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Are You Still Being Fooled by Bottled Water?

by Cate Dobbins, Loretto Environmental Club Parent Advisor |
May 2008

Bottled water marketing is just about the most unbelievable ploy ever devised to fool a consumer -- and the bottles are a huge waste of oil and energy.

As P.T. Barnum is usually (but erroneously) credited with having said, "There’s a sucker born every minute." Bottled water marketing is just about the most unbelievable ploy ever devised to fool a consumer. According to the The Economist, it is "The ultimate proof that consumers are daft (crazy) and easily manipulated by retailers to buy things they don’t need. The success of bottled water is in many ways one of capitalism’s great mysteries."

The vast majority of bottled water does not come from some magically pure source. In fact, the largest selling brand of bottled water in the United States is Pepsi’s Dasani, and it is filtered and treated water right from the same municipal supply that comes out of our taps. According to a study from the watchdog organization the Center for Science In The Public Interest, bottled water is not safer or healthier than plain old tap water.

In many instances when you consume bottled water ($2 per 16 ounce bottle is not uncommon when dining out) you could be paying well over $10 per gallon for it- two and one half times the current average price of gasoline that many people are complaining so bitterly about! If you drank the recommended eight glasses a day in this manner, you would be spending over $5800 annually, while the same amount of tap water costs less than 50 cents. Even factoring in the cost of a countertop water filter carafe such as a Brita or Pur, and the filters needed for a year, you would still spend less than $50. And that does not even take into account the energy that would be saved by not producing, handling and transporting bottled water, and the cost of recycling (or especially not recycling!) the bottles.

Bottled water is not only an outrage just from an economic standpoint- it is very harmful to our environment. There is virtually no limit to how many times a water bottle can be recycled into new water bottles, yet less than 1 % of the bottles are recycled globally. More than 250 million bottles PER DAY in the United States alone are NOT recycled! There is curbside recycling for #1, or PET/PETE plastics if you still refuse to give up the habit.

If your last argument is that you drink it because you think it tastes better, then you need to try the newest generation of water filter carafes available. If you still believe the taste of bottled water is better, conduct a blind taste test in your home, sampling bottled and tap water at the same temperature. This will determine if your taste buds know the difference. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Several well-publicized taste tests have shown many water drinkers can't distinguish which is bottled. In fact, some bottled water tastes worse than tap water because it can pick up a plastic taste from the bottle or jug. But, if you find you dislike tap water--it's true that some tap water has a distinct chlorine aftertaste--try storing tap water uncovered in the refrigerator overnight to let the chlorine dissipate. Or you could use a simple carafe filter. Consumer Reports rates all the carafe filters it tested as good or very good at removing lead and chloroform. It found the Pur Advantage CR-1500R, $18, good, and the Brita Classic OB01, $20, very good at removing bad tastes."

In case you were wondering- there are only two scenarios in which I personally buy bottled water. One is at the airport for drinking on an airplane. The other is when I visit venues such as Wild Adventures theme park, because they do not permit any type of outside beverages except for bottled water. (They do check the seal to ensure the bottle has not been opened.) In this case, it is much less expensive to bring in my own bottles (and then of course bring them home to recycle!) versus the up to $3 per bottle price of their bottle of the water. It’s also a lot healthier than the equally overpriced soda or imitation juice drinks they sell.

Recently there has been some (albeit inconclusive) evidence that drinking from reusable plastic bottles could pose some health risks. If you are concerned about this possibility, simply buy a stainless steel reusable water bottle. And as long as you wash your bottle frequently, you will be doing both the earth and your wallet a great favor!

Please go to http://www.environmentalethics-sihe.co.uk/pdfs/ALYSARTICLE_Edit.pdf and www.reason.org/peg2.html for more in depth information about this subject.

Published with permission of the author and Mandarin NewsLine, the publication in which this article originally appeared.

More information is also available about bottled water from Karen Kempf's article on the subject.