Bottled Water
The annual report of tests of Monroe
city water came in the mail recently.
This report to customers is required by state statute. The quantities of all the bad things were
zero or very nearly zero (modern analytic methods are amazingly
sensitive). Lead quantities were well
within the tolerance levels but not quite so near zero as the rest. Mike Kennison, administrator of our water
department confirmed that only in recent decades have there been consistent
efforts to get rid of lead in plumbing and the tests are run on randomly
selected customers’ faucets.
Not long afterward I noticed a number
of shopping carts in the check out line at the grocery store with cases of bottled
water no doubt costing 1000 times more than tap water. Even in my childhood it was widely and
correctly believed that public water supplies were safe to drink all over the
U. S. except for brief emergencies when we were asked not to drink the water without
boiling it. Americans drank bottled
water when traveling to places like Mexico, and some European countries
considered piped domestic water supplies to be for all domestic use except for
drinking, but in the U.S. we felt confident in the safety of our water supply.
How could bottled water have become
so popular in America? I doubted that
it could actually be safer than tap water with all the detailed testing
mentioned above. The testing of many
small producers of bottled water seems likely to be much less reliable. A little research led me to the fact that
bottled water sold in only the state of its origin has no federal
testing requirements and five states have no requirement that bottled water
needs any testing at all. I also ran
into a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). They tested over 1000 samples of bottled
water of 103 different brands. One
third of the samples flunked at least one of the tests for a contaminant,
either heavy metals, arsenic, synthetic organic chemicals such as herbicides
and pesticides, or bacteria. Their
definitions of contaminating levels were all similar to those required of
public water supplies throughout the U.S.
It seems that the purveyors of bottled
water have managed to create some doubt in the public’s mind about the
appropriateness of drinking tap water.
Compare this with politicians’ spin doctors creating doubt about the
reliability of each other to the point of fostering distrust of
government. I am not trying to imply
that politicians are anywhere near as reliable as public water
supplies---testing them is much less sophisticated than tests for water
quality.
I seldom frequent ritzy restaurants
where the waiter would look askance if you ordered the house wine instead of a
vintage bottle from their exclusive wine cellar. But Hemisphere, one of the airlines’ give-away magazines,
recently had a humorous article about how such restaurants are starting to
promote imported water (at the price of house wine) so that you can “obtain all
of the ambiance” of the region from which your favorite cuisine
originated.
We
laugh at the snake oil salesman at the frontier carnival. But what about the scams right before our
eyes. So, rev up your BS detector before
snubbing the kitchen faucet.
John A. Frantz, M.D.
July
15, 2004
July 20, 2007. I
am grateful to the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists) for confirming the above
with additional data about hidden costs to society of our enormous bottled
water consumption. The escalating
demand for bottled water is another triumph for agnotology—a newly coined word
meaning the science of creating ignorance.
The UCS report follows.
Addendum, (from
the Union of Concerned Scientists):
Bottled water manufacturers' marketing campaigns
capitalize on isolated instances of contaminated public drinking water supplies
by encouraging the perception that their products are purer and safer than tap
water. But the reality is that tap water is actually held to more stringent
quality standards than bottled water, and some brands of bottled water are just
tap water in disguise. What's more, our increasing consumption of bottled
water--more than 22 gallons per U.S. citizen in 2004 according to the Earth
Policy Institute--fuels an unsustainable industry that takes a heavy toll on
the environment.
Environmental Impact:
Fossil fuel consumption:
approximately 1.5 million gallons of oil--enough to run 100,000 cars for a
whole year--are used to make plastic water bottles, while transporting these
bottles burns thousands more gallons of oil. In addition, the burning of oil
and other fossil fuels (which are also used to generate the energy that powers
the manufacturing process) emits global warming pollution into the atmosphere.
Water consumption: the growth in bottled
water production has increased water extraction in areas near bottling plants,
leading to water shortages that affect nearby consumers and farmers. In
addition to the millions of gallons of water used in the plastic-making
process, two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every
gallon that goes into the bottles.
Waste: only about 10 percent of water
bottles are recycled, leaving the rest in landfills where it takes thousands of
years for the plastic to decompose.
The next time
you feel thirsty, forgo the bottle
and turn to the tap. You'll not
only lower your environmental
impact but also save money--bottled
water can cost up to 10,000 times more per gallon than tap water. And
because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's standards for tap water are more stringent than the Food and Drug Administration's standards for bottled water, you'll be drinking water
that is just as safe as, or safer than, bottled.
If, however, you don't like the taste of your tap
water or are unsure of its quality, you can buy a filter pitcher or install an
inexpensive faucet filter to remove trace chemicals and bacteria. If you will
be away from home, fill a reusable bottle from your tap and refill it along the
way; travel bottles with built-in filters are also available. Finally, limit
your bottled water purchases for those times when you're traveling in countries where water quality is
questionable.
From Greentips online at http://ucsaction.org/ct/s1_zEjp1MzJd/
The only difference between fiction and nonfiction is that
fiction should be completely believable. Mark Twain.