Bottled Water - an Obsession?

I have never understood the obsession with drinking bottled water. We have a filter in our kitchen and the quality seems fine. Why do people think bottled water is superior to tap water? I see the Arrowhead guy delivering to the neighbors and it seems a rather expensive luxury. But what about all those people who have become accustomed to the convenience of disposable bottles? Do they realize that they are contributing to the massive build-up of plastic bottles that do not biodegrade?

Many companies and municipalities have stopped ordering bottled water for their employees, and many of those employees take plastic or metal water bottles to work which they refill from the tap. These are all positive signs. They have realized the issue is less about water quality or chemicals leaching from the plastic into the water than the global glut of disposable plastic bottles filling landfills and oceans.

It is tough to confront the corporate bottlers directly about this. I would like to think they are looking into alternatives to oil-based bottles – they would be foolish if they didn’t. One promising alternative is cardboard – if milk, juice and wine all come in cartons, why not water? But that would interfere with the fantasy of pure mountain spring water in transparently clear plastic bottles that they are peddling. Sales growth in recent decades has been extraordinary and profits vast.

So how do we get this issue of pollution in front of people? EWG, the Environmental Working Group, has opted to do it indirectly by embarrassing the bottlers for their deceptive marketing. In a recent study (here), EWG asked the bottlers these questions: Where does the water come from? Is it purified? How? Have tests found any contaminants? Californian law actually requires them to include this information on their packaging. It dates back to 2007 when some bottlers were accused of using purified municipal tap water and top-selling Aquafina (Pepsi-owned) only then began to acknowledge that fact on their labeling, while keeping the snowy mountain in its packaging! (The law mandates that water bottled after Jan. 1, 2009 and sold in California must label both the source of the water and two ways for consumers to contact the company for a water quality report.)

EWG found that bottlers are flouting the law. Most refused to answer one or more of the questions. Only one of the top 10 U.S. brands tells customers where the water comes from and how it's purified - Nestlé's Pure Life Purified Water. The nine other top brands – Coca-Cola's Dasani, Pepsi's Aquafina, Crystal Geyser, and six other of Nestlé's seven brands including Arrowhead – do not. In fairness, EWG did not analyze the water itself; just the labels and company transparency. But embarrassing them can have a significant long term effect: reminding consumers that bottled water is just a fantasy, not a real lifestyle alternative, and that plastic pollution is damaging the environment we live in.

Photo: from The Big P Project website, which comments: "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as The The Island of Garbage swirling in the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Gyre, Trash Vortex, and Plastic Graveyard…is a mass of plastic waste and debris that is estimated by scientists to be anywhere from twice the size of Texas to twice the size of the continental U.S."