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Bottled Water Profits
Here is why you should filter your own natural water supply AS SOON AS
POSSIBLE, and stop making money hungry people richer than they deserve
using the planet's gift of water as their own personal treasure chest.
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Bottled Water Boom is Hurting the World's Environment
30 May 2007 - salem-news.com
Between 1978 and 2006, the consumption of bottled
water in America went up 2,000 percent, with about 700 name brands of
water battling for shelf space.
(CORVALLIS, Ore. ) - Around the world, factories are using more than
18 million barrels of oil and up to 130 billion gallons of fresh water
a year to create something that, by and large, most people don’t need.
But the product is so amazingly popular that sales are going up 10
percent a year, just like clockwork.
The big success story? Bottled water. And the resources mentioned
above are just to make the plastic containers.
Another 41 billion gallons of water is then used to fill them – water
that is often just tap water, and other times has less frequent
monitoring for safety or purity than if it had come out of a tap.
“Bottled water has become an incredibly big business, up to $100
billion per year,” said Todd Jarvis, an assistant professor in the
Water Resources Graduate Program at Oregon State University, and a
research hydrogeologist with the OSU Institute for Water and
Watersheds. “There are enormous amounts of money to be made here. Some
of the profits make our business majors blush, and everyone wants in.
It’s just astonishing.”
Jarvis, who has studied the issue for 15 years and makes frequent
presentations on it, arrived long ago at a simple conclusion – bottled
water is not worth the price, and the people buying it often have no
idea of the environmental repercussions. When his students learn the
truth about the water itself and hear about the drawbacks of this
burgeoning industry, he said, they often change their behavior.
“There have always been, and still are some places in the developing
world where bottled water is necessary for health concerns and relief
efforts,” Jarvis said. “But in most of the world it was a niche item
until the 1970s, when Perrier spent millions on advertising, and the
industry just took off. It hasn’t looked back since, and now in
America we’re spending $20,000 every minute of every day on bottled
water.”
Between 1978 and 2006, the consumption of bottled water in America
went up 20 times, or 2,000 percent. Large soft drink companies
dominate the market.
With bottled water, Jarvis said, any past issues of health and safety
now take a back seat to convenience, taste, and perhaps most
important, trendiness.
About 700 name brands of water compete for shelf space, and tap water
that originally cost maybe five cents a gallon can be sold now for $4
a gallon. Doesn’t take a business genius to see how that pencils out.
The water itself, Jarvis said, is generally fine – usually no more or
less safe than tap water, which in the United States is among the
safest in the world.
Worth noting, however, is that community water supplies are subject to
fairly strict and constant monitoring required by the Safe Drinking
Water Act, while bottled water is considered a “food” and entails
much less frequent monitoring for safety
and quality by the Food and Drug Administration or individual states.
Tests of bottled water have at times found contaminants.
“There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between safety and bottled
water consumption in the U.S.,” Jarvis said. “New York City, for
instance, gets its water from a very carefully managed watershed and
has some of the best drinking water in the nation – and also among the
highest per capita consumption of bottled water.”
And some of the myths surrounding water, Jarvis said, need to be
checked.
Spring water, for instance, is often touted as if it’s inherently
safer or more pure than other forms of water – when in fact it could
be subject to more surface pollution because of the engineering
difficulties associated with securing a source that is a spring-based
or shallow well supply.
Water from deep wells – like that often used for municipal water
supplies – could be of the same or better quality than water from
springs.
Taste, Jarvis said, is often a personal preference. Some bottled
brands may indeed taste better than the tap water supplies in some
locations, one reason that Jarvis says he’s “not against bottled water
– but just want people to know what they are buying.”
But before people get too carried away with visions of pristine water
from a sparkling aquifer or mountain stream, Jarvis said, they should
be aware that 25-40 percent of what is on store shelves is just tap
water that has undergone additional treatment or had minerals added at
the bottling plant.
Groundwater supplies in some parts of the world have been threatened
by heavy use from water bottling companies.
Consumers are also endorsing the use of oil, energy and other natural
resources to create up to 2.5 million tons of plastic bottles each
year, transport the heavy product to the consumer, and then deal with
the waste disposal concerns.
In Oregon, the waste issue is considered serious enough that
legislation just passed that adds plastic water bottles to the “five
cent refund” law required for many other drink containers.
Oregon, oddly enough, has some of the best tasting bottled water in
the world but is only a very tiny player in this market.
Only 4 percent of the bottled water consumed in the state actually
comes from within its borders. That may change, as more companies
become aware of the huge profit potential, Jarvis said.
“If people still want to drink bottled water, I usually recommend
purified water, ‘rain’ water or well water from a nearby local source
to provide the best combination of purity and environmental
sensitivity,” Jarvis said. “But a reasonable alternative is just
chilled tap water in a re-usable container. That often removes the
chlorine taste that people complain about with tap water, it’s safe,
and it’s a lot cheaper.” |
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Comment: Mr. Jarvis's statements are
somewhat correct but he doesn't know what he is talking about when he
recommends you drink tap water, and says it is safe with chlorine in
it. It is not safe with chemical additives, and it is not natural.
Most tap water has a very low pH level which adds to health problems.
This also allows other chemicals and pharmaceuticals to do more
damage. In fact, it is chemicals and pharmaceuticals along with
pesticides that are regularly used in your water and the reasons are
malevolent preferences based on more profits, and additional methods
to cover up the pollution already leaked into our living environment. |
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To save money, filter your own natural
water supply if possible. |
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The
The
Labors in the Spirits of
Science
Living on the Lost Planet 
