Thirst for bottled water unleashes flood of environmental concerns USA TODAY June 7, 2008

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Thirst for bottled

water unleashes flood of environmental concerns

USA TODAY June 7, 2008 By Krisy

Gashler, The Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal Once reserved for Perrier-sipping

elitists, bottled water has become a drink of the masses. Sales have quadrupled in

the last 20 years, and rose almost 8% last year alone. n Brown, an

assistant to the provost at Ithaca College who works on

sustainability initiatives, has watched this growth with dismay. "More and more

people, more and more entities on campus, even for special events, were

starting to think, 'Gosh, let's do bottled water,' instead of putting out

(pitchers) of water," Brown said. "It's like, 'God no, they're making

it worse!'" The problem isn't the

water — it's the use of resources. It takes a lot of oil to make all

those little bottles and ship them, sometimes halfway around the world. But Tom

Lauria, vice president of communications for the International Bottled Water

Association, said bottled water isn't the environmental bad guy. Sales

on the rise There's no question that

sales of bottled water are increasing. According to Lauria's

bottled water association, in 1990, 2.2 billion total gallons of bottled water

were sold worldwide. In 2007, it was 8.8 billion. In just the last year,

wholesale dollar sales for bottled water grew 7.8%, to $11.7 billion in 2007,

according to the bottled water trade group. Increased purchasing of

bottled water is good news, Lauria said, because much of the sales growth is

coming from people making a health-conscious decision not to buy soda and

sugary juices. "We're finding that

most of that growth is in category switching," Lauria said, citing

consumer research. "People are making a decision at lunch to buy bottled

water as opposed to something else. Some people want to reduce caffeine, sugar,

many reasons." The Container Recycling

Institute found that between 1997 and 2005, sales of carbonated drinks remained

relatively flat while sales of noncarbonated drinks, including bottled water,

almost tripled. Plastic water bottles

produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, according to a 2007

resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. That much energy could

power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a year, according to the

resolution. Cornell

University professor and environmentalist Doug said the irony of

bottled water is that it's marketed as clean and healthy when its production

contributes to unnecessary environmental degradation. "

Fiji water, for

example," he said. "A one-liter bottle is taken out of the aquifer of

this little island, and shipped all the way across the world, producing like

half a pound of greenhouse gases so you can have this one-liter bottle of

water." The

taste question Another obvious issue in

the consumption of bottled water is taste. In some areas, tap water

simply isn't drinkable, Brown said, and in those situations, bottled water is a

useful resource. Other consumers simply

prefer the taste of bottled water, Lauria said. "Consumers have

lots of preferences and some people want mineral water for taste," he

said. "Everyone has their own reasons for buying products. And some people

have a preference for bottled water." But, Brown argues,

perceptions about the taste of tap water and realities about the taste of tap

water can be very different things. To test her hypothesis

that tap water tastes as least as good as bottled water, Brown has been

conducting a series of taste tests at

Ithaca College in the past year. In five blind taste

tests over the last year, the tap water has won four times, she said. The growth in

advertising and consumption of bottled water has occurred "frankly, since

the big soda companies bought up water," she said. "They would buy up

the Dasanis, and they would buy up the Poland Springs, and you get into the

huge marketing machines of the major soda industries, Coke and Pepsi, notably,

and they take it to a whole different field." Water

and waste Then there's the waste

stream. In roughly the last 10

years, the amount of polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottles being recycled

increased from about 775 million pounds in 1995 to about 1,170 million in 2005,

according to the Container Recycling Institute. But during the same time

period, the amount of PET bottles going into landfills skyrocketed from 1,175

million to 3,900 million pounds. Water bottles are a big

part of that problem, Brown says, because there are so many more of them, and

because in many states, water bottles don't have a redemption value like soda

and beer bottles do. Lauria said the focus on

water bottles is unfair because they make up "less than one-third of one

percent" of the entire U.S. waste stream. "There are many

other plastic objects that are in our lives that no one seems to be concerned

about and yet it all needs to be recycled," he said. "As you recycle

bottled water you should also recycle many other products that are in your

refrigerator when you're done with them." Brown said that better

recycling rates of water bottles would certainly help, but even better would be

for people to stop using bottled water when tap water will do just fine. "Even if we can do

a good job of separating and recycling water bottles, it still comes down to

the fact that it's completely unnecessary," she said. "From a cost

standpoint alone, people should be starting to think about, 'I'm paying $1.19

or whatever it is for a bottle of water that I could get free out of my

drinking water tap?'" Hidden

costs of water Strictly speaking, tap

water isn't free — it costs about $0.00002 per ounce. But single-serve bottled

water costs between 1,000 and 4,000 times more, according to the U.S.

Conference of Mayors. Some cities, including

San Francisco, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, and Seattle, have banned city purchase

of single-serve bottled water because of waste impact from the bottles and

because it's viewed as an unnecessary cost to taxpayers. On the waste reduction

hierarchy, reduce and reuse should be above recycle, said Tompkins County Solid

Waste manager Barb Eckstrom. Even so, bottled water

can provide a healthier choice in situations, like sports events, where people

are going to buy drinks anyway, she said. Brown reiterated that

clearly "there is a place for bottled water." "But for so many of

us here in the Finger Lakes we're so blessed with excellent water systems, we

need to at all costs preserve and maintain (them)," she said.

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