The Bottled Water Con
by Jane Houlihan
Bottled water labels are often plastered with images of snow-capped peaks, pristine glaciers and mountain streams, sending a calculated message to consumers that the product is pure, clean and safe to drink -- unlike water from the household tap.
In many cases, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, up to 40 percent of the bottled water Americans consume is simply ordinary tap water that’s been run through a filter and then marked up as much as 1,900 percent above the price of water available by a quick turn of the handle at your kitchen sink.
The sting being perpetrated on the American people, while despicable, is a textbook example of brilliant marketing. The bottled water industry has conned millions of customers into plopping down billions of dollars for – in some cases - the very same water they get at home.
In 2008, Environmental Working Group commissioned laboratory tests at one of the country’s leading water quality labs and found 38 contaminants in ten brands of popular bottled water purchased at grocery stores and other retailers in nine states and the District of Columbia. The impurities identified included common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals, an array of cancer-causing byproducts from municipal tap water chlorination, heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes, fertilizer residue and a broad range of industrial chemicals. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria.
Unlike public water utilities, bottled water companies are not required to notify their customers about contaminants in their water, or, in most states, to say where the water comes from or how it is purified.
In 2008, Americans paid $12 billion to drink nine billion gallons of bottled water in the belief they were getting something better for their money. Yet, as EWG tests show, several bottled waters bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment -- a cocktail of fluoride, chlorine and other disinfectants.
Much of the nation’s tap water is perfectly safe to drink, and in areas where there are regular incidents of contamination, running that water through a simple carbon filter will remove 90 percent of many types of common pollutants.
Other industries reaping the rewards of bottled water’s con game are the petroleum and plastics producers that make the bottles themselves. Both sectors have contributed to one of the biggest environmental problems facing the world today. There are estimates that only 20 percent of the bottles produced are recycled, while the remaining four-fifths pile up at landfills, litter our neighborhoods and foul our oceans. North of Hawaii, an area bigger than Texas is awash in millions of plastic water bottles and other indestructible garbage trapped by the circular currents of the North Pacific.
To quickly re-cap: Bottled water is often tap water, sold at an enormous mark-up, likely carrying various contaminants while wasting petroleum and littering the planet with billions of trashed empty bottles.
The legacy of bottled water has and continues to be a disaster for the entire ecosystem, leaving its pollution footprint in virtually every corner of the globe. Of course, the tragedy here is that it could have all been avoided if we as consumers had realized that our thirst for clean, portable water could have been slaked by buying a reusable bottle, a simple carbon filter and the water that flows into our homes, offices and schools at a rock bottom price.
|
by Jim Wilfong
