Bottled Water

Why it's not a good idea

If you read none of this article, do watch the trailer for the documentary Flow. Please!



Water is big business in the U.S., in fact in the world. It is not a surprise that bottled water is omnipresent. Don't worry, the first four links that come up in a search for bottled water are sites that are sponsored by the bottled water industry. But that doesn't make it a good idea.

In 1998 it was a 4 Billion Dollar industry, now in 2010 it is a $425 Billion Dollar a year industry. If you buy it, you are paying between 240 and 10,000 times more than you would be paying for tap water. If you pay $2.50 for a liter, you are paying more for water than for gasoline. Some of the bottled water contains contaminants, some of them dangerous. Bottled water regulation has gaping holes and oversight is severely underfunded both nationally and in most states.

Culligan filters tap water and resells it according to this article.

On the other hand, tap water is quite well monitored throughout the U.S. Although there is a great deal more data on tap water, it does not follow that all of it is good drinking water. But nevertheless, since there is so little oversight of bottled water, there is no reason to believe that bottled water is safer just because it comes in a bottle. In fact FDA rules for bottled water are more lenient than rules in the European Union.

Read the summary of a study about bottled water vs. tap water. A lot of my facts are from this article from the Natural Resources Defense League.

Commercial water is becoming a political issue in various locations. The problem is that the commercial ventures collecting and bottling the water are often removing water that should belong to the residents. This has been reported as true of Fuji water for example.

There was a recent article in Mother Jones about Fuji, and the documentary "Flow" ( view trailer) was how people in the U.S. and in third world countries are being cut out of water by huge multinationals who want to privatize (read productize) water.

There are problems with some tap water, but it is much better to get the local water fixed rather than just use bottled water instead. Only those who can afford it can purchase, it is not necessarily safer, environmentally it is a poor answer, and it is expensive.

The manufacture of bottles also can cause release of phthalates, and other byproducts of plastic-making, into water, air, or other parts of the environment. And, ultimately, many bottles will be added to already overflowing landfills or incinerated, potentially adding to our environmental problems.

The following facts were compiled by a site that mostly discusses the disadvantages of plastic bags while shopping.

• Americans will buy an estimated 25 billion single-serving, plastic water bottles this year. Eight out of 10 (22 billion) will end up in a landfill.
  -- Container Recycling Institute


• Bottled water is a rip off - consumers spend an estimate $7 billion on bottled water in US each year.


• Worldwide 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year.
  -- OneWorld


• 1.5 million barrels of oil is used annually to produce plastic water bottles for America alone - enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year.

-- Earth Policy Institute

• Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That's about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle.
  -- National Geographic

What if you don't like the taste of your local water? Install a filter on your tap, this can be easily installed on your kitchen tap for the cold water, and your bathroom too.

Another idea that I personally have used for about two years is a CO₂ dispenser to make sparkling water. The dispenser costs about $120, and you do have to buy the canisters regularly. The company I use includes the return UPS label, so it's a simple matter to return in the box the new one came in.

We figured out that I save over $300 per year this way, as I would normally have consumed 32 oz. per day. The main reason for doing this however was to save energy - the oil used to transport and to make the plastic bottles.