Today's Christian Science Monitor (CSM), the source of the accompanying picture, has an article, 'The Battle Over Bottled vs. Tap Water', describing the growing backlash against bottled water in the USA. The article by Tony Azios forms the basis for this post.
The backlash stems primarily from the negative press over the environmental footprint of bottled water - plastic bottles, transportation costs, etc.
Some of the pushback occurs because consumers realize that as much as 40% of the bottled water they drink is nothing more than filtered tap water that is not necessarily healthier or better tasting than plain tap water. It certainly is not cheaper.
A number of high-profile cases involving the banning of bottled water at government-sponsored functions has also added fuel to the fire. For governments, it's also an economic issue: in each of the past two fiscal years, the City of San Francisco spent just under $500,000 for bottled water for its employees and official functions. No more.
Bottled water companies are responding by trying to become "greener" - using less energy, particularly in packaging, "earth-friendly" materials, or carbon offsets. For example Fiji, the second-largest imported bottled water brand in the USA, plans to become carbon-negative by 2010. This still would not alter the fact that we do not need to waste a valuable resource, petroleum hydrocarbons (energy), transporting Fijian water to the USA to drink it.
Fiji bills its water as coming from an "artesian aquifer". As a hydrologist, let me assure you that the term "artesian" does not at all indicate whether the water is of good-quality or healthy. It simply refers to a particular hydrogeologic/hydraulic condition under which the water occurs. Nor is "spring water" especially healthy or "magical". It's marketing, pure and simple.
Check out the movement Think Outside The Bottle, a project of Corporate Accountability International. You can also visit International Bottled Water Association's WWW site to see what the industry is doing. See my earlier post about the bottled water fact sheet from the Pacific Institute.
Here is a related article from the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
There are times and places for bottled water. But they are not as frequent or as many as the bottled water industry would have us believe.
"Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all." -- Peter Drucker
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