BYOB part deux: Why I don’t buy bottled water…
- Mainly because I don’t like being taken advantage of.
- The bottled water industry is a $46 billion dollar industry.
- Americans bought over 31.2B liters of water in 2006.
- It’s a colossal waste of money for what comes out of the tap.
- It’s not always natural, nor is it spring; most of what you’re buying (25%, or so I’ve read) is just from the tap, and Americans spend $15B on it a year.
- Remember when Dasani had to change its label to include the words “Public Water Source?”
- It’s also bad for the environment.
- It takes 3 to 5 times more water to make and fill one plastic water bottle than the bottle contains.
- In order to fulfill US’s demand, over 17M barrels of oil is used. That’s enough to fuel 1M US cars for a year.
- 86% of water bottles are not recycled and end up in landfills and take over 1000 years to decompose.
- Tap water could actually be healthier.
- The EPA holds higher standards for testing tap water than the FDA does for bottled water.
- A 1999 study found that 60-70% of bottled water sold in the US was exempt from FDA’s bottled water standards because they don’t apply to water bottled and sold within the same state.
- And, of course, the bottles are said to leach chemicals.
- Take a look at your bottle and you’ll see the inscription “Do not refill.” You may even see “store in a cool, dry and clean place away from light.”
- PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is the plastic most bottles are made of, can leach benzyl butyl phthalate (endocrine disruptive chemicals, cause of liver & male reproductive damage in rodents), and DEHA (a known carcinogen) - though we are not yet certain how and to what extent these are harmful to humans.
- Even your Nalgene is not safe. Nalgene’s are made of a polycarbonate plastic called Lexan that contains bisphenol A (BPA), which if consumed can cause chromosomal disruption, miscarriages, birth defects and obesity. Nalgene’s were recently pulled from the shelves at some stores in Canada until further research.
