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July 15, 2007
Opinion
Bottled water has benefits, but there is also a downside
Bob Gerold
Don't you wish there were simple solutions in the world, clear positive answers that didn't have a downside? I do, but most things are more complicated than that.
Organic foods are arguably healthier for you than non-organic. They are grown without pesticides or nasty fertilizers that contaminate our ground water. They are grown in a sustainable environment, which is not depleting the earth's resources. They are good for the earth and don't contribute to global warming. Seems like a no-brainer.
But here's the catch: If I buy organic foods from California, for instance, they have to be transported over great distances. The food is trucked across the country using up petrochemicals along the way in the form of gasoline.
Even with something as benign as bottled water, there is an upside and a downside. Water is healthier for you than soft drinks or soda, so that's good. The image of the athlete drinking water is a very good role model for all of us. In a country where obesity is very much a problem, it is good that we are drinking as much water as we do. Sugary drinks just aren't healthy. And bottled water is convenient. We wouldn't be drinking as much if it weren't easy to get and carry.
Lastly most of the bottled water we drink is manufactured domestically, and that means jobs. So there is an upside to bottled water.
But on the other side, there are some things that are not so good about bottled water. One is cost. Bottled water is very expensive for a renewable, available resource. In fact, bottled water often costs up to $10 a gallon, much more than gasoline.
What we are really paying for is the convenience and the packaging. And there's the rub: Fossil fuels are used in the manufacture of those plastic bottles. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is derived from crude oil. Making plastic bottles for water requires 1.5 million barrels [Correction: 15 million barrels] of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars, and that doesn't include the fuel used for shipping that water to the market, comparable to a weekly convoy of 37,000 18-wheelers.
After we drink the water, we have to dispose of the bottles. According to the Container Recycling Institute, "86% of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter. Incinerating used bottles produces toxic by-products such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals."
Lastly, there is an image of bottled water being healthier for you than tap water, when in fact that may not be true. I had a friend in Tennessee who started a bottled water business for festivals. He made a lot of money, and all he did was fill up the bottles using tap water. In fact, probably as much as 40% of bottled water begins as tap water.
Am I asking you to give up bottled water? No. But I am asking you to think. An educated consumer has the right to know both sides of an issue and then decide. It's good to drink water, but there are times when drinking bottled water is unnecessarily wasting precious resources. Most tap water is just fine, particularly if you use some sort of filter available at most grocery stores.
I will not stop drinking bottled water, but I will be more responsible about it. At home, I refill bottles from an inexpensive filtered container and put the bottles in the refrigerator.
For information about local water tap water, go to www.ecua.org. For other links, go to www.bobgerold.com.
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070715/HEALTH/707150306/1036
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