It’s ironic. In many parts of the world, there is no clean drinking water. Here in the U.S., pure, drinkable water flows out of every tap, and yet Americans buy a staggering amount of bottled water. We pay big bucks for it, too - over $15 billion a year.

Worst of all, the bottles are overflowing our landfills, and contribute to global warming.

Take a look at this video from Doug James, and then check out these surprising facts.

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More than a quarter of bottled water is just processed tap water, including Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani. Despite this, bottled water consumption is growing at 10 percent a year, faster than any other beverage. We drink 15 times more bottled water today than we did in 1976.

This doesn’t mean we’re healthier, despite the ads. Federal regulations for municipal water are far more stringent. Bottled water rules allow higher levels of many contaminants, with more lenient requirements for filtration, testing and reporting. See NRDC’s bottled water report for details of contaminants by brand.

The Earth isn’t healthier for it, either. According to the Pacific Institute’s fact sheet [PDF], manufacturing the 30+ billion plastic water bottles we bought in 2006:

• Required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil — enough to fuel more than one million vehicles for a year. (Note: This was erroneously reported by The New York Times as 1.5 million, and the error is repeated in many places.)
• Produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.
• Used three times the amount of water in the bottle.

And these numbers don’t include transporting the bottles. Nearly 25 percent of bottled water crosses national borders before reaching consumers. Adding in transportation, the energy used comes to over 50 million barrels of oil equivalent - enough to run 3 million cars for a year.

Case Study: Fiji Water

Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles of water a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water (see Fast Company article). Adding to the irony, Fiji itself uses almost no bottled water, according to a Pacific Institute report [PDF]. They export it.

Shipping Fiji Water around the world increases its environmental footprint. Manufacturing and shipping a one liter bottle produces over half a pound of greenhouse gas emissions, and uses nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle, according to calculations by Pablo Päster on TriplePundit.

The heavy use of water is as serious as the greenhouse gas emissions. Water is fast becoming a scarce resource.

We Could Recycle, But…

Recycling would help, but we don’t usually do it. Less than 20 percent of the 28 billion single-serving water bottles that Americans buy each year are recycled. Some estimates are as low as 12 percent.

According to a Container Recycling Institute report [PDF], the national recycling rate for all beverage containers is 33 percent. In states with deposit systems, the rate jumps to 65-95 percent. But of the eleven states with deposit laws, only three include containers for non-carbonated beverages (like water), though non-carbonated beverages now comprise 27 percent of the market.

Last November, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a national bottle bill to address global warming that includes water bottles and other non-carbonated beverage containers.

The beverage industry, which long resisted deposit laws, has started to cooperate — mainly because it sees bottled water as the answer to the soda sales slump. Following months of bad publicity, manufacturers like Coke, Pepsi, and Nestlé have begun making lighter-weight plastic bottles, and are encouraging consumers to recycle.

Better Yet, Carry Tap Water

If you buy bottled water, recycle the bottle. But the better solution — for you and the environment — is to drink tap water, both at home and at restaurants:

• Tap water is cleaner than most bottled water.
• Tap water is delivered to homes and offices for $0.002 a gallon. Bottled water, which can cost as much per gallon as gasoline, is a thousand times more expensive.

The quality of municipal water in the U.S. is generally excellent. Don’t let the recent reports about pharmaceuticals in tap water deter you — see this TreeHugger post for why.

But if you don’t trust tap water, or you have old plumbing, or you think tap water tastes funny, then try a water filter like those from PUR or Brita. To learn more about water filters, check out the rated list of water filter review sites at Consumer Search.

To carry water with you, use a reusable container filled with tap water. But don’t reuse single-use water bottles. This can expose you to bacterial build-up and carcinogens leached from the plastic.

Quite a few companies make reusable water bottles. There’s an ongoing debate about the safety of the polycarbonate plastic some use, but there are many safe reusable bottles made from other materials.

Use it or Lose it

National Geographic’s Green Guide notes, “…the federal share of funding for water systems has declined from 78 percent in 1973 to 3 percent today.” This places the financial burden almost entirely on local governments.

Food and Water Watch also talks about how important it is to stop this trend and maintain the quality of municipal water. Their Take Back the Tap [PDF] report gives a detailed overview of the issues surrounding tap water versus bottled water.

What do you think? Can you give up bottled water?

While the experts disagree on whether added fluoride in small amounts is necessary, companies as diverse as toothpaste manufacturers and more recently bottled water distributors have jumped on the bandwagon. Now one of them, Nursery Water, is under scrutiny by major environmental action groups.

One of the nation’s biggest infant bottle water companies – Nursery Water - is misleading parents with erroneous information on its website and advertising materials touting the safety and benefits of fluoride in infant bottled water in clear violation of Federal Trade Commission rules, noted Environmental Working Group (EWG) scientists in a letter sent today to officials at the FDA and FTC.

Additional action is being taken by the group, Fluoride Action Network, is petitioning Wal-Mart to take it off their shelves.

On November 9th, 2006, the American Dental Association (ADA) issued an alert advising parents to avoid fluoridated water when reconstituting infant formula. ADA’s advice, however, has been mostly ignored by the media. Nursery Water, the nation’s leading fluoridated water for babies, still markets its product nationwide at Wal-Mart and other major retailers.

Meanwhile Nursery Water continues to promote use of their distilled water with added fluoride to parents of infants. Copy from their web site and on their packages continues to advise mothers that using added fluoride is appropriate in direct contradiction to the ADA warning and at risk to their babies’ health.

… Nursery® Purified Water with added Fluoride, processed by steam distillation, has been trusted by new mothers like you for mixing with infant formulas, diluting juices and as a good source of pure drinking water. Nursery® is a convenient source of fluoride … (and) an important part of your plan during those precious infant years.

And people wonder why parents are suspicious of advertising claims….Visit ipetitions. com to make your voice heard.

As the New Year begins, Chicagoans are getting some direct encouragement to forgo buying disposable bottled water and switch to reusable bottles filled with fresh, clean water from the tap. In November, Chicago became the first city in the U.S. to pass a tax on bottled water sold within the city limits. The 5 cents per bottle tax went into effect on Jan. 1, and is expected to raise $10.5 million for the city this year.

In addition to producing revenue that can be used to maintain the city’s water infrastructure, the tax is designed to encourage citizens to shift their hydration habits from bottled to tap water, which is essentially the same thing you get when you buy most bottled water brands. (Filtration with a charcoal filter such as Brita or Pur is a common step taken to remove any chlorine aftertaste, though it I think it tastes fine straight from the faucet.) The tax will also help reduce the number of the plastic containers that wind up in landfills (less than 20% of plastic water bottles in this country are ever recycled) and reduce the greenhouse gas and other pollution created by trucking all that water to retail sites.

Of course, the new tax is meeting some resistance from businesses with an interest in the wasteful status quo. In addition to news reports of grumbling from some consumers who are used to buying their water bottles by the case, the tax now faces a legal challenge from some industry trade groups.  Yep, it turns out that a lot of the folks who profit from selling tap water are willing to sue to protect their share of this huge-margin business. Real shocker, right?  Actually, the lawsuit isn’t really surprising when you consider the racket that bottled water has become. The fact is, consumers regularly pay more per ounce for bottled water than they do for gasoline—and it’s much easier to manufacture.

The city has responded to the suit by saying it is prepared to defend the tax in court. One argument that the suit makes is that the new tax is unfair because it doesn’t apply to other non-carbonated bottled beverages, such as milk, teas, coffees, and sports drinks. Chicago Law Department spokesman Jenny Hoyle responded by pointing out that, “unlike these other beverages, tap water is a generally available, safe alternative in the city of Chicago.” That’s a crucial difference, and one that makes intuitive sense. In other words, the taxing rules don’t need to be the same for Gatorade and water because the city isn’t already in the business of providing an alternative to Gatorade through its infrastructure.  Essentially, the city is taxing consumers for the convenience of the bottle, because the same thing is available in every working faucet in town.

Time will tell if Chicago’s bottled water tax survives this legal challenge, but I sure hope it does.  This kind of eco-sin tax seems like a smart way to spread the true economic costs to those who benefit from them.  Sure, it’s convenient to buy a chilled bottle of water sometimes, and I’ll gladly pay a nickel extra for those times when I forget to bring my refillable bottle or it’s not immediately convenient to find tap water or I just really want an ice-cold bottle of Evian with my lunch.  What’s good about this tax is that it creates a concrete financial incentive to switch your everyday, habitual water consumption to the sustainable model of refillable bottles rather than throwaway plastics. It gets people to take another look at that plastic bottle and assess the relative merits of its convenience versus the real economic price of its disposability. 

My guess is that the bottled water tax will be upheld and that after a few months of trying to get around the tax by driving outside the city limits to buy in bulk, many consumers here in Chicago will just make the switch to refillable bottles. In a year, the tax will go unnoticed by most people, just like the most people have no idea how much taxes increase the price of cigarettes. If other communities follow suit with their own bottled water taxes (and it seems this may be a trend), they’ll probably be smart to charge 10 cents a bottle and really send a strong signal that provides the most revenue buck for the taxation bang.

A related side effect of Chicago’s tax on bottled water that I like is that it makes you take a second look at those often-neglected public water fountains (or “bubblers” as we used to call them growing up in Wisconsin). In the light of a law that says essentially, “Hey, you can get this item for free if you just walk over to the faucet,” water fountains don’t appear to be quite such outdated relics of another era. In fact, these underappreciated appliances that tend to remind many of us of elementary school start to take on a more noble appearance as a valued civic service, dispensing life-giving nourishment, free for the asking. In a world in which water resources are becoming more valuable every year, maybe the once-ubiquitous bubbler will make a comback rather than going the way of the all-but-extinct public telephone booth.

More information:

Chicago Tribune - New Year Brings Bottled Water Tax

Chicago Sun-Times - City Sued over Bottled Water Tax

The Daily Green - An Eco-Sin Tax on Bottled Water

Green Options - Daily Tip: Bottle Your Own Water

Green Options - Lighter Footstep: 5 Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water

Photo credit: Keetsa

McCloud’s defenders today released an economic study that casts a skeptical light on Nestle’s predictions that the plant would bring more local jobs and an improved local economy. Most of the promised jobs would probably be filled by people from outside the area, while others would be entry-level, low-paying positions. Furthermore, the report added, building a large water-bottling plant in a place known for its natural beauty could drive away some residents and businesses over time.

“The proposed facility threatens to consume one of the area’s most valuable assets: its water,” said Kristin Lee, an economist with the consulting firm ECONorthwest and one of the authors of the report.

ECONorthwest prepared the study on behalf of the McCloud Watershed Council, a volunteer-based residents’ organization working to preserve the quality of the region’s watershed. The group is fighting Nestle’s plan to build a one-million-square foot water-bottling plant in the former logging community, which has a population of about 1,200. If constructed, the McCloud facility’s size would make it the largest water-bottling plant in the U.S.

“It would be the largest building in Northern California,” said Brian Stranko, CEO of California Trout, a group that works to protect and restore wild trout populations in California waters. “You could fit every building in McCloud into it.”

The area’s environmentalists and local residents oppose the plant on many levels. They object to the McCloud Community Services District’s agreement to sell local water to Nestle at “far below” market value. They warn that Nestle’s contract would give the company control of local water supplies for 50, possibly even 100 years. They fear the facility’s impact on the environment, on downstream users of local water, on the region’s attractiveness for tourism and outdoor recreation. And, now, armed with the ECONorthwest report, they worry the plant won’t be as good a deal for the local economy as Nestle says.

That’s now the message they’re hoping to deliver to the McCloud Community Services District, which inked the original deal with Nestle and — they say — still retains the power to renegotiate the terms of its contract with the company.

“It’s not too late for the (district) to reconsider this contract,” said Sid Johnson, a member of the McCloud Watershed Council. “We’re not sure they’re aware of that.”

Nestle Waters is the world’s top seller of bottled water. As of 2006, it sold 72 different brands of bottled water — including San Pelligrino, Perrier, Aquarel, Ozarka, Zephyrhills and Deer Park — around the globe.

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Thou shalt not drink bottled water. (An eco-mmandment we hear often.)

Thou shalt not deny the convenience of portable drinking water either! (We hear this one in our head.)

But with 38 billion plastic water bottles in landfills each year, it's a habit in need of kicking.

First, know your local water. Every year by July 1, your water supplier should make available an annual water quality report.

Don't like what you read? Give your water a rinse with a commercial system (Brita-type pitchers, faucet mounted filters). Most rely on carbon to filter out impurities (unwanted tastes, smells and chemicals)—it's also extremely cost effective.