Is Bottled Water Really Worth the Cost?

Bottled water is the new essential can't live without accessory of the modern man. Companies promote it to those seeking a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their children. Advertisements market it bottled in various shapes, colors, and flavors even touting celebrities and their brands in an effort to convince you to buy water. Why should anyone buy something that already comes out of the tap? Well the market is flooded with claims that it is cleaner than what we have at home and can even make you feel better. However, I don't think I ever have seen a commercial for bottled water that was backed by scientific studies that it was any more safe than the water I get from my kitchen sink. Also, the eco-friendly subject arises, but doesn't packaging water use more of the earth's resources than need be? Let's take a look at the cost of putting the life giving liquid into containers. As you should know, getting that oh so pure and tasty stuff into a fashionable holder requires packaging, shipping, promoting, retailing all in order for the company to profit.

Now the first aspect is making the bottle to contain the water. Other research such as the one done by Sustainability Engineer and MBA Pablo Paster on the cost of bringing Fiji water to the United States suggests that it takes approximately 6.74 times the amount of water in the bottle to make the package for it and transport it (information derived from Lloyd Alter's article). It doesn't make sense to use this much water just to drink half or less of what was wasted putting it into something appealing to the eye. What happened to going to your cupboard and getting a cup then, and I know this sounds foreign to a lot of people, getting water to drink from your sink? Many researchers estimate that it costs 240 to 10,000 times more than tap water.

As far as transportation, whether you do it by train, truck, or boat, you must burn large amounts of fossil fuel. Last year an estimated 5 trillion gallons of bottled water was shipped internationally. One year's worth of plastic bottles for Americans wastes over 47 million gallons of oil. This is enough to get 100,000 vehicles off of our roads. How would that make most people feel with the gas prices being so ridiculous? After all of this effort, we simply flood landfills with the bottles, damage the environment and natural water supplies, endanger animals in that environment just because a company said that their water was pure. The Environmental Law Foundation has in the past sued about eight major bottlers for stating that same claim when their water actually contained bacteria, chlorine, and arsenic. Federal standards for tap water are actually much higher than that for bottled water. Maybe it's about time that we put fashion and convenience to the back burner and chose to save our environment for the future rather than look good exercising with a pretty bottle of the latest trend.