Bottled Water and The Environment

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Bottled Water and The Environment

• Our consumer preferences for spring water,
  involve innocent choices made by individuals, but
  their cumulative impact has the potential to
  devastate springs and rivers
• -Robert Glennon

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How much do YOU know about bottled water and
the industry?(Take a true/false quiz to
determine your water wisdom)
1. Nestle, famous for its chocolate products,
owns the famous Perrier Group. 2. France has the
strongest international presence and history in
the bottled water industry. 3. Volvic and Evian
are owned by the same company. 4. Purified
drinking water is actually a special tap
water. 5. The retailers make at least half of the
profits along the supply chain. 6. Buying shelf
space at the grocery store to sell a bottled
water brand is around 50,000. 7. Europeans like
more minerals in their water. 8. How bottled
water is packaged (ie types of bottles) strongly
determines its success. 9. FDA standards on
water are not strictly enforced. 10. An issue
that confronts the bottled water industry is
exploitative labor practices. 11. Water "bars"
have once existed in the United States. 12. Tap
water in some cities may have more minerals than
bottled water. 13. China's bottled water market
is expected to grow by 150 in the next five
years. http//www.soc.duke.edu/s142tm16/answe
rs.htm
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Bottled Water in U.S.

• Americans shell out more than 10,000 "every
  minute of every day" or up to 30 cents for a
  glass of bottled water
• 1978 Consumption 415 Million Gallons
• 2001 Consumption 5.4 Billion Gallons
• Consumer Reports Magazine (2000)
• Water Follies (2002)

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Why Drink Bottled Water?
www.toothpastefordinner.com/102002/
drink-bottled-water.gif
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Bottled Water is Big Business

• REVENUES (2003)
• 7.7 Billion in US
• 35 Billion Worldwide
• (Beverage Marketing Corp.)

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Bottled Water vs. Tap Water

• Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
  estimates that bottled water is 240 times to
  10,000 times more expensive than tap water.
• Spring Water 4.50 to 7.50 per gallon
• Tap Water 0.07 to 0.20 per gallon

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Who Drinks Bottled Water?

• 60 Of Americans
• 43 Billion 16 ounce bottles

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Why Do Americans Drink Bottled Water?

• Americans drink bottled water primarily for
  aesthetic reasons the taste, smell, and
  appearance of the water.
• Tap water supplies are often treated with
  chlorine, which can leave an aftertaste or odor.
  Bottled water, on the other hand, is usually
  treated by ozonation and filtration, processes
  that leave no aftertaste.
• Despite almost half (49) of the respondents to
  an AWWA survey saying they believe bottled and
  tap water to be equal in quality -- 37 responded
  that bottled water is safer and healthier to
  drink than tap water, as opposed to only 10 who
  said the opposite.
• A perception most chalk up to clever advertising
  by the bottled water industry.

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Who Are The Players?

• 700 brands are sold in the United States
• Aquafina PepsiCo
• Dasani Coca-Cola
• Nestle Perrier and 72 brands in 160 countries
• Dannon Visit one of their plants at Mt. Shasta!

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Who Is Perrier?

• Perrier 32 of U.S Market
• Arrowhead
• Calistoga
• Poland Spring
• Ozarka
• Ice Mountain
• Deer Park
• Many, many others

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Who is Dannon?

• No. 2 worldwide in bottled water
• Evian
• Volvic
• Dannon Natural Spring Water (from Mt. Shasta)
• Pure American
• Enon Springs
• Alhambra Junior Sport Drinking Water
• Sparkletts Junior Sport Drinking Water

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The Bottled Water Process
About one-fourth of bottled water is tap
water. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
(International Bottled Water Association)
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Types of Bottled Water

• Artesian Water/Artesian Well Water - Water from a
  well that taps a water-bearing underground rock
  or sand formation (aquifer) in which the water
  level stands at some height above the top of the
  aquifer.
• Drinking Water - Water that is bottled sanitarily
  without added sweetners or chemical additives. It
  must contain no calories, no sugar and very low
  amounts of sodium. Flavors, extracts, or essences
  may be added, but they must not exceed more than
  1 of the weight of the product.
• Mineral Water - Water containing no less than 250
  parts per million total dissolved solids. It has
  constant level and relative proportions of
  mineral and trace elements at the point of
  emergence from the source. No minerals can be
  added, but may contain calcium, iron, and sodium.
  Many times from a geothermal well or spring.
• Purified Water - Water from which all minerals
  and any other solids have been removed. May also
  be called distilled, deionized, or reverse
  osmosis.
• Sparkling Water - Water that after treatment and
  possible replacement with carbon dioxide contains
  the same amount of carbon dioxide that it
  contained at the source.
• Spring Water - Water derived from an underground
  formation from which water flows naturally to the
  surface of the earth. It must be collected only
  at the spring or through a bore hole tapping the
  underground formation.
• Well Water - Water from a hole bored or drilled
  in the ground which taps the water of an aquifer. 

http//www.soc.duke.edu/s142tm16/glossary.htm
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Premium Sources () Cool Geothermal Springs
Periodic Spring, WY
Thermopolis Hot Springs, WY
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Artesian Wells

• Not as valuable as Spring sources due to public
  perception that springs are more pure, despite
  flowing well water is from the same aquifer as
  the spring and has an identical chemical
  composition as the spring water.
• Water Follies (2002)

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Bottled Water Regulations

• Bottled water, unlike tap water provided by a
  utility, is considered a food. The U.S. Food and
  Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled
  water.
• EPA is responsible for the safety of drinking
  water from public water systems through SDWA.
• (Joe Gelt, Arroyo, 1996 IBWA, 2003)

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Contaminants Found in Bottled Water?

• 22 violated enforceable limits.
• 17 violated guidelines.
• Some waters exceeded both state limits and state
  guidelines, so the total that violated one or the
  other was 33
• (NRDC, 1997-1999)

Percentages indicate of waters for which at
least one test found containment. Number of
waters tested 103.
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Is Bottled Water Safer?

• In 1989 the Environmental Policy Institute
  concluded that bottled water is not necessarily
  any safer than tap waterdue to bacterial growth
  in the water.
• EPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water,
  stresses that although studies are inconclusive
  on the issue, bacteria in bottled water doesn't
  seem to be a significant problem. (Critical
  thinking in action?)
• February 1990, benzene, a chemical known to cause
  cancer in humans, was detected in bottles of
  Perrier at levels that exceeded by four times the
  EPA standards for tap water. Perrier recalled
  more than 170 million bottles as a result of the
  contamination
• Perrier incident prompts U.S. General Accounting
  Office to charge the FDA with failing to set
  "adequate safety standards for chemical
  contamination of bottled water."

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Is Bottled Water Safer?

• In 1994, the FDA passed regulations that impose
  the same standards on bottled water as the EPA
  imposes on tap water. An exception is lead lead
  content may not exceed 5 parts per billion in
  bottled water, whereas EPA limits lead in tap
  water to 15 parts per billion.
• Bottled water may help to bypass other potential
  problems brought about by the practice of public
  water suppliers of adding chlorine to drinking
  water to remove bacteria. Although chlorine kills
  bacteria effectively, it can react with organic
  matter in water to form by-products such as
  trihalomethanes which have been linked to bladder
  and rectal cancers. Chlorine is not used as a
  disinfectant in bottled water.

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Whats In Bottled Water?

• Drink lots of water.
• Tap water is best, but if you must drink
• bottled water, do 60 extra sit-ups per day
  because bottled water contains an enzyme that
  produces more cellulite to the abdomen.

Brigid, The Sarcasm Diet (2003)
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Bottled Water Environmental Problems

• an immense waste of energy and plastic and
  resources if you consider the number of bottles
  that are made and transported and disposed of
  (NRDC)

• US Consumes Equivalent of 43 Billion 16
  ounce bottles
• Japan disposes of 6 Billion plastic bottles to
  Tokyo Bay in 1998
• Water Follies (2002)

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Bottled Water Environmental Problems

• Tap water comes from underground pipes, while
  the manufacture, distribution and disposal of
  bottled water requires much more energy and
  fuel.
• It takes 1,851 gallons of water to refine one
  barrel of crude oil.
• Twenty-four gallons are needed to make one pound
  of plastic.
• BBC (2001)
• Emily Gersema, Associated Press (2003)

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Bottled Water Environmental Problems

• The French company, Perrier - Vittel, bought the
  Buxton mineral water bottling plant in Britain's
  Peak District national park 14 years ago when it
  produced half a million bottles a year.
• Now production is up more than a hundred fold to
  55 million. Today they bottle, ship and sell a
  quarter of the flow from the Buxton source - and
  demand is growing.
• BBC (2000)

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Bottled Water Environmental Problems

• The NRDC says the booming bottled water industry
  could be draining aquifers and other water
  resources, contributing to pollution and
  producing energy inefficiencies.
• It's absolutely absurd to be putting this very
  heavy bulky and yet supercheap product in bottles
  which weigh almost as much as the product and
  carting these around the world."
• "It uses enormous amounts of energy and that in
  turn fuels climate change and yet it's climate
  change which is the biggest threat facing the
  world's water resources in the future. This is
  just craziness.
• (Matt Phillips of Friends of the Earth)

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Bottled Water Environmental Problems
In some localities, exported water may be better
left in the watershed. Spring sources bring in
the premium price, but also are part of wetlands,
streams, and river ecosystems. Water Follies
(2002)
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Shifting international geography of the bottled
water industry

• In five years, bottled water consumption will be
  highest along the Pacific Rim. China is expecting
  large growth.
• Canada will continue to close the gap between
  them and France in imports.
• Mexico also looks to be a place where many plants
  might decide to invest.
• A decade ago, France was considered at the center
  of the industry, but as of 2000 the industry
  seems to heading in all directions.
• 
  
  http//www.soc.duke.edu/s142tm16/concl
  ude.htm

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Conclusions

• Bottled water isn't worth the price, especially
  considering that it must be purchased,
  transported, and stored by the consumer.
• Canadian water researcher Pierre Payment
  (Armand-Frappier Institute - Associated Press)
  indicates that municipalities should advertise
  the quality of their water the way bottled water
  companies do, because "North American tap water
  is the best you can get. (San Francisco is doing
  this)
• If you must buy bottled water, look for
  Purified or an Artesian source because it is
  just as pure, if not more pure, as Spring
  Source.
• Wells located very close to springs can be sold
  as spring water. These wells dry up the
  springs. Let the springs discharge to the
  wetlands, streams, and rivers.