Green Scene

June / July, 2010

Take Back the Tap

Think bottled water is better? Think again. Bottled water is lower quality, costs more and is not environmentally responsible.

By Claudia Carbone

Bottled water costs 2,000 times more than tap. In the 1970s, soft drink companies saw growth level off, so they began to make designer water. Their advertising scared us about tap water, seducing us with images of pristine mountain scenes. But half of all bottled water comes from tap. The bottle water companies boast state-of-the-art filtration systems and esoteric references to mineral additives that turn their water into. . .water. Ten to 15 percent of their cost goes to advertising. We not only buy their myths, we pay extra for them!

Quality control: tap versus bottle

Environmental Protection Agency regulates tap water under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Public water operators must provide reports to customers describing their water's source, evidence of contaminants and compliance with federal, state and local regulations. But the Food and Drug Administration that regulates bottled water cannot require lab testing or violation reporting; bottlers themselves are responsible. Furthermore, FDA doesn't require bottled water companies to disclose where their water comes from, how it's treated or what contaminates it contains. Corporate Accountability International's "Think Outside the Bottle" Campaign has held taste tests comparing bottled water to tap, as have many media outlets. The results generally favor the tap. Ultimately, the point isn't about taste; it's how our tastes are shaped by advertising rather than by what's good for us.

Energy footprint

We drink more than half a billion bottles of water every week-enough to circle the globe more than five times. Making bottles uses enough oil and energy to fuel one million cars a year and more to ship it around the world. Then 80 percent end up in landfills where they sit for thousands of years. Pepsi wants us to think tap water is dirty. In some places, it is, due to pollution by the plastic bottle industry.

Time to take back the tap

Instead of buying bottled water, buy reusable containers. If you're concerned about your tap water, install a filtering system. Join a campaign to improve water systems, lobby for more drinking fountains, work to ban purchase of water bottles. San Francisco, Minneapolis, Seattle and Salt Lake City have banned bottled water at city functions to save money and promote their cities' drinkable water.

Source: storyofstuff.org/bottledwater

Claudia Carbone is an award-winning journalist and the editor of Out of Denver. Her grown children have been her greatest influence to living green.