Bad to the last drop

An article in the Heiffer International magazine a couple of months ago about Tom Standage's observations, analysis and conclusions on growing use of bottled water in developed countries got Carol and I thinking, and digging.

Here's an excerpt: "... most people cannot tell the difference between tap and bottle water and yet they buy it in enormous quantities.

Ounce for ounce, bottle water costs more than gasoline, said Standage, even at today's high prices, and cost 250 to 10,000 times more than tap water.

Globally, it's a $46 billion indiustry. Nutritionally, bottled water is not better than tap water and a study in Cleveland found that nearly a quarter of the samples of bottled water had significantly higher levels of bacteria. A study at the University of Geneva found that bottled water was no better from a nutritional point of view that that of tap water. Bottled water is bad for the environment, says Standage. It is shipped at vast expense from one part of the world to another, is kept refrigerated before sale, and causes pile-ups in landfills. "...tap water is not so abundant in the developing world. And that is ultimately why I find the illogical enthusiasm for bottled water not simply peculiar, but distasteful. For those of us in the developed world, safe water is now so abundant that we can afford to shun the tap water under our noses and drink bottled water instead: our choice of water has become a lifestyle option.

For many in the developing world, however, access to water remains a matter of life or death...more than one billion people lack reliable access to safe drinking water. The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of illness in the world is due to water-borne diseases, making countries less productive, more dependent on outside aid and less able to lift themselves out of poverty. One of the main reasons girls do not go to school in many parts of the world is that they spend so much time fetching water from distant wells. Clean water could be provided to everyone on earth for an outlay of $1.7 billion a year beyond the current water spending, according to the International Water Management Institute. The logical response for those of us in the developed world is to stop spending money on bottled water and give the money to water charities.

The full Op Ed article is here Bad to the last drop. Also see his blog.