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TechnoratiTime to Pull the Plug on the Bottled Water Swindle
Here's a variation on the “waiter, there’s a fly in my soup” gag. The question is how would you persuade people to knowingly drink water from a bottle that contained a dead spider? Penn Teller’s satirical US documentary series decided to find out by taking over a posh restaurant and producing a phoney “water menu” of expensive and exotic-sounding bottles – all of which had been filled from the tap using an old garden hose.
One choice was enticingly labelled L’eau Du Robinet (French for “tap water”), while the evening’s speciality, complete with an enormous dead arachnid, was labelled Amazon . The spider, they were told, was fresh from the rainforest, and added to its “medicinal qualities”. The upmarket diners not only tried it, they were willing to shell out $7 a bottle for this tainted tap water. With a little marketing to wash it down, some of us will literally swallow anything.
Irish people, on the other hand, would never be that gullible, right? Since last year, Superquinn has stocked Fiji Water, “the brand selected by many A-list movie stars and celebrities”, according to the blurb from its distributors. Rather than insect parts, its secret ingredient is silica, “which is what gives Fiji Water its soft-mouth feel”. Silica is more commonly known as sand.
Last year, BBC television’s Panorama current affairs programme investigated the high environmental cost of our strange love affair with bottled water. Fiji Water is indeed sourced in Fiji, then shipped more than 10,000 miles to Europe and beyond.
Meanwhile, one in three Fijians doesn’t have access to safe drinking water, and illnesses and deaths from typhus and other waterborne diseases are common on the island. The extraction of huge amounts of water for export is draining the island’s aquifers, putting even more pressure on supplies for the islanders.
Globally, as we ship billions of bottles of water from exotic-sounding locales to assuage our new-found thirst for water as a lifestyle accessory, 3,000 children die each day as a direct result of drinking contaminated water.
Globally, bottled water requires the production of about 300 billion plastic bottles a year, of which maybe one in five is recycled. Transportation, packaging, distribution and dealing with the waste generates tens of millions of tonnes of carbon emissions – and for what exactly? About 40 per cent of all bottled water sold is simply municipal tap water put into plastic bottles by corporations such Pepsi (Aquafina) and Coca-Cola (Dasani) and then sold back to the public in plastic containers.
This is a peculiar form of double taxation for consumers. First, they pay to have a safe, high-quality public water supply, then they pay again to drink the very water they have already paid to purify. The difference is that, even with water charges, it’s up to 10,000 times more expensive to drink bottled versus tap water.
There are small but encouraging signs of a gradual outbreak of common sense. In the Australian town of Bundanoon, its population of 2,500 voted overwhelmingly this summer to ban the sale of bottled water. Locals were furious when a bottled water company tried to tap their local aquifer and sell off the water.
Their stance received support from the premier of New South Wales, who ordered government departments to stop buying bottled water.
Across the US, cities from Chicago to Los Angeles have made it illegal to spend municipal money on bottled water.
London mayor Boris Johnson points to the absurdity of some bottled waters costing more per litre than petrol. The city is now trialling public faucets to provide chilled tap water at 20p a fill – just bring your reusable container.
“It’s killing our planet, and for no good reason,” says Eric Olsen of the Natural Resources Defence Council.
Test after test has proven it doesn’t taste better than tap water. In fact, unpleasant chemicals actually leach from these plastic containers.
Plastic is one of the world’s most chronic pollutants. A colossal floating mass of waste trapped in the north Pacific gyre between Hawaii and Japan is estimated to contain more than 100 million tonnes of a floating soup of plastic, some of it there since the 1950s. The contaminated area of ocean is larger than the continental United States.
Nor is this problem specific to the Pacific. The UN Environment Programme calculates that every square mile of the world’s oceans contains an average of 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. More than one million sea birds a year die from ingesting plastic. This toxic cocktail makes its journey full circle to humanity via contamination of the marine produce we in turn eat.
Ireland’s plastic bag tax in 2002 effected a sea change in public behaviour, leading to drastic reductions in usage and waste, but this effect is starting to wear off. Legislation passes through the Dáil this month to double this levy – which has raised €120 million so far – to 44 cent a bag.
Given our generally excellent unmetered public water supply, there is a compelling argument to extend this levy to the containers that hold the 130 million litres of bottled water that we consume annually, as well as to the new scourge of packing fresh milk in indestructible plastic containers.
And the next time you’re offered “still or sparkling” in a restaurant, try ordering L’eau Du Robinet instead.
39 Comments so far
Show AllAnd for our protection airport security folks will confiscate any container with more than a few ounces of liquid - any liquid including tap water. So then you need to pay $2 or so from the rip off machines beyond the security gang who are bored as hell when not pawing through soiled laundry or inspecting shoes.
I am a water bottler in Australia I am well aware of the dangers of unclean water and have researched for many years the pros and cons of many claims.
There is no denying that there is from many sources mass contamination of all the water on this planet.
In my research I have discovered that there are few motives behind this mass contamination, money , power and control and a need to de-populate the planet of humans who are mostly expendable.
In almost all instances when it comes to humans we are being eliminated slowly by some kind of poisoning or contamination, to the powers to be ones usefulness ends when one becomes what's known as a feeder one that has little contribution to society.
All that aside if you are happy with a shortened life span dogged by a variety of illness eat and drink anything that is offered to you (humans eat and drink anything that most animals won't given the choice), otherwise one would try to eliminate as much contact with contamination as much as possible.
In regards to bottled water we are looking at it from the the wrong side, for one, companies and corporations have to be made to only produce uncontaminated and environmentally safe products there are solutions for many problems they have created in the quest to make higher profits.
Water is the fundamental giver of life, municipal water supply should never under any circumstances be contaminated by authorities or others, there has been safer methods to keep water clean and safe for decades but the dangerous options are also chosen for the above reasons.
To little energy is given to sustainable products like biodegradable or compostable packaging that is one of the biggest polluters of the planet, cornstarch bottles in my country are being ignored for all of the above reasons in favour of town water that is loaded with stuff , not quiet as bad as yours but polluted enough that the authorities claim to be safe and consistently use erroneous or misleading propaganda to convince the uneducated or uninformed to use and consume.
Fluoride, chlorine, de flocks, heavy metals, pharma products, acidity, etc are extremely dangerous consumed over long periods, illness is on the increase and the pharma companies lobby and scheme to massively profit by it.
The banning of bottled water takes away our right to choose between contaminated or not, for those that are sensitive to contaminants whose numbers are multiplying by the day have even less choice. For Gods sake babies are poisoned from day one in some form or another eg. immunisation shots loaded with mercury or other contaminants for one.
We are all in the same boat we all have to push for safer ways to live healthy lives, we all have to help plug up the holes or together we all sink , the solutions start at the top end of town and we all have to keep pushing for it to happen, divided we fall but together we count and can make huge changes happen.
I understand that this may seem hard for most people to comprehend but with a little research from a variety of sources information is relativly easy to find, one has to forgive his impatience but vanmungo has listed some sites, as the old saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't always make it drink.
Google "tapped the movie" and become informed about bottled water. Regardless of what you know or you think you know this will add to your knowledge. I saw this at the Green Festival in DC this past weekend. It is just coming out for viewing and distribution. "TAPPED" is as much about bottled water as it is about chemical contamination, propaganda, advertising,privatization, and corporate takeover of the public commons.
Also read an article by Heather Rogers "Message in a Bottle" that can also be googled. This is not so much about bottled water but more about trash and corporate green washing. Read this article, see the movie trailer, and then the movie. Then comment. Kit in Tacoma, an architect, and so it goes.
I AM NOW ENLIGHTENED! THANK YOU ALL.
How odd that no one's mentioned fluoride, a neuro-toxin that accumulates in your pineal gland. It's added to the LA water supply, which is why I buy 21/2 gallon containers of spring water. I'm aware of possible plastic leaching but the risk of fluoride, useless against dental problems in all but young children, is a known hazard. They also add aluminum as a "flocculating agent" and I avoid aluminum (for reasons too extensive to go into here). But the thrust of the article, that local water COULD be adequate, is appreciated. Umm, how many of you can name your city councillors? Congresspeople? State (not federal) senators...? Yeah, I thought so...
Municipal water is toxic--all of it, everywhere has chlorine, some fluoride, and god knows how many other traces of antibiotics, medications, and other yuck.
People should filter their home tap water before drinking it.
Fluoride cannot be removed by the carbon filters that remove most of the chlorine and lead. It can be removed only by expensive reverse-osmosis filters, which are very low efficiency--they produce, I think only one gallon of drinkable output for every four or five you put in.
If people can afford it, fine. If not, the less-expensive and fussy carbon filters do the job for most hazardous toxins in tap water.
Interesting. Do you have sources on the one gallon/four gallon statistic? I was under the impression those reverse osmosis filters were more efficient than that.
Hi--
My recollection was roughly correct. I found a source:
http://www.caitechnologies.com/water-softeners/selecting-a-reverse-osmosis-drinking-water-system.htm
"Reverse osmosis systems send water to drain during the water purification process. Measurement of the efficiency of this process system “recovery”. The amount of water consumed during reverse osmosis primarily has to do with water quality, pressure, and temperature. However, the design of the system also plays a large part. Better quality systems send 2 to 4 gallons of water to drain for every gallon of water produced (approximately 25-30% efficient). Lower cost systems usually have a reduced rate of recovery, and can send as much a 6 gallons or more to drain for every gallon of water prepared (less that 15% efficient)."
Ya' know, that's from memory--maybe the ratio isn't as bad as that. I do know that they do not produce clean water in a 1 to 1 ration as more conventional carbon filters do-but the carbon filters don't remove fluoride, either!
Our city puts fluorine in the tap water, so we use bottled water. But there is another side to this. We use city water to irrigate our vegetable garden, and there is evidence that plants pick up halides (floride, clorine, bromine).
Methyl bromide was a widespread soil fumigant, and was banned in part because it was discovered that bromine was being ingested by the vegetables. We can't even drink mountain snowmelt because it might contain giardia. No matter how hard we try, we will ever be able to escape civilization. Face it, you are going to die anyway.
You can filter the water you drink at home.
With a decent filter, you can also filter the water that you use for your garden.
This attitude, "You're going to die anyway" seems odd--then why eat, why take antibiotics when you have an infection, etc., etc.
You come off like a Christian Scientist.
If there's a cheap and convenient way to filter your home tap water--and there is (there are lots of them!)--then it's dumb to just gulp down gallons of toxins every week.
Might as well just affix your lips to a car tailpipe while you're at it.
You keep making ridiculous statements. You can't seem to help yourself.
If i "affix my lips to a car tailpipe", i'll be DEAD in a minute. Maybe it would take two minutes. i've been drinking tap water for five decades.
Maybe you should make coherent statements instead of outrageous exaggerations. Just speak basic facts. There is good reason to avoid chlorine, but your work is diminished when you toss absurdities around.
Also, insulting people is a very bad way to get them to accept what you are saying.
Hey--look up the word "hyperbole" in your dictionary. It's a time-honored literary device.
Then look up the word "dunce" and write it backward on your forehead so you can identify yourself when you look in the mirror.
Again - your approach is sure to attract many followers. Good night Van.
My goal is not to attract anyone in particular.
It is to forestall anymore manic rambles of disinformation and illogic from you.
Seems to be working.
I get really tired of hearing this crap.
#1, water is the main nutritional need of people.
#2, most beverages come in a container of some type. Think of coffee, soda, milk, etc. etc.
#3 It should be a free world.
Now, for the specifics of myself.....
Plain water is my main beverage of choice. And I do mean PLAIN. I dislike the TASTE of water with minerals in it (spring water, no matter how expensive is as bad tasting as tap water, to me). Therefore, I prefer distilled water (or purified water) because it has the most amount of minerals taken OUT of it, leaving only H2O.
Tap water may be fine, regarding health, but I hate the taste, and therefore only want to drink it when I am mixing something in with it, such as coffee, tea, TANG, etc.
(I drink two or three cups of coffee per day, and tea or TANG once in awhile, but almost exclusively, I drink plain water.)
For me, it is mainly because of the taste and I only like water with NOTHING in it, but the actual H2O.
Therefore, distilled (or purified).
People need to focus on something that does much more damage... IMMENSE damage, such as companies in the military-industrial complex, Haliburton, Blackwater, etc. And lock up, for life, the men who have done the most ACTUAL damage to America than anyone else, EVER. (That would be the main guys in The Bush Administration.... Cheney, Rove, Gonzales, etc.) And keep an eye on those in The Obama Administration, too. For they are acting very similar, at least in some categories.
I came across this exalted Fiji water last month in Las Vegas in one of the premium casinos. I could not believe that water was being imported from Fiji.
The only good aspect was that it came in rectangular bottles and so maximizes packing space.
The only special waters I consider to be of value are those such as Epsom water that naturally contains Epsom salts.
Ray Berthiaume
Here in Memphis we have the best water in the country. We sell it in plastic bottles, also, but it is filtered of the beneficial minerals that come out of our taps. At a recent Senior Day at the Zoo, they were giving out bottled water that was imported from another state! They said Memphis bottled water would have cost them more.
I have to buy bottled water...when I purchased my pet rock many years ago, the booklet specified that, to maintain optimal health, it should only be given bottled water to drink and bathe in...
many years later, my pet rock and I are both still going strong, so I guess that proves that...
Not only is bottled water unhealthy for the environment, it is dangerous to our personal security and political autonomy.
The industry depends upon the same mind-set that sits still for the privatization of muncipal water supplies, as was done, most famously, in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Citizens and peasants ended up giving their lives to regain control of their water after rate hikes, contamination and service disruptions, suffered at the hands of the corporate parasites foisted upon the Bolivian government by the World Bank.
Private corporations should not be allowed to control fresh water resources under any circumstanceds, anywhere in the world. If we stand still for it, we put them in position to demand payment for the one, true necessity of life.
If you resent the health care corporations power of life and death, then trust that you ain't seen nothin' yet. In the health care sector there's at least the fig leaf of humanitarian concern. The commercial engineering firms and resource consortia that are trying to profit from water scarcity are even less ethically constrained. Their managers and shareholders will corner the market on Fiji, while they extort the rest of us on literal pain of death.
Ask everyone you know to take their tap water, filtered or not, in a stainless steel bottle, and to avoid bottled water.
It is irresponsible for you to encourage the drinking of unfiltered tap water--it is loaded with toxins such as chlorine and lead, even in the best municipal systems.
It's amazing to me that, in the stampede to stigmatize bottled water--fully justified in environmental terms--so many people, including the author of this article and the preceding commenter, are prepared to overlook the dire health hazards of a lifetime of ingesting the toxic chemicals contained in unfiltered tap water.
i'm sure i'm dead any day now but decades of plain tap water haven't killed me yet.
The beer i consume is far more dangerous.
Not that filtration is bad, and some municipalities are far worse than others, and everyone should be informed about what is in their water. i've used filters before.
But the vast majority of water i've drunk has been plain tap water. i grew up drinking Detroit water, since then it's been Seattle water. There are worse water systems that people are stuck with so i can't recommend plain tap water for everyone.
But for millions and millions, tap water is fine. You make a blanket assertion "it is loaded with toxins such as chlorine and lead, even in the best municipal systems", but i read the yearly testing reports about what is in Seattle municipal water and i feel very safe drinking it.
AND, all of us should fight for excellent municipal water systems for everyone. And fight to STOP PRODUCTION of toxic chemicals and STOP DEGRADATION of natural systems. It's all linked, and a filter on my tap is not going to turn our culture around.
By the way--EVERY municipal water system is loaded with chlorine, which is a toxin.
Check this out, genius:
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/chlorine.html
Look, i'm aware of what chlorine is and what it does. i don't know what turned you on to this or what motivates you.
But when you scream at people and treat them like idiots, it doesn't go very far.
i suppose you know that the most dangerous form of chlorine intake is from hot showers?
My Seattle drinking water is typically below 1 part-per-million chlorine when i drink it. AND, you can get chlorine out of your tap water by setting the water out for a few hours so the chlorine evaporates.
What do you think is the ultimate answer? Chlorine is used to eliminate diseases. Should we stop using chlorine? Or install filters in every home in the country? Is this a national issue that should be solved by governments installing filtration for all users of municipal water? Or is it a personal problem, and individuals should look out for themselves and install filters at their own expense?
Do you believe it is possible to develop safe municipal water system? If your ultimate answer is "Watch out fool, buy a filter!" that is not practical. Don't you think we can provide safe water for everyone? How can we do this?
I'm not treating you like you're an idiot.
You ARE an idiot.
You're points are all irrelevant.
Chlorine is toxic. You shouldn't be drinking it. If that's your pleasure, be my guest. If the chlorine is necessary to eliminate bacteria from the municipal water supply, fine-that doesn't mean you shouldn't filter it out as it comes out of your tap; it's there to kill germs in the main supply--beyond that, it's a toxin and should be filtered out, which can be done very cheaply and easily with a countertop water filter system. You're either a pathological skinflint or a masochist or both if this seems like a strange idea to you.
Wasn't Logic 101 taught at the Community College you went to? Or did you drop out in the first semester?
You're basically an ignorant blowhard.
You're all bluster, no logic, no facts. What a bore.
Good night Van. Thank you for your respect. i am certain to be very interested in what you are saying...
You try to steamroll people with attitude, because you're short on facts and logic.
Take it down a few notches--you don't really bring anything of substance to the discussion other than a flaming ego.
When you get it back in kind you start whining like a little baby.
How unseemly for a big bad dude like you!
Now go out and buy a water filter and stop bothering everybody.
Your attitude is certain to attract many people.
Your anecdotal evidence about your own physical condition is of no real interest.
Do you really expect anyone to take this level of discourse seriously?
Sure, loads of chlorine and lead are just GREAT for people. No need to filter them out! Just drink up!
Why don't you google the dreadful side effects of ingesting these poisons before you start belching up your homespun "wisdom."
Webwalk, You are dead right --- the best filter is the planet's own -- it is called wetlands ---- and in conjunction with the banning of a lot of the chemistry that is interwoven into our lives by Dow, Monsanto, Bayer, and many others. Just the residue from herbicides alone in drinking water (not even tested for most places) (and requiring charcoal filtration to partially remove --- a very expensive process not used by water bottlers) is enough to make one wish for clean rain ---except it is now acid --- and contains mercury from coal burning power plants ---- what a f#@&ked up world we have allowed the corporate structure to build for us.
He's right that it's just fine to spend your life gulping down chlorine and lead?
What are you talking about?
Some important points are glossed over in this article.
Bottled water is almost always filtered--even the spring water gets filtered. Therefore it is free of the chorine and other chemical contaminants that make municipal tap water so unhealthy.
Aquafina and Dasani are not simply bottled tap water--they are FILTERED tap water, so most of the harmful chemicals are removed.
This is the reason so many people prefer to drink bottled water--it's less harmful to the health. That's why many Europeans drink bottled water rather than tap water.
Nevertheless, the production of the stuff remains decidedly unhealthy for the environment, for the reasons specified in the article.
The answer is to install a water filter in your home or apartment. That way you get all the benefits of bottled water with none of the environmental drawbacks.
Filtered through what??? somebody's dirty tee shirt? Don't kid yourself. As to the Europeans, their use is a holdover from the period following World War II when there was no water treatment. They are getting over it.
As to home filtration ---- some are effective --- some are junk. I have lived in parts of the world where bottled water meant the difference in life and probable death. That is one thing ---- wasting resources and money to drink bottled water that is what you or someone, have already paid taxes to make potable is just plain STUPID.
Noted exception ----- It is justified for those whose water supply has been destroyed by the drilling industry's Fracking practices.
You are a Mt. Vesuvius of misinformation.
First of all, I do not advocate drinking bottled water. I made that clear. It is important, however, to filter municipal tap water--it is NOT good for you, being loaded with chlorine, lead, traces of antibiotics, medications, and all other manner of contaminants.
Dasani and Aquafina, like all commercial bottled waters, are filtered through carbon filtration systems that remove 98 percent of the chlorine and lead. Get a clue.
You know nothing about practices in Europe. Hardly anyone there drinks unfiltered tap water-they consider it fit only for washing, not consumption.
You go right ahead gulping down your daily portion of chlorine and lead. Have a ball.
In the meantime, you might want to read the following:
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/chlorine.html
I hope you will now consider two things:
Install a filtration system in your home, and stop spreading your arrant stupidities and misinformation.
I remember back in the 70s when Perrier bottled water started to be advertised. Through the use of critical thinking I thought to myself; How stupid! How many people are going to pay for water when you can get it out of your tap for free? It'll never catch on...
Maybe Perrier can start freezing their water into blocks, then use them to build igloos to be sold in Alaska and northern Canada. Think of the marketing possibilities. Buy your very own temporary dwelling, made from 100% natural materials, and completely recyclable when it melts. When you're done using it there is nothing to disassemble, and nothing to dispose of!
Act now and for no extra charge get a dogie-loo for your favorite sled dog! Don't wait quantities are limited.
Even if your tap water is "bad," the biggest kept secret in the U.S. is that you can buy a Reverse Osmosis (RO) water filter for about $200 to filter your drinking water. A RO filter removes 95% of the dissolved solids in water and also removes bacteria and viruses, if there are any. I have a well and the water is undrinkable because of salt and minerals in the water. It has 2200 parts per million of dissolved solids. My RO filter takes it down to 120 ppm and it is excellent for drinking --- Heck, I could even bottle it and sell it and it would be better drinking water than any bottled water! Maybe I will do that!!!
Oh, yes, big business and the government do not want you to know about RO filters because there is far too much profit to made by ripping off American citizens by selling them water in plastic bottles -- not only by the water bottlers, but by the plastic industry as well.
"Nobody ever went broke overestimating the gullibility of the American public." -- P.T. Barnam
Couple this gullibility with the genius of American marketing and you have one of the biggest scams perpetrated upon the public.
It is high time critical thinking skills are taught in our schools.
And of course, what is Evian spelled backwards?
Naive!!
Capitalism Kills.
"And so it goes" - Linda Ellerbee