Photo credit: Kuranosuke Oishi via Creative Commons
In 2006, Americans spent roughly $15 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on movie theater tickets and ipods. While $15 billion seems staggering, also consider the fact that we pitched roughly 38 billion plastic water bottles into our landfills.
The ever-growing bottle water industry is not only taking a toll on our wallets, it is also having an impact on our environment. When you consider that 24% of the bottled water we buy is actually just tap water that is repackaged and sold by companies like Coke and Pepsi, we really need to ask ourselves: Is it worth it?
Today, it is difficult to go to the gym, go to the store or take a walk in the park without seeing at least a few people toting around water bottles. Bottled water has become an essential prop for everyday living in the United States. Take a minute to think about the bottled water your buy or are given in the course of a week.
We put it in our children’s lunch boxes, we drink it during meetings at the office, we sip water while listening to a public speaker or watching a little league game. Let’s face it, most of us can find a couple of half full bottles of Fiji Water, Aquafina or Evian rolling around under the seats in our cars. Not only that, but we are bombarded with images of good-looking actors sipping water from a Poland Spring bottle on our favorite television shows.
But why? Just 30 years ago, the bottled water industry was not really an industry at all. In fact, it barely existed.
Photo credit: ekstasis23 via Creative Commons
Most of us can remember drinking water straight from the tap and at water fountains as we grew up. But, now, as many of us have children, we are teaching today’s youth that tap water is not up-to-par. We have switched from getting something virtually for free to paying billions for something that is supposed to be better for our health.
Whether or not bottled water is safer to drink than tap is up for debate and with good reason. Something that we also need to consider is the serious impact the bottled water industry is having on the environment.
If you stop to think about it, when we shell out money for a bottle of Fiji Water at the gas station, we are really paying for the plastic water as well as the actual H20. We are also buying into a sly story fed to us by the water company marketing experts — We are told where the water comes from and how healthy it is, and we are told what drinking their water will say about us.
The fact is, however, that regardless what we tell ourselves or allow ourselves to believe, bottled water is not simply a benevolent indulgence. Consider this. In the United States alone, we transport approximately one billion bottles of water each week via semi trucks, airplanes and ships.
While we allow ourselves to indulge in bottled water with fancy names and stylish bottles, one out of six people throughout the world has no safe and reliable source of drinking water. Our priorities, along with the global economy, have inadvertently been denying life’s most fundamental components to one billion people a year. While we have numerous water selections from all around the world to choose from, many people around the world are denied clean drinking water.
Photo credit: Michael via Creative Commons
In today’s world where we expect and demand instant gratification, those many varieties and rows of bottled water in the grocery store cooler are really an ominous symbol of the direction the world is heading. We have allowed a big business to supply us with a product we do not need, and they have accomplished this goal through convincing marketing and attractive packaging.
In truth, if we go to the trouble of tracing the bottled water industry back to its grass roots, we discover a story more convoluted than most of us would ever expect.
Take for instance the Italian town of San Pellegrino Terme. There is a spigot that constantly runs and provides San Pellegrino water for free to the locals. The only catch is that this water is lacking the famous bubbles that are added to the San Pellegrino bottled water that is shipped around the world. This famous bottled water giant has the bubbles trucked to the plant.
Also, you may recall the gentleman who brought the first bottled water to American soil. He agreed to a water taste test, which he shamefully failed.
The intricate and sordid story of the bottled water industry would not be complete if we did not take a look at Fiji. Fiji’s state-of-the-art bottled water company produces in excess of one million bottles of the highly-prized Fiji Water a day. Fiji Water is considered, by many of us, to be the best bottled water on the market today.
I wonder if our perspective would change if more of us knew that over half of the local citizens in Fiji do not have any dependable source of safe drinking water. It is really ironic that I, an American, can obtain pure Fiji H20 easier than many of those living in Fiji.
AN OBSESSION WITH A LASTING IMPACT
If asked, many of us will say we drink so much bottle water because we believe it to be healthy. Well, it is. However, under normal circumstances, bottled water is not any healthier or safer than tap water. In fact, the United States is the single biggest consumer of the world’s $50 billion bottled water industry. This is off balance considering that America’s tap water is considered a safe and universally reliable water supply.
While there are exceptions to every rule, American tap water is remarkably safe. It is monitored consistently and all test results are provided to the public.
Photo credit: malla_mi via Creative Commons
Consider San Francisco. The municipal water originates from within Yosemite National Park. This water is actually so clean, San Francisco is not requited to filter the water, which is typically a standard EPA requirement.
It’s interesting that so many of us pay significant dollars for bottled water that may only be rebottled tap water. In reality, regardless of the perception that there is a lot of variety to choose from, the world-wide bottled water industry is dominated by four big corporations.
Pepsi, which has the top selling bottled water product in American, monopolizes 13 percent of the market with its well-known Aquafina. Coke comes in at a close second with 11 percent of the market buying its Dasani water. What might not be well know is that both of these bottled water giants, making up as much as 24 percent of the industry, are selling us purified municipal water — just tap water that has been neatly repackaged. The water they are purifying is already safe and ready to drink.
So, if this is true, than it is worth looking at what impact the water bottled industry is having on our global environment. Take Fiji Water for example. If you trace the journey a bottle of Fiji Water must make to reach our shelves, it is obvious that this industry, as a whole, is having a negative environmental impact.
Photo credit: Dan DeLuca via Creative Commons
Let’s say we start in New York. It is an 18-hour plane ride and a four-hour drive along King’s Highway in Fiji. Bottles of Fiji Water take a similar trip, in reverse, by trucks and ships. And, the plastic for the bottles must be shipped to Fiji first, so the bottles’ journey is considerably longer.
This can explain why roughly half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is based on transportation costs. This is not the only environmental cost associated with Fiji Water. Take a look at the Fiji Water plant, which is a state-of-the-art facility, that is typically in operation 24 hours a day.
This constant operation requires energy – an endless supply of electricity. Because the local utility system cannot support this demand, the factory provides its own electricity by using three large generators that run on diesel fuel.
In the event that plastic bottles are considered less desirable, look at San Pellegrino’s one-liter glass bottles. These add to the popularity of the product but also weigh about five times what plastic bottles weigh. Because of this added weight, shipping expenses and energy consumption increases. Each bottle is washed and rinsed, with mineral water, before being filled with Pellegrino water. During the rinsing process, about two liters of water is used to clean each one liter bottle.
Of course, one of the most noticeable environmental factors associated with the bottled water industry is the bottles. Plastic water bottles are typically made of totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic so we can have a big impact on our landfills by just tossing the bottles in the trash. Currently, our recycling rate for PET is only around 23 percent. This is not a lot considering how big the bottled water industry is.
Photo credit: Yaniv Yaakubovich via Creative Commons
Although some argue it is not fair to point a finger at this industry. Just look at all of the juice and soda companies, who also produce recyclable plastic bottles. We actually drink close to double the amount of soda as water.
However, the difference is that water runs freely from our taps in our homes and from public water fountains. Juice and soda do not. Even so, we still feel the need to pay, at minimum, 99 cents for water. This is a sign of our level of affluence that we have taken for granted for years.
Drinking bottled water is certainly not a sin. However, maybe it is a choice that we need to look at a little more closely. Maybe we should ask ourselves why we want to pay for something that is available free in this country, and why would we be willing to contribute to the pollution of our environment.
Is it really worth it?
Recent Comments