Why bottled water is unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly, & a joke
Real Food Recipes
Unhealthy
*Gasp!* How could bottled water be unhealthy? It is water after all.
Let’s start with the water itself. Bottled water is not nearly as strictly regulated as tap water. Tap water is regulated by the EPA, which requires municipalities to have their water quality tested annually by certified laboratories, and then provide the results to the public. Bottled water, on the other hand, is regulated by the FDA, which does not have the regulatory power to require bottled water companies to test water using certified labs or to provide the results of any testing to the public. Even if high levels of contaminants are found in the water, companies do not need to report the test results. While state standards are often stricter than the FDA’s standards, they are typically still more slack than those for tap water. This is concerning given the fact that almost 50% of bottled water is municipal tap water that has not been treated or filtered.
Now onto the little plastic bottles. Nearly all of American water bottles begin in the Flint Hills Refinery Complex in Corpus Christie, Texas, where the people in the surrounding communities have suffered as a result of their production: the town sees higher rates of cancer, birth defects (84% higher than the state average), and respiratory problems. This suffering is a direct result of the harmful chemicals used in production of the plastic. Many of these chemicals end up in the final plastic product, and then leech into the water. Studies have found that some of the chemicals found in bottled water are either well-known carcinogens or are known to cause obesity, diabetes, brain disorders, liver disease, ovarian disease, low sperm count, and more.
Environmentally unfriendly
Bottled water is bottled in PET or PETE, which is derived from crude oil (80% of PET manufactured in the US goes to soda manufacturers, including their bottled water products). Plastic water bottle manufacturing uses 714 million gallons of oil every year, enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.
In addition to consuming our natural resources to make the bottles, the entire bottled water process uses fuel for energy: energy to transport the water, energy to filter it (if they do filter it), energy to bottle the water, energy to label and box the bottles, energy to ship the bottles, etc. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that the energy required to bring a typical 1-liter bottle of water to a US consumer is 1,100 to 2,000 times higher than the energy cost of producing tap water. And all of this energy inevitably releases greenhouse gasses and other pollutants.
A joke
In 2007, Americans bought more than 29 billion bottles of water.
The bottled water industry is worth 800 billion dollars (and primarily run by the large soda corporations).
The cost of bottled water is more than the cost of gasoline.
Bottled water is sold to people at 1,900 times the price of municipal tap water yet…
Almost half of all bottled water is simply municipal tap water that has been packaged in little plastic bottles (the real kicker!).
What now!?
Did I burst your plastic-water-bottle bubble? Don’t worry! There is a simple solution: buy a fantastic water filter and a glass water bottle. That’s all there is to it!
Read about what’s in your water if you need extra convincing to make the investment in a quality filter (and no, I’m not talking about a pitcher filter; those don’t do very much) – it is one of the best investments you can make in your health.
Sources and further reading
- Environmental Working Group, Bottled Water Scorecard
- Tapped (documentary free online)
- US Government Accountability Office, FDA Safety and Consumer Protections Are Often Less Stringent Than Comparable EPA Protections for Tap Water
- Business Insider, 15 Outrageous Facts About The Bottled Water Industry
Hi bouncedancer (and the rest of you),
Something you should realize is that ALL vitamin and mineral supplements are CHEMICALLY PROCESSED (See below for the ONE possible exception). Your vitamins have been extracted with chemical solvents and are not a good, safe, affordable, or wise choice. So taking vitamin and mineral supplements isn’t going to help you, isn’t an intelligent or acceptable alternative, and is a naive practice. These companies don’t squeeze real food until vitamins and minerals drip out and then package them for you, and they don’t grow your vitamins in a field either. Just like they don’t grown plastic bottles… regardless of what your bottle label says. More on bottles that are “plant derived” below.
The ONE exception to this is if you can find a company that grows their own non-GMO food without chemical, artificial, or toxic pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc, that doesn’t water those crops with municipal water, but rather with properly treated and filtered water so those plants are not absorbing all of those toxins. Then that company would have to dry the fruits and vegetables, grind them at low speed to keep temperatures down and then press that powdered food into a pill, and then package those pills in GLASS bottles (not plastic bottles) with a solid one piece metal, wood or glass cap, not a plastic cap. Bamboo lids are not acceptable because they contain GLUE. Food Grade glue is still glue. Do you REALLY believe that any toxic chemical is safe just because someone labels it “food grade”?
“Oh no, no, no! Don’t panic! This is ‘FOOD GRADE’ rattlesnake poison that I’m administering to you”… says the rattlesnake as it is biting you.
Would that make you feel any better? And yes, this particular rattlesnake can talk… even as it is biting you. A talking rattlesnake is just as believable and likely to occur as a corporation that cares about anything other than it’s own immediate profit, regardless of whatever they try to make you believe or feel.
VITAMINS: If you buy items that contain vitamins in the ingredient list, you are buying vitamins that have been chemically extracted or that have been created artificially in labs.
Since the 70’s Corporations and government have been trying to convince us all that NATURE IS BAD, unstable, unpredictable, unsafe and imperfect; and that only things made by MAN in a Corporate or University (No real difference between those two, folks) Laboratory are safe for human consumption. Only MAN has the brains and ability to make things perfect and only MAN can provide consistency and uniformity. That is false… period.
As for the alleged environmentally friendly bottling plant… BULL! What that company has is a public relations department that is good at lying and fooling the people they serve (like when Chevron Oil tries to convince you that they actually care about the environment more than their profits… more BULL!
Have you ever driven by a farm and seen plastic water bottles growing from the ground or being harvested? Of course not! If any of you believe your plastic water bottle is actually a “plant bottle” like some labels claim, I would love hear your explanation of how ANY safe plant is magically converted from a plant into plastic. I haven’t found any plants that contain plastic in them naturally, or that break down into plastic naturally either.
REVERSE OSMOSIS: Reverse Osmosis wastes so much water that nobody using that technology can claim to be “green” or “environmentally friendly”. The very best RO systems out there still waste water at a 1:1 ratio. For every gallon of treated water, one gallon is wasted. So it takes 2 gallons to make 1 gallon. Unfortunately not many RO units only waste water at a 1:1 ratio, but rater 3:1 or worse. That is 3 gallons of water wasted to make 1 gallon of treated water. Yeah, that’s enviro-friendly… right. oh yeah, and most of those reverse osmosis units are made primarily from PLASTICS. If anyone has found ANY water treatment product that does not use any type of plastic, composite, or other synthetic materials, PLEASE let EVERYONE know about it by commenting here so we can all potentially benefit from it.
Regardless of what you choose to drink your water from or how you treat it beforehand, many of you are poisoning your bodies even worse simply by showering. Your skin absorbs more toxins through that nice hot shower water you stand in every morning than you will likely consume internally each day. Add to that all the CRAP you have been conditioned to believe that you NEED for your hair and body like all that toxic shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shave gel, hair gel, makeup, body lotion, facial serums, eye cream, etc and you have a lot more to worry about than just your drinking water.
Plastic in History: For any of you too young to know this – plastics have really only been in our lives for about 30 to 40 years. Yes plastics were being developed prior to that, but they were not in use like they are now. 30 to 40 years ago virtually ALL water, soda, juice, and more came in GLASS BOTTLES. Even those big heavy 5 gallon Sparkletts bottles you see in homes and offices were once made from glass. Mayo jars, ketchup/mustard bottles, cough syrup, peanut butter, jelly, and everything else you get in plastic containers today, once came only in glass as there were no plastic options.
Plastic was touted as a safer, lighter, and more economical choice. What ever happened to all that money they saved by shipping products in plastic rather than in heavier glass? Did you get a rebate or did the prices go down as a result? NOPE. So what was the benefit for the end user? The extra profit went to the corporation, not to the consumer. So you didn’t save any money, you started exposing yourself and your family to an array of toxic substances and literally poisoning yourself and your family with these “new and improved” products, while the corporations made more profit for themselves at your expense.