Unnecessary consumption of drinking water in plastic bottles is wasteful and damaging to the environment. Millions of plastic bottles are not recycled and end up in landfills, in parks and along roadways. Nine out of ten plastic water bottles end up as garbage or litter. That’s 30 million discarded plastic bottles each day— more than 10 billion a year. Large amounts of energy is consumed in manufacture, transportation, and recycling of the bottles.

Most smaller bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). PET is a petroleum product that generates more than 100 times more toxic emissions than an equivalent amount of glass, according to the Berkeley Ecology Center. Because plastic bottles are presently recycled at such low rates, tens of billions of new plastic bottles must be manufactured each year from virgin materials— fossil fuels—to replace those bottles that were not recycled. When PET plastic bottles are made from virgin materials rather than used bottle resin, more greenhouse gases are produced as well. An estimated 800 thousand metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE) were released in the process of making approximately 50 billion new PET bottles from virgin rather than recycled materials. 

Leaching of chemicals into the water is also a concern. “Eight of the ten 5-gallon polycarbonate jugs that the Sierra Club’s water task force checked left residues of the endocrine disrupter, bisphenol A, in the water”(Consumer Reports 8/00). More research is needed regarding leaching of harmful chemicals from all types of plastic bottles. Leaching increases with heat, raising concern about storage and transportation of the bottles. No problems have been associated with refillable stainless steel containers.

Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which has weaker regulations than the EPA regulations for tap water. (“What’s in that Bottle?” Consumer Reports 1/03.)  Bottled water sold within states is regulated only by state agencies. NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) tested more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. They found contamination exceeding allowable limits in at least one sample from about one-third of the brands, including synthetic organics, bacteria, and arsenic. (Click Here to read the NRDC report)

The bottled water industry promotes bottled water as a healthy, trendy drink, without mentioning that it can cost 1,000 times as much as tap water. All people should have access to affordable, clean drinking water. This means protecting water sources and funding for upgrading municipal systems should be a national priority. If you are concerned about the quality or taste of your tap water, it is much cheaper to install a water filter on your tap to remove the pollutants than to depend on bottled water.

Having created a growing market for bottled water, transnational corporations are exercising their power to get access to springs, aquifers, and municipal water supplies to keep their profits flowing, with little regard for the environmental impacts of large water withdrawals. Nestlé has taken over many small, independent companies, set up much larger operations at local springs, and is aggressively pursuing new sites around the Unites States. Coke’s Dasani and Pepsi’s Aquafina brands depend on cheap municipal water in the United States. Coke’s bottled water operation in India is embroiled in controversy, where a “ Boycott Coke” campaign is underway.

Growth in the bottled water market not only undermines public confidence in the government’s ability to provide basic services, but it also increases municipal government waste disposal costs. Last year, at least four billion pounds of plastic bottles ended up in city waste streams. It can cost cities more than $70 million in disposal fees, not including the costs of collection, trucking and litter removal

W H AT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

• Avoid using bottled water unless absolutely necessary.
• Use reusable stainless steel containers and carry tap water with you when traveling.
• At public events and at home, offer pitchers of water.
• Advocate for strict state and local groundwater laws to protect aquifers and other water resources.
• Ensure that good quality tap water is available for everyone in your community at an affordable price.
• Advocate for adequate funding and good public management of municipal water systems.
• Research the quality of your public drinking water. For consumer confidence reports, go to www.epa.gov/safewater/ccr1.html. For information about your local drinking water, go to www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo.htm

(Source: SierraClub.org, EPA, National Resources Defense Council)