Psst...hey bud! Do you want to buy a bottle of water?
Whenever I see bottled water I think of Lefty trying to sell Ernie a bottle of air on Sesame Street. Selling water in bottles seems like a similar sort of scam.
Consumers often buy bottled water because they believe it is safer, purer or healthier than tap water. Bottled water companies spend millions of dollars a year trying to convince us of this.
However, there is no assurance that bottled water is any safer than tap water. Virtually every independent study on bottled water shows contamination from bacteria and/or synthetic chemicals. For example all plastic bottles leach synthetic chemicals into water, some more than others. Even the popular refillable polycarbonate water bottles are known to release BPA (Bisphenol A) into the water.
Properly filtered tap water is at least as healthy as the best bottled water.
Bottled water is also extremely expensive compared to tap water. The bottled water business is very lucrative and tends to be dominated by huge drinks companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsico. The global bottled water market valuation grew by 7% in 2006 to reach a value of $US60.9 billion. The volume of bottled water sold in 2006 was 115.4 billion litres. In 2011, the market is forecast to have a value of $US86.4 billion, an increase of 41.8% in five years since 2006.
Bottled water unnecessarily creates enormous environmental impacts such as:
- Every day 60 million plastic bottles are disposed of in America alone!
- Huge amounts of greenhouse gases are produced from manufacturing the plastic bottles.
- Millions of litres of fuel are wasted transporting filtered tap water around the country and around the world!
- It requires three times as much water to make the bottle as it does to fill it.
There is no rationale for regular bottled water use – it costs more, it isn't healthier and it pollutes our planet. The healthy, economical and environmentally-friendly solution is a good-quality home water filter and refillable glass water bottles.
Guide to choosing a water filter
Posted by Michael Lockhart on 11th October, 2009 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks
Tags: General Sustainability
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bisphenol A (BPA) is toxic
Canada has added bisphenol A (BPA) to its register of toxic substances, making it the first country in the world to make the move. The decision follows research that showed that 91% of Canadians has the plastics additive in their urine.
Amber
Posted on 10 September, 2010 by Klean Kanteen
Scam
I think there literally could have been a SNL skit done back in the early days about how ludicrous this future bottle loving society would be. And me, with a whole 24 in the garage!
Posted on 19 December, 2010 by Todd the Water Filter Guy
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