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A Total Recall of Bottled Water
Imagine your ancestors, or better, your ancestors’ innocent little children, running around an amazingly lush landscape with rolling hills covered in colorful wildflowers and scattered trees and shrubs, where wildlife abounds and crisp, clear blue skies help create a horizon so sharp that it must be something greater than just some arbitrary name for that distant line which divides the earth and sky. Now imagine that you just woke up, short of breath, having no real concept of that beautiful place you saw in your dream. Confused, you look over at your child who is gasping for air. Suddenly you realize that the air supply in your sector has been turned off by the head of your airtight city and the fate of you and your child lay in the hands of some guy who looks like an ancient Governor of California that you once read about in the history books. You have no choice but to wait to see if the head of your city will answer to the plea, “Cohaagen, you’ve got what you want, now give the people the air…” Do you though? That is just one of infinitely many possibilities that our descendants may be faced with if fossil fuel consumption continues to grow at the current rate and we are unable to find cleaner energies to feed our desires (no, not our needs). The mathematically savvy may claim that the above scenario is just one of infinitely many possibilities that our descendants may be faced with regardless of fossil fuel consumption, or if humans yet existed, or regardless of anything, and although they would be correct, that is beside the point. My point is that we all contribute something in some way, to this changing world and we all ought to do our best to minimize our impact on the environment. One amazingly simply way to help slow the consumption of fossil fuels is to stop purchasing so much bottled water. The Bottled Water Industry consumes vast quantities of that precious natural resource, both directly and indirectly, through at least the manufacturing, distribution, and waste management of their product. Tap water, on the other hand, is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, requires no packaging materials and overall, consumes much less energy than bottled water. With all those possible adverse environmental effects of fossil fuel consumption making headlines, not to mention that whole non-renewable thing, why is it that practically everywhere you look you will see a person driving an unnecessarily large SUV taking a sip of a recently purchased bottle of water? The SUV is almost certainly for status, usually justified via child safety concerns, but how about those bottles of water? Health reasons you conclude! Your wellbeing is priceless and tap water just doesn’t cut the mustard. Does it though? Why are so many of us convinced that bottled water is absolutely safer to drink than tap water? Tap water must be partially to blame for certain localities’ health issues. Is it though? Could it be that our negative perception of tap water is positively correlated with the amount of money spent on the marketing of bottled water? That may be a stretch, but certainly no more of a stretch than the perception of bottled water being absolutely, or even relatively, safer than tap water. Both bottled water and tap water ultimately come from one of three sources; either groundwater, surface water, or groundwater under the influence of surface water. Each of these sources may be subjected to natural and/or anthropogenic contaminants. And most do contain contaminants both before and after the water treatment processes employed by the Water Utilities or Bottling Companies. Even those pristine areas where some Bottled Water Companies do take their water from may contain natural contaminants, such as bacterial and viral pathogens, as well as anthropogenic contaminants introduced via the processes involved in obtaining the water. Thus, all bottled and tap water sources may contain various contaminants and although type and quantity of contaminants vary both locally and temporally prior to water treatment, just what contaminants and how much of each is allowed in your bottled or tap water prior to consumption are federally controlled. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets safety standards for tap water, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set safety standards for bottled water. Although FDA standards for bottled water are based on EPA standards for tap water, certain loopholes exist that may allow FDA regulations to be less stringent than EPA regulations - tap water is also tested more often then bottled water. One study performed by The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) showed that of 103 different brands of bottled water tested for water quality, one-third of the brands tested failed to meet clean water standards for tap water. Do these facts justify bottled waters costs to the environment? How about the monetary costs? Depending on the vicinity and brand of bottled water purchased, bottled water may cost anywhere from 250 to 10,000 times as much money as tap water. Even if you purchase an ANSI approved filter for your tap water and buy replacement filters accordingly, the price you pay for your tap/ANSI filtered water is cheaper then what the Bottled Water Industry has to offer. So next time you go to purchase a bottle of water, give it a second or third thought, and at least consider this – you are paying so much more money to wreak havoc on the environment because you trust the FDA and all those Bottled Water Companies more than you trust the EPA. Sure you do - or are you just recalling an implant? It must have been the marketing! |
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