My name's Jeff and I am addicted to bottled water. While I'll admit that I love bottled water, possibly for no reason, it sure does seem that most of America does too. Water bottles. Americans are obsessed with them. In a world where 1,000,000,000 people do not have access to safe drinking water and where 3,000 children die every year from drinking tainted water, Americans still spent $15,000,000,000 on water bottles in 2006. We import water from places like Fiji; a small island country in which 50% of the population does not have access to safe drinking water. On the other hand, as the popularity of bottled water increases, the popularity of soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi is decreasing (or at least their growth is lsowing as more consumers switch from soda to water). Thus, the American public is being slightly healthier, albeit wasteful.
We've got a lot to cover, so I'd like to take just a second to apologize for my posting hiatus. I was on vacation but plan to jump right back into things.
Let's take a second to address authenticity. Now, many people who drink bottled water on a regular basis do so because they have the notion that for some reason, it is healthier than tap water. Just a little tidbit: 24% of the bottled water that Americans buy is simply tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi. Dasani (owned by Coca-Cola) and Aquafina (owned by Pepsi Co.) are nothing more than bottled, purified tap water. If you look at their respective labels, you'll clearly see that no where does it indicate that it's "Spring Water;" simply purified. Companies like Fiji, Evian, and Zephyrhills (subsidiary of Nestle), however, do provide genuine spring water.
Waste. It's a huge problem. First, just think about all the resources that are wasted just to transport bottles of water. It's almost unfathomable. Further, as stated in Message in a Bottle by Charles Fishman, we, as a country put 38 billion water bottles per year into landfills. That's over $1 billion worth of plastic -- simply discarded. How about fuel? As we all know, crude oil prices are constantly increasing and gasoline is becoming more expensive by the day. It's not as affordable to get around by automobile as it used to be. With that it mind, at the demand of US consumers, 1,000,000,000 bottles of water are transported weekly by ships, trains, and trucks. That's equivalent to around 37,800 full 18-wheeler truck loads of bottled water. Incase you're bad at math, that'd be approximately 1,965,600 full truck loads per year. Physical waste, unfortunately, is not all. How about monetary waste? Let's put the amount of money that's being wasted in perspective. If regular home tap water cost as much as a cheap bottle of water, the average home water bill would be $9,000 per month. Wow.
Let's take a quick look at the psychology behind this all. There is undoubtedly a human motivation to indulge. Whether it's on some expensive caviar at the finest restaurant in France or simply a bottle of Poland Springs water, the human mind is certainly the culprit. Myths, tall tales, and urban legends are simply tools that our minds use as an excuse or justification for this indulgence. Think about how much easier it is to spend money if I "think" it's the right thing to do. If I am convinced that even though this bottle of water will cost me $1.35, it will be healthier for me, my mind immediately has a justification to spend more money. Then, I don't have to feel guilty about spending money for something that I could've gotten for free, because...I have a reason. Advertising ploys help give our minds' these reasons, and thus provoke the purchase of more bottled water. If you recall the Dasani commercial with the bear in the forest drinking Dasani, maybe you'll be able to look back on it and think about what that ad was trying to do. If a bear, a product of nature, can drink the water, then surely I can do so as well, without harming the environment. Convenience is being sold to us, not water. As I mentioned before, the plastic that is dumped into landfills annually totals up to $1 billion; obviously that's the predominant cost, not the water.
As a nation, myself included, we must reduce our dependence on bottled water. We need to ensure that we're not taking safe water from developing countries and not contributing to a significant environmental problem. I urge you all...next time you're in the grocery store and are about to put a case of bottled waters in your cart, think again. Use tap and you really can make a difference. If it's water quality that's truly important to you, invest in a simple faucet water filter like those offered by Brita or Pur for your home or a high-tech "water cooler" filtration system by PureBev or FreshWaterSystems for your office. Remember, once you go tap, you never go back.
Links: Fast Company: Message in a Bottle
9news: Pepsi says Aquafina is tap water
BBC: Soft Drink is purified tap water
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