Bottled WaterBad to the Last Drop

Why do people choose bottled water over tap water?

7%11%

12%

35%

35%

Chart 1

Safety Substitute Safety & Substitute OtherTaste

[Build In] Nearly half (47%) of bottled water drinkers choose bottled water over tap water because they are worried about the safety of tap water. An additional 7% of bottled water drinkers prefer the taste of bottled water.

Is bottled water necessarily safer than tap water?

• Low standards

• Poor quality

• Health risks

[Build In] 60-70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States is exempt from Food and Drug Administration regulations because it is packaged and sold within the same state. And, by the FDAʼs own admission, bottled water is a low priority. Case in point: “[T]he agency estimates it has the equivalent of fewer than one staff person dedicated to developing and issuing bottled water rules, and the equivalent of fewer than one FDA staffer assuring compliance with the bottled water rules on the books.”

[Build In] And low standards lead to a poor quality product. In a test of 103 brands of bottled water by three independent labs, 18 of the brands contained more bacteria than allowed under microbiological-purity guidelines adopted by the bottled water industry. And “[a]bout one fifth of the waters contained synthetic organic chemicals--such as industrial chemicals . . . or chemicals used in manufacturing plastic . . . .”

[Build In] Drinking bottled water may also pose a threat to your health because of the plastic bottle in which itʼs packaged. The chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is used to make many plastic products, including baby bottles. BPA has been linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease, developmental disorders, diabetes, and reproductive damage in humans. Although experts donʼt agree on the potential health risks of BPA, itʼs best to err on the side of caution.

Does bottled water necessarily taste better than tap water?

• Misleading packaging

• Impure sources

[Build In] The federal government and the bottled water industry estimate that anywhere from 25-40 percent of bottled water is actually bottled tap water. However, the packaging would lead you to believe otherwise. “For example, one brand of ʻspring waterʼ whose label pictured a lake and mountains, actually came from a well in an industrial facilityʼs parking lot, near a hazardous waste dump, and periodically was contaminated with industrial chemicals at levels above FDA standards.”

The Hidden Price of Plastic

There are other reasons to choose tap water over bottled water, too. For example, producing bottled water contributes to global climate change. [Build In] 1.5 million barrels of oil (47 million gallons) are used annually to produce plastic water bottles for America alone--enough to fuel some 100,000 cars for a year.

The Hidden Price of Plastic

Bottled water is also a matter of national security. Weʼre a nation addicted to oil, and some of the revenue from the sale of that oil goes to fund terrorism. [Build In] 12 out of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi natives.

How much is too much?

This image depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

How much is too much?

This is a partial zoom.

How much is too much?

And this is a detail at actual size.

How much is too much?

This graph shows annual bottled water sales (in 1000s of gallons) from 1976 to 1997.

Plastic is not a girl’s best friend. (But it is forever.)

A mere 14 percent of plastic water bottles are recycled. The other 86 percent end up in landfills and waterways, where they do not biodegrade; rather, they break down into smaller and smaller toxic bits, contaminating our soil and waterways. These photos were taken in Los Angeles, California.

References

• Chris Jordan Photography -- http://www.chrisjordan.com/

• Earth Policy Institute -- http://www.earth-policy.org/

• Natural Resources Defense Council -- http://www.nrdc.org/

• ReusableBags -- http://www.reusablebags.com