PD Editorial: All wet
Bottled water costs far more, but often comes from the tap
Editorial
Press Democrat
07/12/2009
Supermarket shelves are crammed with bottled drinking water.
Almost unheard of two decades ago, bottled water has swelled into an $11 billion a year industry with reported U.S. sales of 8.6 billion gallons in 2008.
From generic labels to Calistoga spring water to European imports, you can find it in vending machines, on restaurant menus, even at checkout counters in auto parts and craft stores.
A business success story? It’s a gusher. But is it something to cheer about?
Manufacturing the bottles uses oil and energy. The discards proliferate in gutters, parking lots and vacant fields. A few land in recycling bins, but millions end up buried in landfills.
Saving energy and reducing litter are hardly the only reasons to prefer a refreshing swig of old-fashioned tap water.
Let’s talk cost. A typical 20-ounce bottle of water costs about $1.50. That works out to $4.80 per gallon. Santa Rosa residents pay $3.83 per 1,000 gallons of tap water for up to 8,000 gallons a month. That’s less than a half-cent per gallon.
Experts recommend that adults drink about a half-gallon of water daily.
At those prices, buying bottled drinking water for a single day costs far more than buying two year’s worth of tap water.
Makes you gulp, doesn’t it?
What’s worse, for all the snow-capped mountain peaks on the labels, the bottled stuff may not be any different. In 2007, PepsiCo. acknowledged that its Aquafina brand, then the top seller, was tap water.
Surveys show that many people buy bottled water because they think it’s cleaner or safer than tap water. But reports issued last week by congressional investigators and an environmental group challenge that assumption.
Municipal water systems must test their water in certified laboratories and notify customers within 24 hours of any contaminants that exceed federal safety levels. They also are required to distribute an annual report identifying their water sources and any contaminants found in testing, as well as the potential health effects of those contaminants.
Beginning this year, California requires bottled water suppliers to identify the source of their water and offer a Web site with information about water quality. Good luck finding it.
The Government Accountability Office recommends similar rules for the rest of the country, while the Environmental Working Group urges consumers to stick to filtered tap water.
In Bundadoon, a community in Australia, residents voted almost unanimously at a town meeting last week to ban bottled water, with many merchants planning to sell reusable water bottles instead.
