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Water Wars: Bottling Up the Worlds Supply of H20

In Water Wars, Joshua Ortega discusses the issue of bottled water usage as having a negative impact on the consumer, environment and economy. The consumer would be affected because bottled water is often far less sanitary than tap water. Plastic used to manufacture the bottles is harmful to the environment, both in terms of production of the bottles and improper disposal after being used. Artificially created demand for bottled water could lead to the privatization of a countries water supply which would affect the price and quality of water in a negative way.
A common misconception is that bottled water is supposedly more sanitary than tap water. Bottled water companies use their advertising dollars to convince the consumers that because their water comes from a bottle, it has higher quality standards. In reality, as Ortega points out, there are actually fewer regulations on bottled water than tap water – at least in the United States. Part of the reason for this is because tap water is a public resource and data on the quality of the resource is available publicly. Private bottled water companies are not required to make sanitation data available to the public.
Bottles for water are most commonly made from Polyethylene Terephthalate plastic (PET) which is a non-environmentally friendly material for a number of reasons. Ortega highlights the fact that it takes “17.5 kilograms of water to produce only 1 kilogram of PET” (10) and that the production of this plastic releases harmful greenhouse gasses into the environment. These plastic bottles are recyclable, however too many of them are still ending up rotting in landfills. Ortega says that only 10% of plastic bottles produced will actually be recycled.
The privatization of water could have a strong negative impact on societies around the globe. Ortega cites that “when the French privatized their water services, customer rates went up 150 percent within a few years” (19). Another issue with water privatization is that data pertaining to the quality of water is not made publicly available (much like the way that information about bottled water is not available).  The danger with allowing a private company to manage water is that the company will not be focused on providing a quality resource but instead they will focus on their own profits which could quickly lead to inflated prices and reduced quality of water.

Tap water in the US is a public resource that is provided and monitored by the government. For American citizens the choice between bottled water and tap water shouldn’t be based on the quality of the water supplied because, according to an article released in the FDA Consumer Magazine in 2002, tap water and bottled water have nearly identical regulations in the US. Henry Kim, Ph.D is quoted in the article, “Generally, over the years, the FDA has adopted EPA standards for tap water as standards for bottled water” (Bullers 2002).  The article, titled “Bottled Water: Better Than The Tap?” by Anne Bullers, argues that in some cases it may even be more beneficial to drink tap water because tap water often has added fluoride. “Many communities have elected to add fluoride to drinking water to promote strong teeth and prevent tooth decay in residents,” Bullers points out (Bullers 2002). Despite the high standards the government has set for tap water, there are still some areas where tap water may have an unusual color or chlorinated taste. An important point to note, according to Bullers, is that harmful contaminants in water are often unable to be seen or tasted. Any unpleasant taste or color that comes with tap water can be easily fixed with an inexpensive filtration system attached to your tap faucet.
While bottled water may be convenient, it has high environmental costs associated with its production and disposal. In an article for National Geographic, James Owen cites a report released by Earth Policy Institute (EPI) in 2006 which “says global consumption of bottled water doubled between 1999 and 2004, reaching 41 billion gallons (154 billion liters) annually” (Owen 2006) Producing the plastic for all of these bottles takes one and a half million barrels of oil each year according to the EPI report.  This fact alone should (and does) raise concerns about the impact of consumer habits in the US. If the quality of water coming from the tap is the same as the quality of water sold to us in bottles is identical, we should consider the difference in cost of each method.  Owen points out, however, that in developing countries safe tape water is not always as widely available and bottled water may be the only source of drinking water available. In these countries we should focus our attention on creating a reliable plumbing infrastructure since importing bottled water is not practical in the long run.
The environmental toll of bottled water continues beyond that caused by the production and distribution of the bottles.  It turns out, according to Nancy Cohen from NPR, that out of the 20% or so of bottles that are actually recycled, many of them are shipped across the globe yet again! The international market to recycle PET plastic is huge, “the Chinese are coming to the U.S. to buy nearly 40 percent of the bottles Americans recycle,” Cohen says (Cohen 2007). Because so much of American recyclables are exported to China, some US based recycling companies are actually resorting to purchasing plastic bottles from Canada and Mexico.  Because of this, additional oil is being consumed to transport those used bottles yet again. According to NPR, these recycling bottles are being turned into “carpets, clothing, automotive parts and even new bottles” which at least reduces the number of bottles that wind up in landfills (Cohen 2007).

Some people might argue that bottled water is a more practical solution than re-usable bottles because they offer the convenience of being thrown away instead of having to be carried back home. Bottled waters portability makes it a popular drink for events such as picnics or other outdoor events where tap water is not normally available.  For some countries bottled water is also a profitable product to export to wealthy nations such as the US. For other countries, bottled water is also the only form of clean drinking water available and so having it available in mass quantities is highly beneficial.

Americans should be concerned with this issue because it’s yet another instance where a very small portion of the world’s population is consuming a very large amount of the resources available to all humans on the planet. If every nation were to generate as many used plastic bottles as America, we would very quickly find that there is not nearly enough oil to keep producing bottles and that there is also not nearly enough space to put them all when we’re done with them.
The battle between the use of bottled water and tap water is one that each and every one of us plays a major role in every day. It is not up to the government or water supply companies to determine the dominant source of water, but rather it is determined by consumer choices on the large scale. Bottled water is not a bad thing – in many situations it is far more convenient and practical to drink bottled water than to look for a drinking fountain or tap. The big problem is when people begin to drink bottled water regularly as a part of their everyday lifestyle; grabbing a bottle of water on the way out the door isn’t really that much more convenient than filling up a re-usable bottle from your sink and taking it with you, and it definitely is more harmful for the environment.

The first step to bringing about a change in American society is for everyone to make small changes in their lives and encourage others to do the same. For college students, this means eliminating the habit of buying bottled water in bulk as a primary source of drinking water and investing in a filter (then actually using it).  By switching to a filter in my own dorm room I have reduced the number of plastic bottles that I throw away each week from more than ten to only one or two, if any. Over the course of a semester I estimate that I will have saved a couple hundred bottles and a considerable amount of money. Making this small change in my lifestyle may not cause a huge impact in the large scale, but if I can convince friends and neighbors to do the same then, slowly, the change may one day propagate to the community on a larger scale.
Works Cited

Johnson, June. Global Issues, Local Arguments. New York: Pearson Education, Inc, 2007.

Christiansen Bullers, Anne . “Bottled Water: Better Than the Tap?” FDA Consumer magazine. Aug 2002. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 8 Dec 2008 <http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2002/402_h2o.html>.

Owen, James. “Bottled Water Isn’t Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals.” 24 Feb 2006. National Geographic. 8 Dec 2008 <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/
0224_060224_bottled_water.html>.

Cohen, Nancy. “For Empty Water Bottles, There’s an Afterlife.” The Water Debate Continues: Bottled vs. Tap. 11 june 2007. NPR. 8 Dec 2008 <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12173651>.