(no subject)
weeeeeeeeeeeee!!
things are going super-well!!
i got a 100 on my last bio exam (HELL YES), a 90 on my gov't exam (plus some unknown amt of extra credit), and my comp teacher said she was really impressed with myresearch paper. it's about bottled water, and it is fascinating. i'll include an lj-cut with it in this entry for your enjoyment. don't feel obligated to read it, though, as it is 14 pages long.
passover starts tonight! which means i am eating lots of bread for lunch :) it's also chocolate fondue day at the marketplace. but we're not getting our hopes up b/c it's probably just hershey's syrup thats been slightly warmed. oh, marketplace.
today i got a smoothie on my way home from class and the woman told me that i have $247 left in flex bucks. what the hell am i gonna use all that for in the next 2 weeks?? someone told me the bookstore is taking FB now, so maybe i'll buy lots of scantrons and notebooks. and tshirts, and snack food. sweet.
today i have bio lab. it should be easy b/c it's just rolling dice and doing punnett squares. do we really need a lab for this? can't we do it in class? at home?? so lame. ugh, anyways, at least it will hopefully be short.
this morning around 2 i was so rudely awoken by a fire alarm malfunction. i fell out of bed and now my knees hurt. then we had to stand outside in the cold for an hour before they let us back in. i was SO MAD. uuuuuuuuugh. no funnnnnn. i'm all sore and tired today. blah!
i went thrifting w/ sarah an charlotte today after bio/lunch. it was sweeeeet. now i'm hungry and tired.
let's see what i hafta so this weekend...
-2 peer reviews (one of which i can't do till he sends me his paper)
-plan my research presentation
-read 2 more gov't chapters (over 100 pages)
-write out gov't study notes
-study hardcore for government exam on monday
-make sure my paper's done
-read some bio
-chill w/ mom on saturday :D
-start writing religion study notes for exam thursday
sounds do-able. i don't have comp on thursday since my conference was yesterday, and i don't have bio on friday, so my weekend starts thursday mid-morning. sweet ass...
okay, i'm gonna go do this peer review and get it out of the way. then i'm gonna pick out what kind of sub i'm getting for dinner.. ugh.
Rachael Farkash
ENC1102H
Dr. Oliver
12 April 2006
Bottled Water: Convenience or Menace?
Introduction
Most young adults in today’s society have never known a time when the common convenience of bottled water was not available. The phenomenon, however, did not become popular until the end of the 1970’s, when people started searching for healthier alternatives to their on-the-go lifestyles (Senior and Dege 53). Many people drink bottled water because they prefer the taste to tap water, while others prefer it because they view it as safer and healthier. However, with the booming success of the bottling industry, more and more waste is being produced, adding to the world’s pollution problem. Also, the water used to fill the bottles found in grocery stores across the country can come from underground aquifers that are being drained at a rate faster than they can be naturally replenished (Barlow and Clarke 6). The question at hand is whether the convenience and taste of bottled water is worth the damage that has already been done and will continue to be done to the environment, unless changes are made soon.
The Business of Bottled Water
Consumption of water is doubling every twenty years, which is more than twice as fast as the population is growing (Barlow and Clarke 7). Each person in the United States uses an average of 16,000 gallons of water every day, and over 5.7 million gallons are consumed by the minute (Coffel 15). With this type of demand, and the “global climate for economic competitiveness” (Barlow and Clarke 96) intensifying so quickly, it is no wonder that bottled water has been one of the fastest growing industries in the world and is an enormous source of expansion for beverage companies. In the 1970’s, the volume of water bottled per year was 300 million gallons globally. By 1980, that figure had risen to 650 million gallons, and, by the end of the eighties, it was up to two billion gallons. The largest growth had just begun, however, because in the year 2000, it reached 22.3 billion gallons of water bottled a year (Barlow and Clarke 142).
Companies such as Nestle, Danome, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo have used the growth in popularity of bottled water to their advantage and introduced brands of bottled water; in turn, they have seen their profits grow exponentially as the consumption of bottled water in relation to consumption of other soft drinks has grown from around 26 percent in 1997 to almost 37 percent projected in 2006. In fact, the projected growth of bottled water for the year 2007 shows the expectation that soon that figure will grow to over 50 percent and more bottled water will be consumed globally than alcoholic drinks (Senior and Dege 13-15).
Several factors are responsible for the immense growth of the bottled water industry. Stephen Kay, spokesman for the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) says that people are drinking bottled water “not in lieu of tap water but as an alternative to other beverages.” Americans demand “consistent quality and that’s what bottled water provides” (qtd. Ward). The booming sales act as a “barometer of the public’s lack of confidence in the quality of the local drinking water supply” (Coffel 207).
As well as providing consistent quality, bottled water comes in several forms and types, providing the diversity and options that people, especially Americans, demand today. “Natural Spring Water,” as defined by the IBWA, is water that comes from an underground formation that feeds to the surface and can be collected at the surface or tapped from underground, while “artesian water” is defined as water collected from a confined aquifer. “Mineral water” must contain at least 250mg dissolved solids per liter, and is usually taken from a spring. In contrast, purified water has been distilled or de-ionized to remove any dissolved solids. The last category of bottled water is “sparkling water,” which could be naturally carbonated or have carbon dioxide added later during processing (Senior and Dege 55-6). With all those varieties, virtually everyone can find a bottled water that they like.
Another reason bottled water sales are booming is due to natural disasters and relief efforts. After a natural disaster such as a hurricane or tsunami, sources of tap water often get contaminated and are not safe for human consumption. One of the major things that people are advised to stock up on prior to an expected disaster such as a hurricane is bottled water, and one of the first things people are asked to send to damaged areas is bottled water.
Possibly the largest contributor to the expansion of bottled water’s popularity is society’s ever-growing obsession with health and susceptibility to following trends. Bottled water contains zero calories and no artificial colors or flavors. In the U.S. especially, where obesity has reached epidemic proportions, more and more people are paying attention to what the labels on their food say (Senior and Dege 16). Diets are emphasizing eating things that are pure and unadulterated, and water is a prime example of this. Also, bottled water is seen as a “fashionable way to remain hydrated” (Ward) and people are using more expensive brands such as Fiji and Evian as status markers.
Regulation of Bottled Water
The most prevalent argument for drinking bottled water instead of tap water is safety and cleanliness. An enormous misconception is present in this country when it comes to the extent of the treatment through which our public tap water goes; public water treatment centers filter through almost 34 billion gallons a day. The treatment starts with a process called flocculation, which removes dirt and sediments. The water then goes through filtration, to remove “clays and silts, natural organic matter, precipitates from other treatment processes…, iron and manganese, and microorganisms” (United States Environmental Protection Agency 8). Finally, the water goes through disinfection, which has undergone great changes in the 20th century that make it a “major public health advance” (9). Usually chlorine is used in disinfection, which gives tap water the distinct flavor sometimes that people do not like (9).
While this thorough treatment of public tap water is regulated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these entities can only set minimal quality standards and labeling criteria when it comes to water that is bottled and sold (Senior and Dege 54-5). In fact, 60-70 percent of bottled water sold in the country is bottled and sold in the same state, and since this type of bottled water is not considered interstate commerce, the FDA cannot regulate it at all (May, Kotke, and Bomar 1). Many contaminants that people worry about in tap water, such as “heavy metals, solvents, trihalomethanes, pesticides, even traces of radioactive materials” also show up in bottled water (Coffel 208-9).
According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, “bottled water is no better than tap water,” and another study on “Human Nutrition in the Developing World” compared different types and brands of water, showing they weren’t in any way superior to even New York tap water (Barlow and Clarke 143), which is considered the bottom rung of the public water ladder. This could be partially explained by the fact that “40 per cent of bottled water comes from a municipal source rather than a natural spring” (Ward) proving that in almost half of all cases, absolutely no difference is apparant in nutritional value or safety between bottled and tap water.
Another problem that has recently arisen has been caused by parents sending their children to school with bottled water, believing they are protecting their child’s health. In fact, dentists are starting to become concerned that children are not getting enough fluoride. “Mass fluoridating of municipal water supplies, started in the 1940s, has been called one of the most effective public-health measures ever made to improve oral health,” but now people are drinking bottled water or heavily filtering their tap water, and the fluoride, which is meant to deter tooth decay, is being washed down the drain. Some water-bottling companies do add fluorine, but in all, only about twenty of the several hundreds do (McKay). One Cleveland dentist, Matthew Messina, states that he is “seeing more childhood decay than I did 10 years ago” (qtd. McKay), and believes it has been caused by the lack of fluorine received by children due to the bottled water boom.
The Aquifer Problem
No matter the reason for bottled water’s popularity, the effects it brings along with its growth are not all positive ones. As mentioned earlier, natural spring waters and artesian waters are tapped from aquifers, underground sources of fresh, uncontaminated water. The amount of available fresh water is less than .5% of the 330 million cubic miles of water on earth, and the only way of renewing this water after it has been drained is by rainfall and the natural water cycle, most of which ends up back in the oceans as runoff (Barlow and Clarke 5). For example, in Wisconsin, Perrier once planned to pump out 500 gallons per minute for five-years from an aquifer, reducing the total amount in the natural water flow almost 50 percent. When aquifers are drained so quickly, often they are contaminated by the draining equipment, or by dirt or salts that are let in while drilling down into the earth. Many aquifers are already running lower than their safe, normal volume of water, and once an aquifer is polluted or drained like this, they are next to impossible to restore to their normal condition (May, Kotke, and Bomar 1).
Another major source of aquifer pollution is leaking underground oil storage tanks. Tanks that have been in the ground for 20 years are starting to biodegrade and need to be replaced. Many components of gasoline are believed to be carcinogens and just one gallon of gasoline in an aquifer per day can taint the safe drinking water for 50,000 people (Coffel 21). Aquifers are a non-renewable resource for fresh, drinkable water, and simply not enough is being done currently to protect these sources.
The Waste Problem
A May 2001 study by the World Wildlife Federation showed that the bottled water industry at that time was using 1.5 million tons of plastic annually (Barlow and Clarke 143), and that figure has grown as quickly as the bottled water industry has grown. Beer and soft drink containers, the category in which water bottles are included, were the fourth largest contributor to the waste stream in 1990, growing 257 percent since 1960 (Saphire 2-4). However, these figures only count for the bottles that end up in the trash; countless bottles are also ending up on the streets, adding to the nation’s extreme litter and pollution problem.
Most commonly, the plastic water bottles found in convenience stores, grocery carts, and health food stores are made of a clear synthetic plastic made from crude oil called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET as it is commonly called. PET is recyclable, but not for contact with food, and its reprocessing is still in development (Senior and Dege 175-6). For the production of these bottles in the US, 1.5 million barrels of crude oil are consumed each year - “enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year.” Even worse, PET bottles take over 1000 years to naturally biodegrade in landfills (Ward). 90 percent of bottles used in the US are thrown out after one use and the number of bottles in landfills is increasing 30 million each day (Moskin). The 10 percent of bottles that are not left in landfills awaiting their 1000 year journey are often incinerated, releasing toxic chemicals into the air, including greenhouse gases that harm the environment along with the population (May, Kotke, and Bomar 1). With the extreme growth of the bottled water industry, these factors could pose a serious threat to our society within a very short time.
A probable explanation for the one-time use of water bottles is the fact that studies have shown that in some cases, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, harmful chemicals that are found in PET plastics, have shown up in samples of water held in these bottles (Mutsuga et. al.). Emails being circulated and evening news stories on television have taken the results of these studies out of context and warned consumers to refrain from re-using PET water bottles, without giving all the facts about PET. In fact, PET has been determined safe when washed and reused, and the only concerns are with long-term use, because very little extended research has been done (Moskin).
Plastic and landfill space are not the only things being wasted when it comes to bottled water. According to a report from the Earth Policy Institute, 100 billion US dollars are spent each year on bottled water (Ward). With prices that can be up to five dollars a bottle, one liter of fancy bottled water can cost more than 2,000 liters of filtered, regulated tap water (Moskin). With tap water costing around two dollars per 1,000 gallons, it is hard to believe that intelligent, spendthrift Americans would prefer to waste their hard-earned money on water that has been bottled instead (United States Environmental Protection Agency 11).
Possible Solutions
Perhaps the most obvious way to get a head start on the problems that the country faces today due to bottled water is summed up in a major motto of the Municipal Solid Waste branch of the Environmental Protection Agency: “reduce, reuse, recycle” (Municipal Solid Waste Website). The first part is to reduce, such as using stronger, more durable bottles instead of individual PET bottles, and refilling them several times. Reducing the number of individual bottles one person uses may not seem like it will make much of an impact, but if more and more people follow and do the same, the results are bound to be substantial. The second part is to reuse. When buying individual-sized water bottles, one can wash and reuse them which, mentioned earlier, has been proven safe. Old water bottles can also be reused in other ways, such as craft projects or organizers for small craft supplies.
The most important part of the motto is the third part: recycle. Glass, aluminum, plastics, and paper are recyclable at any local recycling drop-off center or plant. Recycling has succeeded in taking 72 million tons of material that would have ended up in landfills and incinerators, and made it into other products in 2003 alone. Recycling is not only a way of conserving resources, but it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, water pollutants, energy use, and creates thousands of jobs (Municipal Solid Waste Website). “In California alone, 19 million bottles each day are not being recycled” (May Kotke, and Bomar 3). Imagine what an impact it would make if everyone nationwide recycled their bottles even for one day.
Many other simpler ways to make an impact also exist. First, one must use larger containers, increasing the “beverage to container ratio” and reuse those larger containers several times. Before buying any new bottled water, citizens should make sure that the containers are recyclable, and that they know where in their community to recycle it once they are finished with it. Going a step further than that would be buying products that have been made of recycled materials. Consumers must create and maintain a market for recycled goods. If plastic is recycled but then no one buys the new recycled goods, nothing changes, and the energy used to recycle the materials has just gone to waste (Saphire 5-6).
Another proposed solution, expected to increase confidence in refilling bottles is the introduction of refillable PET bottles, which are already popularly used in Europe and Latin America, as well as an easy-to-use refilling service. The refillable PET bottle was first used in Germany in the late 1980’s and has all the advantages of regular PET including lightweight and small size, but has been designed to be used up to 100 times before discarding (Saphire 26). To make it even easier for citizens to refill their bottles, companies can introduce a refilling service where people can drop off empty bottles for a discount on new full bottles. Refilling services encourage people and offer an incentive for consumers to save their bottles instead of throwing them away. They also have potential to save companies lots of money. A one-use PET bottle costs around $0.293 per bottle, while a refillable PET bottle, making only 20 trips back and forth (when they are designed for up to one hundred), will cost around $0.148 per trip (Saphire 45-6).
A solution that is already starting to gain popularity across the US is the inclusion of “bottle bills” in the state’s laws. Bottle Bills, also known as Deposit Laws, say that consumers are eligible for a deposit of either five or ten cents (depending on the state) per bottle they choose to recycle instead of discarding (May, Kotke, and Bomar 3). The first bottle bill was passed in Oregon in 1971, and nine other states had followed by 1986. Today, 11 states, and over 25 percent of the population are eligible for a deposit for their recyclable plastic water bottles, and 7 states have experienced a reduction in litter of 70-83 percent (Bottle Bill Resource Guide Website).
The final proposed solution to be discussed is perhaps the simplest: conserving the water that is available to us now. Ways of conserving the world’s water supply include replacing old appliances and replacing them with water-saving models, using plants that require less watering and will thrive with just rainfall, using low flow shower heads and toilets, and fixing leaky faucets as soon as they are noticed. “Nearly 14 percent of the water a typical homeowner pays for is never even used - it leaks down the drain” (United States Environmental Protection Agency). If simple measures are taken by everyone to keep so much water from being wasted, the global impact will be unimaginable.
Conclusion
In today’s society, businesses that are “driven by acquisition and convinced of their supremacy over nature” are responsible for the lack of respect for the world’s water supply that has caused innumerable problems in the past few decades (Barlow and Clarke 3-4). The bottled water industry has been described as “one of the fastest growing and least regulated industries in the world,” (Barlow and Clarke 96) and the “shameful extravagance” (Ward) of bottled water is without a doubt responsible for a large part of the draining and pollution of aquifers, and growing waste production in the US and globally. If measures are not taken to curb the growth of the bottled water industry, people may very soon be facing more trouble than they can resolve.
WORKS CITED
Barlow, Maude and Tony Clarke. Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate
Theft of the World’s Water. New York: The New Press, 2002.
Bottle Bill Resource Guide Website. Ed. Valerie Hoy. Container Recycling
Institute. 9 March 2006.
Coffel, Steve. But Not A Drop To Drink! The Lifesaving Guide to Good Water.
New York: Rawson Associates, 1989.
May, Lindsey, Jessica Kotke, and Charles R. Bomar. “But It’s Just a Bottle of
Water…” National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, 2006.
McKay, Betsy. “Bottled Water and Tooth Decay: Kids May Not Be Getting
Enough Fluoride.” The Wall Street Journal. 24 January 2006. pg. D1.
Moskin, Julia. “Must Be Something In The Water.” The New York Times. 15
February 2006. pg. F1.
Municipal Solid Waste Website. 22 February 2006. United States
Environmental Protection Agency. 29 March 2006.
Mutsuga, M., Y. Kawamura, Y. Sugita-Konishi, Y. Hara-Kudo, K. Takatori, and
K. Tanamoto. “Migration of Formaldehyde and Acetaldehyde into Mineral
Water in Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Bottles.” Food Additives and
Contaminants. February 2006; 23(2): 212-218.
Saphire, David. Case Reopened: Reassessing Refillable Bottles. Ed. Mimi
Bluestone. New York: Inform Inc, 1994.
Senior, Dorothy and Nicholas Dege. Technology of Bottled Water, 2nd Edition.
Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. Water On Tap What You Need
To Know. October, 2003
Ward, Andrew. “Global Thirst for Bottled Water Attacked.” Financial Times. 13
February 2006. page 3.
i think that was the longest lj-cut in lj-cut history.
things are going super-well!!
i got a 100 on my last bio exam (HELL YES), a 90 on my gov't exam (plus some unknown amt of extra credit), and my comp teacher said she was really impressed with myresearch paper. it's about bottled water, and it is fascinating. i'll include an lj-cut with it in this entry for your enjoyment. don't feel obligated to read it, though, as it is 14 pages long.
passover starts tonight! which means i am eating lots of bread for lunch :) it's also chocolate fondue day at the marketplace. but we're not getting our hopes up b/c it's probably just hershey's syrup thats been slightly warmed. oh, marketplace.
today i got a smoothie on my way home from class and the woman told me that i have $247 left in flex bucks. what the hell am i gonna use all that for in the next 2 weeks?? someone told me the bookstore is taking FB now, so maybe i'll buy lots of scantrons and notebooks. and tshirts, and snack food. sweet.
today i have bio lab. it should be easy b/c it's just rolling dice and doing punnett squares. do we really need a lab for this? can't we do it in class? at home?? so lame. ugh, anyways, at least it will hopefully be short.
this morning around 2 i was so rudely awoken by a fire alarm malfunction. i fell out of bed and now my knees hurt. then we had to stand outside in the cold for an hour before they let us back in. i was SO MAD. uuuuuuuuugh. no funnnnnn. i'm all sore and tired today. blah!
i went thrifting w/ sarah an charlotte today after bio/lunch. it was sweeeeet. now i'm hungry and tired.
let's see what i hafta so this weekend...
-2 peer reviews (one of which i can't do till he sends me his paper)
-plan my research presentation
-read 2 more gov't chapters (over 100 pages)
-write out gov't study notes
-study hardcore for government exam on monday
-make sure my paper's done
-read some bio
-chill w/ mom on saturday :D
-start writing religion study notes for exam thursday
sounds do-able. i don't have comp on thursday since my conference was yesterday, and i don't have bio on friday, so my weekend starts thursday mid-morning. sweet ass...
okay, i'm gonna go do this peer review and get it out of the way. then i'm gonna pick out what kind of sub i'm getting for dinner.. ugh.
Rachael Farkash
ENC1102H
Dr. Oliver
12 April 2006
Bottled Water: Convenience or Menace?
Introduction
Most young adults in today’s society have never known a time when the common convenience of bottled water was not available. The phenomenon, however, did not become popular until the end of the 1970’s, when people started searching for healthier alternatives to their on-the-go lifestyles (Senior and Dege 53). Many people drink bottled water because they prefer the taste to tap water, while others prefer it because they view it as safer and healthier. However, with the booming success of the bottling industry, more and more waste is being produced, adding to the world’s pollution problem. Also, the water used to fill the bottles found in grocery stores across the country can come from underground aquifers that are being drained at a rate faster than they can be naturally replenished (Barlow and Clarke 6). The question at hand is whether the convenience and taste of bottled water is worth the damage that has already been done and will continue to be done to the environment, unless changes are made soon.
The Business of Bottled Water
Consumption of water is doubling every twenty years, which is more than twice as fast as the population is growing (Barlow and Clarke 7). Each person in the United States uses an average of 16,000 gallons of water every day, and over 5.7 million gallons are consumed by the minute (Coffel 15). With this type of demand, and the “global climate for economic competitiveness” (Barlow and Clarke 96) intensifying so quickly, it is no wonder that bottled water has been one of the fastest growing industries in the world and is an enormous source of expansion for beverage companies. In the 1970’s, the volume of water bottled per year was 300 million gallons globally. By 1980, that figure had risen to 650 million gallons, and, by the end of the eighties, it was up to two billion gallons. The largest growth had just begun, however, because in the year 2000, it reached 22.3 billion gallons of water bottled a year (Barlow and Clarke 142).
Companies such as Nestle, Danome, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo have used the growth in popularity of bottled water to their advantage and introduced brands of bottled water; in turn, they have seen their profits grow exponentially as the consumption of bottled water in relation to consumption of other soft drinks has grown from around 26 percent in 1997 to almost 37 percent projected in 2006. In fact, the projected growth of bottled water for the year 2007 shows the expectation that soon that figure will grow to over 50 percent and more bottled water will be consumed globally than alcoholic drinks (Senior and Dege 13-15).
Several factors are responsible for the immense growth of the bottled water industry. Stephen Kay, spokesman for the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) says that people are drinking bottled water “not in lieu of tap water but as an alternative to other beverages.” Americans demand “consistent quality and that’s what bottled water provides” (qtd. Ward). The booming sales act as a “barometer of the public’s lack of confidence in the quality of the local drinking water supply” (Coffel 207).
As well as providing consistent quality, bottled water comes in several forms and types, providing the diversity and options that people, especially Americans, demand today. “Natural Spring Water,” as defined by the IBWA, is water that comes from an underground formation that feeds to the surface and can be collected at the surface or tapped from underground, while “artesian water” is defined as water collected from a confined aquifer. “Mineral water” must contain at least 250mg dissolved solids per liter, and is usually taken from a spring. In contrast, purified water has been distilled or de-ionized to remove any dissolved solids. The last category of bottled water is “sparkling water,” which could be naturally carbonated or have carbon dioxide added later during processing (Senior and Dege 55-6). With all those varieties, virtually everyone can find a bottled water that they like.
Another reason bottled water sales are booming is due to natural disasters and relief efforts. After a natural disaster such as a hurricane or tsunami, sources of tap water often get contaminated and are not safe for human consumption. One of the major things that people are advised to stock up on prior to an expected disaster such as a hurricane is bottled water, and one of the first things people are asked to send to damaged areas is bottled water.
Possibly the largest contributor to the expansion of bottled water’s popularity is society’s ever-growing obsession with health and susceptibility to following trends. Bottled water contains zero calories and no artificial colors or flavors. In the U.S. especially, where obesity has reached epidemic proportions, more and more people are paying attention to what the labels on their food say (Senior and Dege 16). Diets are emphasizing eating things that are pure and unadulterated, and water is a prime example of this. Also, bottled water is seen as a “fashionable way to remain hydrated” (Ward) and people are using more expensive brands such as Fiji and Evian as status markers.
Regulation of Bottled Water
The most prevalent argument for drinking bottled water instead of tap water is safety and cleanliness. An enormous misconception is present in this country when it comes to the extent of the treatment through which our public tap water goes; public water treatment centers filter through almost 34 billion gallons a day. The treatment starts with a process called flocculation, which removes dirt and sediments. The water then goes through filtration, to remove “clays and silts, natural organic matter, precipitates from other treatment processes…, iron and manganese, and microorganisms” (United States Environmental Protection Agency 8). Finally, the water goes through disinfection, which has undergone great changes in the 20th century that make it a “major public health advance” (9). Usually chlorine is used in disinfection, which gives tap water the distinct flavor sometimes that people do not like (9).
While this thorough treatment of public tap water is regulated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these entities can only set minimal quality standards and labeling criteria when it comes to water that is bottled and sold (Senior and Dege 54-5). In fact, 60-70 percent of bottled water sold in the country is bottled and sold in the same state, and since this type of bottled water is not considered interstate commerce, the FDA cannot regulate it at all (May, Kotke, and Bomar 1). Many contaminants that people worry about in tap water, such as “heavy metals, solvents, trihalomethanes, pesticides, even traces of radioactive materials” also show up in bottled water (Coffel 208-9).
According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, “bottled water is no better than tap water,” and another study on “Human Nutrition in the Developing World” compared different types and brands of water, showing they weren’t in any way superior to even New York tap water (Barlow and Clarke 143), which is considered the bottom rung of the public water ladder. This could be partially explained by the fact that “40 per cent of bottled water comes from a municipal source rather than a natural spring” (Ward) proving that in almost half of all cases, absolutely no difference is apparant in nutritional value or safety between bottled and tap water.
Another problem that has recently arisen has been caused by parents sending their children to school with bottled water, believing they are protecting their child’s health. In fact, dentists are starting to become concerned that children are not getting enough fluoride. “Mass fluoridating of municipal water supplies, started in the 1940s, has been called one of the most effective public-health measures ever made to improve oral health,” but now people are drinking bottled water or heavily filtering their tap water, and the fluoride, which is meant to deter tooth decay, is being washed down the drain. Some water-bottling companies do add fluorine, but in all, only about twenty of the several hundreds do (McKay). One Cleveland dentist, Matthew Messina, states that he is “seeing more childhood decay than I did 10 years ago” (qtd. McKay), and believes it has been caused by the lack of fluorine received by children due to the bottled water boom.
The Aquifer Problem
No matter the reason for bottled water’s popularity, the effects it brings along with its growth are not all positive ones. As mentioned earlier, natural spring waters and artesian waters are tapped from aquifers, underground sources of fresh, uncontaminated water. The amount of available fresh water is less than .5% of the 330 million cubic miles of water on earth, and the only way of renewing this water after it has been drained is by rainfall and the natural water cycle, most of which ends up back in the oceans as runoff (Barlow and Clarke 5). For example, in Wisconsin, Perrier once planned to pump out 500 gallons per minute for five-years from an aquifer, reducing the total amount in the natural water flow almost 50 percent. When aquifers are drained so quickly, often they are contaminated by the draining equipment, or by dirt or salts that are let in while drilling down into the earth. Many aquifers are already running lower than their safe, normal volume of water, and once an aquifer is polluted or drained like this, they are next to impossible to restore to their normal condition (May, Kotke, and Bomar 1).
Another major source of aquifer pollution is leaking underground oil storage tanks. Tanks that have been in the ground for 20 years are starting to biodegrade and need to be replaced. Many components of gasoline are believed to be carcinogens and just one gallon of gasoline in an aquifer per day can taint the safe drinking water for 50,000 people (Coffel 21). Aquifers are a non-renewable resource for fresh, drinkable water, and simply not enough is being done currently to protect these sources.
The Waste Problem
A May 2001 study by the World Wildlife Federation showed that the bottled water industry at that time was using 1.5 million tons of plastic annually (Barlow and Clarke 143), and that figure has grown as quickly as the bottled water industry has grown. Beer and soft drink containers, the category in which water bottles are included, were the fourth largest contributor to the waste stream in 1990, growing 257 percent since 1960 (Saphire 2-4). However, these figures only count for the bottles that end up in the trash; countless bottles are also ending up on the streets, adding to the nation’s extreme litter and pollution problem.
Most commonly, the plastic water bottles found in convenience stores, grocery carts, and health food stores are made of a clear synthetic plastic made from crude oil called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET as it is commonly called. PET is recyclable, but not for contact with food, and its reprocessing is still in development (Senior and Dege 175-6). For the production of these bottles in the US, 1.5 million barrels of crude oil are consumed each year - “enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year.” Even worse, PET bottles take over 1000 years to naturally biodegrade in landfills (Ward). 90 percent of bottles used in the US are thrown out after one use and the number of bottles in landfills is increasing 30 million each day (Moskin). The 10 percent of bottles that are not left in landfills awaiting their 1000 year journey are often incinerated, releasing toxic chemicals into the air, including greenhouse gases that harm the environment along with the population (May, Kotke, and Bomar 1). With the extreme growth of the bottled water industry, these factors could pose a serious threat to our society within a very short time.
A probable explanation for the one-time use of water bottles is the fact that studies have shown that in some cases, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, harmful chemicals that are found in PET plastics, have shown up in samples of water held in these bottles (Mutsuga et. al.). Emails being circulated and evening news stories on television have taken the results of these studies out of context and warned consumers to refrain from re-using PET water bottles, without giving all the facts about PET. In fact, PET has been determined safe when washed and reused, and the only concerns are with long-term use, because very little extended research has been done (Moskin).
Plastic and landfill space are not the only things being wasted when it comes to bottled water. According to a report from the Earth Policy Institute, 100 billion US dollars are spent each year on bottled water (Ward). With prices that can be up to five dollars a bottle, one liter of fancy bottled water can cost more than 2,000 liters of filtered, regulated tap water (Moskin). With tap water costing around two dollars per 1,000 gallons, it is hard to believe that intelligent, spendthrift Americans would prefer to waste their hard-earned money on water that has been bottled instead (United States Environmental Protection Agency 11).
Possible Solutions
Perhaps the most obvious way to get a head start on the problems that the country faces today due to bottled water is summed up in a major motto of the Municipal Solid Waste branch of the Environmental Protection Agency: “reduce, reuse, recycle” (Municipal Solid Waste Website). The first part is to reduce, such as using stronger, more durable bottles instead of individual PET bottles, and refilling them several times. Reducing the number of individual bottles one person uses may not seem like it will make much of an impact, but if more and more people follow and do the same, the results are bound to be substantial. The second part is to reuse. When buying individual-sized water bottles, one can wash and reuse them which, mentioned earlier, has been proven safe. Old water bottles can also be reused in other ways, such as craft projects or organizers for small craft supplies.
The most important part of the motto is the third part: recycle. Glass, aluminum, plastics, and paper are recyclable at any local recycling drop-off center or plant. Recycling has succeeded in taking 72 million tons of material that would have ended up in landfills and incinerators, and made it into other products in 2003 alone. Recycling is not only a way of conserving resources, but it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, water pollutants, energy use, and creates thousands of jobs (Municipal Solid Waste Website). “In California alone, 19 million bottles each day are not being recycled” (May Kotke, and Bomar 3). Imagine what an impact it would make if everyone nationwide recycled their bottles even for one day.
Many other simpler ways to make an impact also exist. First, one must use larger containers, increasing the “beverage to container ratio” and reuse those larger containers several times. Before buying any new bottled water, citizens should make sure that the containers are recyclable, and that they know where in their community to recycle it once they are finished with it. Going a step further than that would be buying products that have been made of recycled materials. Consumers must create and maintain a market for recycled goods. If plastic is recycled but then no one buys the new recycled goods, nothing changes, and the energy used to recycle the materials has just gone to waste (Saphire 5-6).
Another proposed solution, expected to increase confidence in refilling bottles is the introduction of refillable PET bottles, which are already popularly used in Europe and Latin America, as well as an easy-to-use refilling service. The refillable PET bottle was first used in Germany in the late 1980’s and has all the advantages of regular PET including lightweight and small size, but has been designed to be used up to 100 times before discarding (Saphire 26). To make it even easier for citizens to refill their bottles, companies can introduce a refilling service where people can drop off empty bottles for a discount on new full bottles. Refilling services encourage people and offer an incentive for consumers to save their bottles instead of throwing them away. They also have potential to save companies lots of money. A one-use PET bottle costs around $0.293 per bottle, while a refillable PET bottle, making only 20 trips back and forth (when they are designed for up to one hundred), will cost around $0.148 per trip (Saphire 45-6).
A solution that is already starting to gain popularity across the US is the inclusion of “bottle bills” in the state’s laws. Bottle Bills, also known as Deposit Laws, say that consumers are eligible for a deposit of either five or ten cents (depending on the state) per bottle they choose to recycle instead of discarding (May, Kotke, and Bomar 3). The first bottle bill was passed in Oregon in 1971, and nine other states had followed by 1986. Today, 11 states, and over 25 percent of the population are eligible for a deposit for their recyclable plastic water bottles, and 7 states have experienced a reduction in litter of 70-83 percent (Bottle Bill Resource Guide Website).
The final proposed solution to be discussed is perhaps the simplest: conserving the water that is available to us now. Ways of conserving the world’s water supply include replacing old appliances and replacing them with water-saving models, using plants that require less watering and will thrive with just rainfall, using low flow shower heads and toilets, and fixing leaky faucets as soon as they are noticed. “Nearly 14 percent of the water a typical homeowner pays for is never even used - it leaks down the drain” (United States Environmental Protection Agency). If simple measures are taken by everyone to keep so much water from being wasted, the global impact will be unimaginable.
Conclusion
In today’s society, businesses that are “driven by acquisition and convinced of their supremacy over nature” are responsible for the lack of respect for the world’s water supply that has caused innumerable problems in the past few decades (Barlow and Clarke 3-4). The bottled water industry has been described as “one of the fastest growing and least regulated industries in the world,” (Barlow and Clarke 96) and the “shameful extravagance” (Ward) of bottled water is without a doubt responsible for a large part of the draining and pollution of aquifers, and growing waste production in the US and globally. If measures are not taken to curb the growth of the bottled water industry, people may very soon be facing more trouble than they can resolve.
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i think that was the longest lj-cut in lj-cut history.