Emailing: #271 The water Bottle Battle , is it safe for you and our environment ?

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

When l saw this article l thought

it would be a good one to pass around

to everyone that l thought might be interested in knowing what the comments

are out there in our world on this

rather controversial subject.

I do drink bottled water *Dasani* .... the claim is it is a re mineralized

water (reverse Osmosis)

Why..... because l find it is convenient, tastes really good and has to be

better than my King City hard *terrible tasting * tap water.

However when l see articles such as this one, l must admit l do feel badly

that l am among the ones that are helping to

pollute our planet. l have seen the metal water bottles out In my heath

food stores, l am thinking about buying one or two

so l can carry that one around with me when l need a portable water bottle..

... but again it's the taste and the purity of my

water, that has me in a quandary as to what is the best way to go.

Anyway l am sending this article out to those of you l thought might be

interested in examining the pros and cons on this

" water " subject.

Be well .

Holly

#271 The Bottle BattleTell a friend

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.

Henry Thoreau

Should You Drink Bottled Water?

By Steve

When San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom banned the city from purchasing

bottled water for its facilities last month, it was the tip of a

plastic-bashing iceberg. Facing charges of low regulatory standards, poor

health practices, and overinflated prices, the bottled water industry is

finally feeling consumer pressure. A week later, a Chicago councilman

proposed a 10- to 25-cent tax on bottled water to help pay for a $40 million

water and sewer fund deficit, which came about because people weren't

drinking as much tap water. Now, Aquafina has announced that it's changing

its labels to admit that, yes, in fact, its product is nattily dressed tap

water. The backlash begs the obvious question: why are we drinking so much

bottled water in the first place?

It's not like we're a developing nation that lacks infrastructure. The

United States has some of the highest tap water standards in the world.

Higher, in fact, than the standards set by the Food and Drug Administration

(FDA) for bottled water. When PepsiCo was finally forced to admit that its

Aquafina brand came from municipal water supplies, sales of the top-selling

bottled water took a hit. " It's a tough time to be in bottled water, " ph

Doss, CEO of the International Bottled Water Association, told USA Today.

We're facing a great deal of controversy. "

We covered this story back in early 2006 (What's In Your Water?). It created

a big stir in our community but little in the bigger picture. We did receive

one letter from a Pepsi employee, a casual dismissal stating, " The person

who wrote this article is obviously ignorant of the facts on bottled water, "

(read the Mailbag reply). Now the facts we were " ignorant of " are exactly

what PepsiCo is currently addressing. Word on the street is that Coca-Cola's

Dasani brand will be following suit.

The entire industry is now in full-scale backpedal mode. " It's unfortunate

that people are turning this into a tap-water-vs.-bottled-water issue, " said

Doss. " We don't disparage tap water. We think if consumers are drinking

water, whether it's bottled or tap, it's a good thing. " While not exactly a

lie, this isn't the marketing hype that encouraged consumers to shell out 15

billion dollars on bottled water last year. Especially when you consider

that, according to one estimate, a typical monthly water bill would exceed

$9,000 if the cost of tap water were equal to the cheapest bottled water on

the market.

Down, but not out

Even under fire with negative press, the bottled water industry is still

projecting sales to increase over 7 percent in the upcoming year. While it

may be a dip from previous years—growth in the U.S. has hit nearly 15

percent—it's still a far cry from pure panic mode and begs the question: why

the increase in sales?

Of course, drinking plain water is vital. At Beachbody, encouraging our

members to drink more of it is one of our most harped-upon themes.

Especially when you're exercising—whether it is P90X® or Turbo Jam®—adding

more water to your diet is one of the healthiest things you can do. But why

is the public under the impression that it needs to be bottled water? Are

those Evian commercials really that influential?

It makes sense that the bottled water industry would be strong in countries

where potable water is scarce. But the United States now consumes more

bottled water than any other country in the world. Given that we also have

some of the best tap water in the world, this is confusing. Further

confounding the issue is the fact that bottled water is less regulated than

tap water in the U.S. In a study cited in our earlier article, 22 percent of

the bottled waters tested had chemical contaminants higher than state limits

allow for tap water.

Bottled water, which is regulated by the FDA, " is not tested as thoroughly

or as frequently as tap water, which is regulated by the Environmental

Protection Agency, " said Jon Coifman, spokesman for the Natural Resources

Defense Council, in USA Today. " It's not that bottled water is going to kill

you . . . But there's also no reason to believe it's better, despite

marketing that is all about health, wholesomeness, and purity. "

Even with our high standards for water safety, there are still occasional

problems with municipal supplies that could create misconceptions. Just last

week, for example, a small Massachusetts community was warned about a

potential E. coli outbreak in their water. But this theory that municipal

supplies are less safe doesn't hold up because drinking bottled water is not

statistically safer. In fact, the current bottled water regulations allow

bottled water to contain " some contamination by E. coli, or fecal coliform,

and don't require disinfection for cryptosporidium or giardia. "

So who knows the answer? Maybe the bottled water folks are great marketers

(Coke and Pepsi do lead the way, remember), or maybe we just like those cute

plastic bottles.

The plastic problem

On that note, the pollution factor has also been getting more attention

recently. It's estimated that more than 60 million plastic water bottles are

thrown away every day in the United States. Since it can take up to 1,000

years for these disposable water bottles to decompose, we don't need a

statistician to show us how this could present a future ecological crisis.

Mike Layton, a project manager for Environmental Defense, a Toronto-based

environmental organization, told the St. 's Standard that drinking

bottled water could significantly hurt the environment. " The product is

really the bottle, which is actually a petroleum-based product. It is mined

and made into PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles. One kilogram

of plastic requires 17 kilograms of water to make it, not to mention all the

other greenhouse gases released into the air in the manufacturing process. "

In 2006, over 50 billion plastic water bottles were purchased in the United

States alone. The one and a half million barrels of oil required to produce

those 50 billion plastic bottles could fuel at least 100,000 vehicles for a

full year. The manufacturing of every ton of PET produces around 3 tons of

carbon dioxide (CO2). Thus, bottling water created more than 2.5 million

tons of CO2 in 2006, which is about 0.1 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas

emissions.

And that's just in the bottle manufacturing process. We also transport

exotic " water from places like Fiji and New Zealand. " We're paying for the

water to be driven or often flown from other parts of the world, when we

have good clean water running right out of our taps, " said Layton.

So what's the easy answer?

There's no need to drink store-bought bottled water in the United States and

Canada. It's cheaper, safer, and more time efficient to filter your own

water and store it in your own bottles for portability.

All municipal water suppliers are required to provide annual water-quality

reports to their customers—and it's free. You can then choose a home water

filtration system that specifically rids your water of any local

contaminants. A quick Internet search will provide dozens of options, most

of which filter your water so that it's often clean beyond the legal limits

for contamination. And even if you're lazy, any random filter system will

probably improve your 22 percent chance of getting contaminated bottled

water.

Home bottling is also the safest and most environmentally friendly

alternative. The dangers of cheap disposable water bottles are debated, but

companies that specifically make water carriers, like Nalgene, test all of

their products to ensure that they're safe. These bottles are practically

indestructible, leak proof, and will last most of your life. And if the time

involved in filtering your own water seems inconvenient, consider the time

and gas it takes to drive to the market just to get a drink of water.

What if I want my Aquafina?

For those of you who still want to buy bottled water but would also like it

to be safer, here's what you can do. Write letters to your Congress members,

the FDA, and your governor, and urge them to adopt strict requirements for

bottled water safety, labeling, and public disclosure. Specifically, refer

to these points suggested by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC):

Set strict limits for contaminants of concern in bottled water, including

arsenic; heterotrophic-plate-count bacteria; E. coli and other parasites and

pathogens; and synthetic organic chemicals such as " phthalates. "

Apply the same rules to all bottled water, whether carbonated or not and

whether sold intrastate or interstate.

Require bottlers to display information on their labels about the levels of

contaminants of concern found in the water, the water's exact source, how it

s been treated, and whether it meets health criteria set by the

Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control for

killing parasites like cryptosporidium.