Bottled Water and The Environment

1
Bottled Water and The Environment

• Outcomes of Lecture
• You are consumers so you make decisions with your
  money.
• Bottled water makes a lot of money for big
  business.
• Manufacturing of plastic bottles uses lots of
  water.
• Bottled water is environmentally expensive to
  distribute.
• Free Lunch? - Bottled water dries up springs and
  rivers.

2
Park RecordPark City, Utah

• Oakley water 'special'By Patrick ParkinsonOf
  the Record staff
• Saturday, March 20, 2004 - A Park City water
  company will soon be bottling water from a spring
  in Oakley for sale to exclusive restaurants
  nationwide. Robert Sasser, a proprietor of
  Wasatch Ice Water Company, said based on carbon
  dating, the water is more than 21,000 years old.
• "It's a completely protected aquifer, which is
  very, very unusual, Sasser said.
• Oakley residents often call the water "dinosaur
  water or "the springs of eternal life, Sasser
  said.
• "There's no contaminates of any kind in the
  water, he said, adding that the water was
  discovered nearly 2,000 feet underground.
• Sasser said when marketed commercially, the
  Oakley water would be the most expensive water
  in the United States.
• "We just got the well about six years ago,
  Woolstenhulme said, adding that the city obtained
  water rights from the state to use the well water
  last year. The well is near land leased by the
  company.

3
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
• 2000s Consumption 5.4 Billion Gallons
• Per capita consumption increased from 10.5
  gallons in 1993 to 22.6 gallons in 2003.
• Consumer Reports Magazine (2000)
• Water Follies (2002), msnbc (2005)

4
Who Drinks Bottled Water?

• 60 Of Americans
• 43 Billion 16 ounce bottles

http//www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/402_h2o.html
5
Why Drink Bottled Water?
www.toothpastefordinner.com/102002/
drink-bottled-water.gif
6
Bottled Water is Big Business

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

7
Who Are The Players?

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

8
Who Is Perrier?

• Perrier 32 of U.S Market
• Arrowhead
• Calistoga (Spring Mineral)
• Poland Spring
• Ozarka
• Ice Mountain
• Deer Park
• Perrier (Mineral Water)

9
Who is Dannon?

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

10
Who Dominates Market In Oregon?

• Nestle 29
• Crystal Geyser 20
• Pepsi 20
• Coca-Cola 18
• Others EartH20 and other smaller bottlers who
  are our neighbors 4

11
Types of Bottled Water

• Artesian Water/Artesian Well Water - Water from a
  well that taps an aquifer in which the water
  level stands at some height above the top of the
  aquifer. Not as valuable as Spring Water, but may
  be the same water.
• Drinking Water - Water that is bottled sanitarily
  without added sweetners or chemical additives.
  Flavors, extracts, or essences may be added.
• Mineral Water - Water containing no less than 250
  parts per million total dissolved solids. 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.
• 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 drilled in the
  ground which taps the water of an aquifer. 

http//www.soc.duke.edu/s142tm16/glossary.htm
12
Sources of Bottled Water
13
Premium Sources () Cool Geothermal Springs
Periodic Spring, WY
Thermopolis Hot Springs, WY
14
Bottled Water vs. Tap Water

• Bottled water is alot more expensive than tap
  water.
• Lets go shopping and find out how much it costs
• Corvallis Tap Water 0.03 to 0.05 per gallon
• Brita Filter Pitcher (25.00) and filter (8.00)
  the filter alone gets us to 0.10 to 0.12
  /gal.
• Vending Machine (BYOB) 0.30 to 0.40/gal
• Bulk water (No Fancy Bottle) Treated Portland
  Water (0.68/gal) Unknown Spring (0.78/gal)
• Bottled Waters Mt. Shasta 2.56/gal to
• Perrier 5.03/gal
• Park City Ice Water 18.00/gal
• About one-fourth of bottled water is treated tap
  water.
• Aquafina 3.77/gal
• Dasani 3.38/gal
• Retail outlets charge upwards of 50,000 for
  shelf space, and make about 50 of the profits.

15
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)

16
Corvallis Water SDWA
17
(No Transcript)
18
Corvallis Water SDWA
19
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.

The Sarcasm Diet (2003)
20
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.
21
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."

22
March 19, 2004
23
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.

24
Corvallis Water SWDA
25
Bottled Water Environmental Problems

• It takes 1,851 gallons of water to refine one
  barrel of crude oil.
• Twenty-four gallons of water are needed to make
  one pound of plastic.
• 1.5 million tons of plastic used per year to make
  bottles for bottled water.
• Thats 24gal/pd X 2000 pd/ton x 1.5 million tons
  72 billion gallons of water or 24 times the
  quantity of water used by the City of Corvallis
  every year to make bottles that are empty.
• Emily Gersema, Associated Press (2003)
• FAO

26
Bottled Water Environmental Problems

• Another look at the situation
• 1.5 million tons of plastic used per year to
  make bottles for bottled water.
• American Plastics Association indicates that
  for
• every kilo (2.2 lbs.) of plastic used for PET
  bottled water bottles, it takes about 0.6 gallons
  of oil.
• Thats.
• 1.5 M tons X 2000 lbs/ton X 0.3 gal/lb. X 1
  bbl/42gal 21.4 M bbl of oil to make empty PET
  bottles

27
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 Polyester (PET) bottles
• Only 16 of bottles get recycled in California,
  only 12 in US, yet the bottles can be recycled
  20 to 30 times.
• Recycling rate has fallen from 54 in 1994 to
  19 in 2003
• Water Follies (2002), www.designinsite.dk,
• msnbc, 2005

What about the landfill management problem?
Try flattening a plastic bottle.
28
Bottled Water Environmental Solutions

• Bottled water in plastic made from cornstarch
  which biodegrades. Sold at Wild Oats stores for
  1.79.

29
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.
• How is Bottled Water is distributed?
• How are the bottles recycled or thrown away?
• (BBC)

(International Bottled Water Association)
30
Bottled Water Environmental Problems
31
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)

32
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. Most of our recycled bottles go
  there.
• 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

Projected Annual Growth in Consumption
http//www.panda.org/downloads/freshwater/bottled_
water.pdf
33
Conclusions

• If the use of bottled water continues to increase
  at the current rate, the world will be in short
  supply in 22 years.
• Bottled water isn't worth the price, especially
  considering that it must be purchased,
  transported, and stored by the consumer.
• Canadian Armand-Frappier Institute 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 using
  Hetch Hetchy Reservoir water)

34
Recommendations

• If you must buy bottled water, look for
  Purified or Well water in Corvallis because
  it is just as pure, if not more pure, as a
  Spring Source.
• Think about thisOur 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
• Recycle your bottles. The plastics industry
  really does want your bottle back.

35
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. Bottled
water labeled Spring Water can come from a
well. 11. Bottled Spring water can impact
springs that discharge to rivers. 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. Modified after http//www.soc.duke.edu/
s142tm16/answers.htm
36
Thank You For Your Attention