Often when I speak about issues on this blog (abortion, etc) I try to put forth an equivocating, balanced perspective. On the issue of bottled water I’m going to be direct:
STOP DRINKING BOTTLED WATER!
I’ve known bottled water was an irresponsible habit for a while, but today I read Pablo Päster’s math about how much water, energy, and pollution are tied up in a bottle of water, and it convinced me that I needed to speak up.
One bottle of artesian water from Fiji, which costs a few bucks and looks so harmless on the shelf at Whole Foods…
… requires 27 liters of water to make (for making the plastic, getting it out of the ground, cooling power plants, etc)
… requires one liter of fossil fuels to get here
… and generates 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gasses.
That’s Fiji, but you know Evian (which comes from France) can’t be all that different. And that crappy tap-water that you buy bottled at the grocery store is not fundamentally better. You’re still fabricating that bottle. You’re still driving it hundreds of miles in a truck. You’re still paying grocery clerks to stock it, price it, and bathe it in flourescent light for weeks.
“But Erik…” you say, “the water in my tap tastes funny… I think there’s a kind of pasty texture that I don’t like! Evian is so smooth and tasty.”
SACK UP! You’re destroying the Earth. That bottle of evian comes with a liter of gas, 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gasses, and 27 liters of fresh water. The water coming out of your tap uses negligible amounts of all of that.
The real thing to remember is this: you get used to it. If you stop drinking soda, you start thinking fruit tastes pretty darn sweet. If you stop drinking Evian, you start thinking your tap water isn’t all that bad. Taste is a two-way street. You need to pull a freaking U-turn.
* for those not familiar with the phrase “sack up”: urban dictionary
Also, the health / quality regulations for tap water are better than those for bottled water. Tap water quality is policed by the EPA; bottled water, by the FDA. (Furthermore, the FDA rules don’t apply to bottled water packaged and sold in the same state.)
There’s a good piece on it here; you might want to add the info to your article.
Good call, with a BUT. There was a recent time in my life when I lived on bottled water, but it was kind of a special case. It’s easy to forget that in many locales around the world it is not safe to drink tap water. When I was in India, for example, drinking the tap water most definitely would have made me (and other western-worlders) sick. Honestly though, I ended up drinking more beer than anything else as a defense mechanism…alcohol cleans water, right?
I just want to add that New Yorkers consume more bottled water than anybody else. New York’s tap water is also among the cleanest in the country. My point: People are not particularly rational on this subject. It’s all about consumerism.
we filter our water through one of those brita things. that’s better than going through lots of bottles, right? or does the by-product of making brita filters kill baby seals or something?
i missed this post originally because it was when i was in the internet void in dublin and amsterdam, so i was mystified when one day tif said “erik doesn’t like water bottles anymore!”
:)
so what about sparkling water that’s in cans or glass bottles?
the transportation damage must still apply, but then that’s an argument against all non-local food, not just water.
right?