Lighter Living: Tap Water Saves the Environment and the Pocket Book

By Matt Weafer
VENT Magazine

Millions of Americans crack the tops to bottles of water at least once a day (if not more often) while they exercise, during a commute to work, a lunch break, a business meeting or at the movies as a healthy alternative to sugary sodas, sports drinks and tap water.

But there’s another element to the story — the environment.

Producing and packaging bottled water requires three to five times more water than will fit in the bottle, according to Calif.-based Pacific Institute.

And while recycling water bottles helps reduce the impact, only 12 percent of bottles were recycled in 2003, according to a 2007 MSNBC article. That number has likely risen in the past six years, but recycling plastic also requires a significant amount of energy and non-renewable resources.

According to a report on the Pacific Institute’s Web site, “More energy is needed to fill the bottles with water at the factory, move it by truck, train, ship, or air freight to the user, cool it in grocery stores or home refrigerators, and recover, recycle, or throw away the empty bottles. The Pacific Institute estimates that the total amount of energy embedded in our use of bottled water can be as high as the equivalent of filling a plastic bottle one quarter full with oil.”

Americans purchased 31.2 billion liters of bottled water in 2006. The Pacific Institute estimated that the energy required to produce those bottles equals approximately 17 million barrels of oil.

On top of the energy required to create, fill, package, ship and recycle the bottles, and the tons of non-recycled plastic bottles sitting in landfills, waiting 1,000 years before they start to decompose, the chemicals in the plastic bottles are potentially harmful to consumers as well.

Though the Food and Drug Administration regulates water before it enters bottles and once a year as it sits in the bottle, certain harmful contaminants such as phthalates or Bisphenol A can leach into the water as the bottles age, especially if the bottle is reused by the consumer.

Debating the health benefits of bottled water compared to tap water is difficult considering the number of water sources, state regulations, types of bottles and the amount of time a bottle of water sits on a shelf.

Bottled water is monitored by the Food and Drug Administration and tap water is monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Both organizations apply stringent standards to water quality prior to marketing.

However, municipalities, such as Owensboro Municipal Utilities, monitor water quality daily, typically the same day a resident consumes the water.

And while bottled water companies use buzzwords like pure and natural, accompanied by images of free-flowing streams and picturesque mountains, many bottles of water are filled from the municipal water providers in the manufacturer’s city. The water is then, though not always, filtered.

Owensboro’s water source is an underground aquifer. The water filters naturally through the earth and is then pumped out, monitored and sent to homes in the city.

With some high-end bottled waters costing close to $10 per gallon, a mark-up of nearly 10,000 times, tap water is a more environmentally- and economically-friendly option.

According to OMU’s Water Quality Report for 2007, there was only one violation of water quality during the year. The presence of coliform bacteria, a natural contaminant, rose to 5.88 percent. The standard is no more than 5 percent. And once, noticed, the system was flushed, refilled and retested, showing no signs of the contaminant.

The International Bottled Water Association touts bottled water as “one of the safest and most regulated food products on Earth.”

This statement does not mean that bottled water is of better quality or safer than tap water. With the emergence of inexpensive home water purifiers hitting the market, tap water is a better environmental and economical option than bottled water. And with a sturdy thermos, it’s just as convenient.

Did you know?

The FDA reported that bottled water sitting in the sunlight does not leach chemicals linked to breast cancer into the water, unlike recent articles and viral emails have reported.