ask me about plastic grocery bags another time…!
Other Info Sources: Earth Policy Institute