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September 9, 2007
Initiatives hope to reduce swell of plastic trash
Corinne Purtill
Arizona has a drinking problem.
Only in this case, it's the bottle - not what's inside it - that has people calling for an intervention.
Thirsty Arizonans chugged more than 335 million gallons of bottled water last year.
That's a tower of 16.9-ounce disposable plastic water bottles for each person in the state that would break through the ceiling at Chase Field.
Most of that plastic ended up in landfills after a single use.
Bottled water has increasingly come under fire in recent months as a symbol of unnecessary environmental consumption.
A bottle's journey from a manufacturing plant to a consumer consumes oil and pumps greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Cities from San Francisco to Salt Lake City have banned bottled water from city functions. Arizona and a handful of other states are looking into bottle bills that would encourage people to recycle by charging a deposit at the time of purchase. Arizona State University is attempting to install filtered-water stations on campus to cut down on disposable bottles. Some question whether bottled water is a necessary use of resources or an indulgence at the planet's expense.
"People intuitively feel a sense of moral damage when we, just for the sake of a pint of water, stuff a piece of plastic in the ground that's going to last for 300 years," said Philip White, an assistant professor of industrial design at Arizona State University. "There are worse problems environmentally speaking than bottled water, but we do have easy alternatives at hand."
Thirsty Arizona
Arizona is the fifth-largest consumer of bottled water in a country that loves the stuff.
Americans consumed 33.7 billion single-use disposable bottles 1.5 liters or smaller in 2006, an 18 percent increase from 2005, said Gary Hemphill of Beverage Marketing Corp., a research and consulting firm.
The reasons for bottled water's popularity in Arizona are clear. Keeping water nearby is crucial to staying healthy in the blistering summers.
In addition, the chemicals used to remove contaminants from the Valley's water supply give local tap water a distinct aftertaste that many find unpleasant.
Scott Pisani, a human-resources executive from Tempe, drinks up to a gallon of bottled water each day. He prefers the taste over tap water.
To cut down on waste, he saves bottles he used elsewhere to dispose of in his home-recycling bin.
But the taste and convenience of bottled water can't be beat, said Pisani, 41.
"I don't really like to drink water out of a bottle that I could reuse," he said. "I've just never gotten into the habit of putting water into a sports bottle and filling it."
America's increasing preference for convenient, disposable bottles comes at an environmental cost.
It takes more than 1.5 million barrels [Correction: 15 million barrels] of oil each year to produce America's supply of plastic water bottles, according to Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank. Transporting and refrigerating the bottles consumes more resources.
That hasn't put a dent in bottled water's popularity.
"The convenience is clearly far more dominant in the purchasing decision than the cost," said Brad Allenby, a civil and environmental engineering professor at ASU. "Environmental issues don't seem to motivate people when buying bottled water."
Problems with bottles
All Valley municipal recycling programs accept polyethylene terephthalate, the pliable plastic that makes up most disposable water bottles (also known as PET).
Phoenix residents recycle about two-thirds of the PET plastic they use at home, according to city figures. But most water bottles are consumed on the go and discarded away from the home recycling bin, said Betty McLaughlin, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.
Less than 20 percent of all water bottles are recycled, according to CRI research.
Health concerns also have been raised about the bottles. If a disposable bottle isn't washed before reuse, bacteria can lodge in minute cracks and scratches in the plastic.
A German scientist has found that PET bottles over time release minute amounts of antimony, a toxic metal that has caused liver damage and blood changes when ingested in animals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, many researchers dispute that PET plastic leaches chemicals.
Taking action
In response, some are bucking bottled water.
The mayors of San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City have discouraged staff members from buying bottled water for city functions.
At ASU, officials are looking at installing filtered-water stations around campus so students can fill reusable bottles instead of purchasing disposable ones.
Eleven states have so-called "bottle bills" on the books that require consumers to pay a deposit on a bottle at the time of purchase that they can redeem when they bring the empty bottle back to the retailer or collection center. Not all apply to water bottles, but a few states that make that exception are working to change the laws to include them.
Redemption rates in bottle-bill states are typically higher than the national recycling rate. In Michigan, where the deposit is 10 cents, more than 90 percent of containers covered under the bottle bill are returned.
One Arizona lawmaker wants to see a similar law here.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is researching other states' legislation in preparation for a bottle bill she plans to introduce next session. She hasn't worked out the specifics yet but says she wants to craft something that will cut down on waste and ensure that people have healthy alternatives from the tap.
"We want to encourage people to drink clean, free, local sources of water," the Phoenix Democrat said. "I want to be a part of making sure we're being responsible about this."
Bottle bills have met with strenuous opposition from the grocery industry because of the perceived cost and inconvenience of taking the containers back. However, recycling rates tend to go up in areas with such deposit laws.
"The fact that people are willing to spend hundreds of times what they would for home delivery (on bottled water) speaks to some marketing genius," said McLaughlin of the Container Recycling Institute. "If somebody knows they've paid an extra 5 cents for a container and they can get those 5 cents back . . . they learn really quickly" not to throw them away, she added.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0909waterbottles0909.html
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