The Bottled Water Debacle - An Eye Opener!
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 11:30 amWe've all read varying accounts about the damage and harm being caused by the incessant manufacture and disposal of plastic water bottles. And depending upon who you believe, the long-term effects of this situation are all cause for at least some concern. Like most, I've seen the ads by special interest groups attempting to shock the world's population through the images of the "garbage island" out in the Pacific which is supposedly larger than Texas and I've also read the occasional story buried on page 17 of section E of any Tuesday's edition of your local paper which, while being full of important information and warnings, just doesn't seem to carry the same sense of urgency given its placement and the fact you have to follow the story over 4 pages.
The biggest problem I personally have with the whole bottled water issue is the fact that the water inside the bottles is plain tap water 99% of the time from nearly ALL of the beverage companies, no matter how big or small. I have a very efficient RO system with multiple holding tanks which we use for nearly everything we ingest and a softener for laundry, dishwasher and even a spigot out front for washing the car. The water here is amongst the hardest on the planet due to the phenomenal amount of evaporation which takes place year round but especially during the 5 summer months here.
We refill and reuse our water bottles numerous times before discarding/recycling them via the city's recycling program which made me feel a little bit better about the size of my own personal carbon footprint - or at least it did until I read a report by an unbiased and transparent reporting agency that literally made my jaw drop as I read just how out-of-control and fucked-up the situation has become (and getting worse every day) with regard to the production of plastic water bottles. My intentions are not to try to guilt anyone into rethinking their choices or anything like that. I have absolutely no agenda here or ulterior motives whatsoever. Just found the info interesting as well as alarming and thought I'd share.
There is a lot of very interesting information about every single one of the 185+ bottling companies in the US including their filtration practices, honesty, letter grades earned for quality, and much, much more.
http://www.ewg.org/bottled-water-2011-h ... o-we-drink
How much do we drink?
Bottled water companies want you to think their water is special, but they continue to hide essential facts about their products, such as the geographic location of the water's source, purification and test results.
Here are some other little known facts that the bottled water industry would rather their consumers not ponder:
Every 27 hours Americans consume enough bottled water to circle the entire equator with plastic bottles stacked end to end.1
In just a single week, those bottles would stretch more than halfway to the moon — 155,400 miles.1
[Every 27 hours Americans consume enough bottled water to circle the entire equator with plastic bottles stacked end to end.]
Between 2004 and 2009, US consumption of bottled water increased by 24 percent. Bottled water sales have more than quadrupled in the last 20 years (BMC 2010).
The federal government does not mandate that bottled water be any safer than tap water – the chemical pollution standards are nearly identical (EWG 2008). In fact, bottled water is less regulated than tap water.
Close to half of all bottled water is sourced from municipal tap water (BMC 2010, Food and Water Watch 2010).
It takes an estimated 2,000 times more energy to produce bottled water than to produce an equivalent amount of tap water (Gleick 2009).
Bottled water production and transportation for the U.S. market consumes more than 30 million barrels of oil each year and produces as much carbon dioxide as 2 million cars (Gleick 2009).
Plastic water bottles are the fastest growing form of municipal solid waste in the United States. Each year more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter (Corporate Accountability International 2010).
While plastic bottles can be recycled, the majority are not. Moreover, plastic never actually degrades; it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. In some parts of the ocean, plastic outweighs plankton by a six-to-one ratio (Moore 2001).
Bottled water has indirect economic costs. Disposing of plastic water bottle waste, for example, costs cities nationwide an estimated $70 million in landfill tipping fees each year (Corporate Accountability International 2010).
The biggest problem I personally have with the whole bottled water issue is the fact that the water inside the bottles is plain tap water 99% of the time from nearly ALL of the beverage companies, no matter how big or small. I have a very efficient RO system with multiple holding tanks which we use for nearly everything we ingest and a softener for laundry, dishwasher and even a spigot out front for washing the car. The water here is amongst the hardest on the planet due to the phenomenal amount of evaporation which takes place year round but especially during the 5 summer months here.
We refill and reuse our water bottles numerous times before discarding/recycling them via the city's recycling program which made me feel a little bit better about the size of my own personal carbon footprint - or at least it did until I read a report by an unbiased and transparent reporting agency that literally made my jaw drop as I read just how out-of-control and fucked-up the situation has become (and getting worse every day) with regard to the production of plastic water bottles. My intentions are not to try to guilt anyone into rethinking their choices or anything like that. I have absolutely no agenda here or ulterior motives whatsoever. Just found the info interesting as well as alarming and thought I'd share.
There is a lot of very interesting information about every single one of the 185+ bottling companies in the US including their filtration practices, honesty, letter grades earned for quality, and much, much more.
http://www.ewg.org/bottled-water-2011-h ... o-we-drink
How much do we drink?
Bottled water companies want you to think their water is special, but they continue to hide essential facts about their products, such as the geographic location of the water's source, purification and test results.
Here are some other little known facts that the bottled water industry would rather their consumers not ponder:
Every 27 hours Americans consume enough bottled water to circle the entire equator with plastic bottles stacked end to end.1
In just a single week, those bottles would stretch more than halfway to the moon — 155,400 miles.1
[Every 27 hours Americans consume enough bottled water to circle the entire equator with plastic bottles stacked end to end.]
Between 2004 and 2009, US consumption of bottled water increased by 24 percent. Bottled water sales have more than quadrupled in the last 20 years (BMC 2010).
The federal government does not mandate that bottled water be any safer than tap water – the chemical pollution standards are nearly identical (EWG 2008). In fact, bottled water is less regulated than tap water.
Close to half of all bottled water is sourced from municipal tap water (BMC 2010, Food and Water Watch 2010).
It takes an estimated 2,000 times more energy to produce bottled water than to produce an equivalent amount of tap water (Gleick 2009).
Bottled water production and transportation for the U.S. market consumes more than 30 million barrels of oil each year and produces as much carbon dioxide as 2 million cars (Gleick 2009).
Plastic water bottles are the fastest growing form of municipal solid waste in the United States. Each year more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter (Corporate Accountability International 2010).
While plastic bottles can be recycled, the majority are not. Moreover, plastic never actually degrades; it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. In some parts of the ocean, plastic outweighs plankton by a six-to-one ratio (Moore 2001).
Bottled water has indirect economic costs. Disposing of plastic water bottle waste, for example, costs cities nationwide an estimated $70 million in landfill tipping fees each year (Corporate Accountability International 2010).
