Drinking Bottled Water - Detail - © futuristech.info

Bottled Water: Pricey, Plasticy, Polluting ‘Beverage Roulette’

The old bottled water controversy has been popping up again, lately. I guess every generation needs to work through the issue for itself. But most bottled water is a waste of money. And cast-off water bottles are killing our oceans…

Nestlé Water Bottling Plant - © vice.comA Nestlé water bottling plant: Massive amounts ‘made’, most of
it ‘nothing special’. And mountians of plastic waste thrust
into the environment. ‘Big Bev’ playing on our fears…

I was shocked, at first, to learn that an estimated 96 percent of Americans buy bottled water regu-larly. And nearly one in five drink ONLY bottled water…

What’s going on?

Bottled water has been arpo0und for a long time. But it only became popular as a ‘grocery’ item in the 1970s and 80s, when fears started circulating about the healthfulness and wholesomeness of tap water. Enthusiasts claimed tap water was full of contaminants , not to mention added chlorine and flouride.

The chlorine was – and still is – added to kill germs in the natural-source water most cities start with when purifying their tap water. The flouride is added as a precaution against tooth decay. The flour-ide controversy has also bubbled to the top of the social media conspiracy pot recently, since Trump Health Czar Robert Kennedy Jr. vowed to get flouride, which he calls poison, out of America’s drinking water. But that ‘s for another day. (If at all.)

Myriad myths persist

Many myths persist about the wholesomeness of tap water. As does misinformation about the super-iority of bottled water. The easiest way to tackle them is just to go down the list point by point…

Tap water is full of harmful chemicals

Myth. The reality is, the only added chemical in tap water, by the time it reaches your home faucet, is the flouride. Though other compounds such as alum are used in the classic, approved purification process. The chlorine is usually undetectable because it evaporates after doing its job. The only time you’ll ever smell or taste it may be in mid-summer when the city adds stronger doses of it during water treatment to combat ‘blooms’ of certain germs in the season’s warmer source water. And the truth is, even that amount of chlorine is less than you’ll be exposed to in regulation swimming pool water.

Of course, there may be residual chemicals in the source water – either from wells or natural rivers and lakes – your municipality draws on for its tap water. But tap water, by law, must meet certain standards for a whole list of possible chemical contaminants including heavy metals and before leaving the purification plant.

Bottled water is from ‘natural sources’

Myth. Not all bottled water comes from pristine mountain springs as the names, ads and labels might suggest. Only fancy, boutique waters such as Perrier, Pellagrino and a relative few others come direct from spa-grade natural sources.

Some others come from private wells or spring water sources. But these brands are usually available only in limited amounts determined by the volume of water they can produce before running dry and requiring time to replenish themselves.

The vast majority of mass brand bottled waters, as the small print on the back of the labels reveal, are just filtered tap water. Check out the ingredients list on your favourite bottled water. You’ll pro-bably discover the source is described as ‘PWS’- Public Water System.

Bottled water is ‘pure’

Myth. The fact is, most bottled water is nothing special. Some brands are filtered on the way to the bottling line. Many are not. All filtering does is remove particulate matter left over after the municipal purification process. Filtration does not remove dissolved chemicals or other contaminants that may be in the water when it enters the purification plant, or seep into it through damaged water mains along the way to your house.

Bottled water is inexpensive

Myth. Bottled water is tremendously more expensive than tap water. Even the least-expensive bottled water must include the cost of the bottle and any filtering or other processing performed at the bot-tling plant. Then there’s the cost of transportation from the plant to the store. Remember water is heavy. And the heavier a product is, the more it costs to ship.

The lowest price for a big case, or plastic-wrapped ‘flat’, of 24 bottles of water today at my local supermarket is (C)$3.99. That’s $$0.15 per 500 ml / 16 oz. bottle. The average price for unflavoured, non-carbonated bottled waters is around $0.25 per bottle. And the top price for prestige-brand flavoured and/or carbonated waters is up around $2.00 per bottle!

Compare that to fractions of a cent for the same 500 m/ 16 oz. serving of tap water…

Drinking water bottles are recycled

Trashed Water Bottles - © The GuardianMyth. They CAN be recycled, but the vast majority – more than 95 percent – are not. Even the ones we all so carefully separate from our other garbage and put in our ‘recycle’ bins. They go into the landfill like any other garbage. Or are crushed, baled and sent abroad. Where they find their way into lakes and rivers, and eventually the ocean.

Bottled water containers are the biggest contributors to the mass of ‘single use’, or ‘disposable’ plastic items used to package and serve food today. And dispos-ables make up the single largest class of refuse pollution. Our oceans are literally choking on them.

My take

Reality. The upfront costs (consumer price) of bottled water, and the after-use cost of the bottles themselves (to the environment) is killing our personal and collective budgets. What’s worse, our already-stressed-out world is already suffering under the effects of climate change and a ballooning population.

Reality. The irony is, bottled and tap water must both meet the same standards before they can released for human consumption…

~ Maggie J.

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