Owens 1

1Paige Owens

4 May 2009 Bethann Bowman English 102 Water Wars Is buying bottled water really better than simply turning on your faucet and getting tap water? One thing is for sure: it is definitely not easier. Sure it tastes great, but buying bottled water is not what it seems. There are so many hidden facts in the making of bottles for not only water, but any and all other beverages. Simply put, buying water by the bottle is not all that it is cracked up to be; the energy required to make and distribute these bottles is phenomenal. Not only is the environment in danger, but our own personal health is at stake; harmful odorless and tasteless chemicals can seep into your water from the bottle. So why do we keep buying something that is essentially free for us? As early as the nineteenth century, people were drinking water from bottles; some even viewed it as a medicine. In time, these people became aware of the dangers of drinking contaminated water. So as an alternative, people began selling water in bottles. At first bottled water was only for the elite in society, but eventually it became more and more common for a person of a lower social class to purchase bottled water. There was a big boom in the selling of water by the bottle. Then in 1913 disaster struck for this industry. The use of chlorination to make water cleaner took the nation by storm, and bottled water sells plummeted (Chapelle 16). People asked themselves: Why do we need to buy water when we can get it just as good, for free? Then in the 1960s another chance came for the industry: Years of dumping untreated

Owens 2 sewage effluents and industrial waste in American rivers had seriously degraded the quality of water (Chapelle 16). With this knowledge, people began to get queasy and worried about what exactly was in their water. Because of their paranoia, naturally people started buying bottled water again. The annual sales in 1960 jumped up to just under $50 million. Within the next twenty years bottled water consumption reached levels of sales that no one would have predicted, reaching 487.7 million in 1979 (Chapelle 16). In the span of about ten years, from 1979 to 1991 annual bottled water sales quadrupled, hitting 2,014.2 billion (Chapelle 16). Today, more than five trillion gallons of bottled water are being shipped annually (Blumenfeld pp. 5). Anybody can see that the bottled water industry is a promising, profitable business. But what one will not look at is the damage this industry is doing. As you can very well imagine, the amount of energy in order to produce five trillion gallons is quite devastating to the environment and the consumer. Bottled water can cost 240 up to 10,000 times as much as tap water (Blumenfeld pp 3;Chapelle 3; Horn 41), and it is easy to see why. According to The Organisation for the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), bottled water uses 0.50 percent of the U. S.s energy consumption (65). To put that into terms easier to understand, Horn states that supplying Americans with bottled water for a year uses about 1.5 billion gallons of oil annually (42). This extreme amount of our worlds most precious resource can take 10,000 cars off of the road and remove one billion pounds of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Blumenfeld pp. 4). These outstanding numbers are enough to make a person stop buying bottled water, at least you would think, but there is more dangers posed with bottled water. Most people would say that we consume so much bottled water because we like the idea of fresh clean water. Take for instance the municipal water in Orlando, Florida, where much of the

Owens 3 water comes from deeply drawn wells. The water contains noxious hydrogen sulfide gas, which makes the water smell and taste like rotten eggs. The water is still perfectly good to drink, but obviously the consumers do not like the idea of rotten eggs in their water (Chapelle 5, 6). In this case I can understand why bottled water is so popular. However, in other places perfectly good water is close at hand, but the nearest city to this natural fresh water still consumes just as much bottled water, if not more. This neighboring city is New York City. Here much of the water supply comes from the Catskill Mountains, which supplies some of the best drinking water in the world. Actually, New York City is said to have the best municipal water in the entire world: (Chapelle 6). One would think that the industry of bottled water would not be welcome, but that same person would be shocked to learn that New York City consumes just as much as, if not more, than the rest of the world (Chapelle 6). Why do we keep buying something at a great expense, when we can get it for free? Although residents of Orlando can hold a strong case, bottled water is still not so fresh and so clean. Back in 1900, a survey called Californians View on Water, found that about half of the consumers surveyed said that they drank bottled water because it tasted better than water from the tap (LaMoreaux 122). Half of those consumers also gave reasons based on health, while one fourth of them thought bottled water to be free of contaminates (LaMoreaux 122). Personally, I would hate to see the looks on those consumers faces when they learn that they are wrong. According to Horn: There are far fewer regulations on bottled water both in the U. S. and Europe than on tap water (41). Similarly, Sullivan, Agardy, and Clark report: not all public water systems are required to monitor for chemical pollutants . . . There fore, it should be no surprise that of 168,690 community water systems in the United States, only 7.6 percent have actually monitored

Owens 4 for those chemicals with established primary Drinking Water Standards (i.e., the regulated pollutants) (109). Only 7.6 percent! I do not know about how the reader feels, but I know that I do not like the idea of having to wonder if my water falls in this 7.6 percent. Because of this poor monitoring process, as one can very well imagine, there have been cases in which bottled water has actually shown to be more contaminated than tap water. A fouryear survey, conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council, found that one third of 103 brands of bottled water tested contained elevated levels of bacteria, inorganic compounds, and/or organic compounds (Sullivan 124). The study also found that some of the chemicals in the water were consistent with the components found in contaminated municipal water. So either the source water contained the pollutants, or they were added during the bottling process (Sullivan 124). Either way, this study left people asking what the purpose of bottling water is. If the same chemicals are just going to be put back into the water, what is the point? Why waste so much time, energy, and money? But not only are the same chemicals being put right back into the bottled water, but new, potentially more dangerous chemicals are seeping into our water from the bottle it is sitting in. As scary as it sounds, it is the truth. Sullivan, Agardy, and Clark reported a list of bottling companies, including the U. S.s Perrier and Evian, are using the radioactive elements Radon and Uranium in their bottle making processes (127). And we are drinking from these bottles? How do we know that these radioactive chemicals are not in the bottles themselves, or worse the water? How do we not already know about this? Well for one thing, the federal government established a policy of permissible pollution; in other words, they are allowing water to be polluted up to an acceptable level. Not only that, but also, there are no regulations that require producers of bottled water to

Owens 5 assess or disclose the environmental quality of their product (Sullivan 123). It is no wonder we keep buying expensive and dangerous water; we are all ignorant to the facts. So what is being done to help control this contamination? Well, the basic treatment for drinking water usually strives to produce water that does not have bad taste, odor, color, or turbidity, and is free from bacterial threats. However this basic treatment method is not designed specifically to remove organic compounds or trace metals (Sullivan 93, 94). But some companies do have a more advanced method of treatment; but this method is not as common as the first; it also costs a lot more. Despite the extra cost, a more wholesome and high- quality of products reaches the consumer. But since this advanced treatment is limited by cost, not a lot of companies have this method (Sullivan 99). I would assume that the companies that have the best quality product are the ones that can afford the more advanced treatment. Based on that assumption, one can gather that the brand that has been around the longest and is most popular and expensive would be the more obvious choice. But who wants to spend that much money on bottled water? However, according to Sullivan, Agardy, and Clark: [b]ecause of the age of most community water supply systems (50 to 100 years old), local, state and federal funds tend to go toward existing maintenance problems instead of advanced technologies (100). Horn claims that the chemicals in the plastics of bottled water are just as bad, if not worse than contaminated water. The chemicals in these plastics are estrogenic disruptors, meaning that they mimic the female hormone estrogen in the body; and this is obviously not a good thing. Increased estrogen levels in men can lower sperm count, decrease sex drive, and lower energy. In women, increased levels can lead to breast cancer. Horn goes on with some very scary details: In fact human sperm counts in the U. S. have dropped by 50 percent over the past

Owens 6 century. No one knows why for sure, but estrogenic phthalates from plastics and synthetic growth hormones in conventional milk are the most likely culprits. The average American girl is now reaching puberty a full 18 months earlier than just 50 years ago. Breast development has been seen in girls as young as 24 months. Again estrogen-mimicking phthalates are strongly suspected (Horn 41). Horn also points out that [t]he longer the water is in contact with the plastic, or if the water is heated in the bottle . . . the higher the level of [these chemicals] are released (41). So reusing your bottle may not be the best idea; you need to think twice about your health. The best thing to do here is to save a glass tea bottle and re-use it - that will save you the trouble or worrying about seeping chemicals. However, according to the OECD, glass is heavier and easier to break, so the distribution process costs more; it takes more energy to transport these glass bottles (65). But if you re-use one, there will not be such a big strain on the environment. So the question of which is better is risen. Do we buy the better, more expensive bottles that emit radioactivity and cause so many health problems, but have a greater chance of being purer? Or do we buy the bottles that are less expensive, saving us money and giving the company the chance to be able to better their products? Do we waste more money by buying a glass bottle, or do we save money, by buying plastic, and put our health in danger? What we should do is stop buying what we can get for free. Bottled water is no better than tap water; there is no proof that the water you are drinking is not just tap water from somewhere else. So what is the difference in getting water for free and paying up to 10,000 times more? What needs to happen is people need to stop being consumers all of the time. The simple solution would be to save and reuse your bottles, but not the plastic ones because of your own personal health, and not the glass

Owens 7 one because they cost more and are easier to break. So what are we supposed to do? Instead of drowning yourself in these never ending questions, take the best solution: stainless steel. These bottles do not emit any chemicals into the air or in your water, and they are lightweight and easy to carry, taking away from transportation cost and adding to convenience. With one of these bottles all you would have to do is fill it up with your own clean tap water and not worry about it after that. The consumers can breathe again.