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Your Water Bottle Is One-Quarter Oil
Still want to drink it? Because the truth is that bottle of water is up to 2,000 times more energy intensive than just turning on the tap. No one really knew that until now.
Researchers at the Pacific Institute in Oakland California ran the numbers and found that bottle production alone wastes 50 million barrels of oil a year (that's 2.5 days of US oil consumption). Add to that energy the energy needed to process the water, label the bottles, fill the bottles, seal the bottles, transport the bottles, cool them prior to sale… well, you get the idea.
Bottom line: Bottled-water drinkers in the US alone in 2007 squandered the equivalent of 32 to 54 million barrels of oil. Triple that number for worldwide use. For perspective, imagine each bottle is one-quarter full of oil.
As reported at Treehugger: Bottled-water drinkers are the new smokers.
Since oil and water don't mix, turn on the tap. Still want a container? Try reusable Nalgene or stainless steel. Not without impact but durable at least. Traveling overseas to the lands-of-unclean waters? Pony up for a Katadyn bottle/filter combination. I can personally attest that this all-in-one system is a miracle worker of good intestinal and environmental health.
Concerned about the one in six humans who must live in the lands-of-unclean waters? Consider tossing a doubloon or two at the LifeStraw people who've found a nifty and inexpensive way to survive deadly water supplies.
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Downstream Effects
America's rising thirst for bottled water may be dangerously damaging its aquatic resources.
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Chart of the Day (Oil Edition)
CHART OF THE DAY (OIL EDITION)....The International Energy Administration has released its latest projections for oil production over the next couple of decades. They report that the average annual decline in existing oil fields will accelerate to about 8.6%, a...
Does anybody else think
that the credit crunch will be the demise of a number of bottled water companies. Their products smack of a luxury we and our world can easily live without.
you might think that...
Take a special trip to the parking lot of a Costco of Sams Club. You'll see people, not necessarily so well off, stacking cases upon cases of bottled water into the back of their SUVs. Although, it's an obvious and easy way to trim down budgets, consumers (and Americans in particular) are not too likely to act rationally when making a decision about consumption. This is a big part of the reason that economists can be so very smart and so very wrong at the exact same time.
What I want to know is why
What I want to know is why people think bottled water is so healthy. Hello, BPA? Not only can you imagine your water bottle as one quarter oil, you can also imagine drinking it as injecting plastic directly into your veins.
Turn on the tap???? The
tagged as:- solution
Turn on the tap????
The municipal drinking water in Washington DC (where I live) has been contaminated with high levels of lead and other "heavy metals". A fact which has persisted for over ten years, hidden from the public and ultimately denied by city officials until the story broke mainstream news in 2004. Most of us who drink bottled water in DC do so mainly out of concern for our health.
In addition, the federal and local governments have yet to take the discovery of sedatives found in drinking water around the country seriously. What is being done to solve this public safety crisis.
The testing standards that are applied to bottled water should be applied to our tap water and monitored by multiple independent testing agencies. Only then will I regain trust and willingly drink tap water.
http://cenblog.org/2009/01/27/lead-in-dc’s-drinking-water/
Water Filters
Try using a water filter. You'll get a hell of a lot more potable water per dollar and waste less energy.
Its the same water
tagged as:- solution
A large percentage of bottled water companies get their water from the exact same source as the municipal supply.
Some even get the water FROM the municipal supply itself.
Many bottled water samples have tested and found to have more contaminated than many municipal supplies.
If you are worried about the health effects, just use a home filter. They are cheaper, more effective, and use less energy.
Thanks David, True bottled
Thanks David,
True bottled water sources are often from municipal water supplies but the purification standards are higher than tap water standards. Second, there are studies available that show which bottled waters are of high quality and consistent. Third, In my case, most municalities outside my own (with the exception of some areas in North Carolina) have better municiple water supplies so even if I'm drinking unpurified tap water from another municipality I'm better off.
I haven't found a single home water purification system that removes lead and all heavy metals. Cullighan makes the best home water purification system (reverse osmosis) that I've found but a whole house system costs between $2500-$3000.
Tap water is also devoid of electrolytes.
RO has electrolytes?
Your RO system not only wastes about 30 % of its water input, the output is only pure H2O - no minerals, no taste. And expensive.
I run tap water through a $50 system - 0.1micron carbon block + 0.2 m ceramic filter - that removes all pollutants (except salt ie NaCl) and retains minerals (ie electrolyes). Sweet water.
I'm drinking bottled water,
tagged as:- solution
I'm drinking bottled water, and damn is it tasty. (loltap)
Now imagine if this
Now imagine if this energy-cost analysis was applied to all of our consumption habits! Bottled teas, sodas, personal hygiene products, milk, juices, detergents, liquid soaps, cleaning products, the stuff that goes into making the cleaning products, cooking oils, coffee, medicines, blah blah blah. And its NOTHING compared to the energy we consume to drive ourselves from point A to point B!
Okra, thanks for the info. I'll be moving up to DC in a couple of months. Guess I'll be upgrading my brita pitcher to prevent lead poisoning.
valid comparison
while it would be a great tangential exercise, i think the obvious reason this comparison is so often made about water in the developed world is that we already have it piped very efficiently to our homes.
the only other obvious comparison would be natural gas, for those homes that are on the grid - imagine going out and buying canisters of gas for your stove because the canister gas marketers made you believe the piped gas wasn't good enough...
"The testing standards that
"The testing standards that are applied to bottled water should be applied to our tap water and monitored by multiple independent testing agencies. Only then will I regain trust and willingly drink tap water."
Bottled water is regulated by FDA. Municipal drinking water is regulated by EPA. FDA is supposed to make sure bottled water meets the EPA quality standards set for municipal water. If you are going to claim that bottled water is significantly higher quality or more highly regulated, I would love to see the basis for this.
Also, on the subject of lead... the samples that show lead above action levels are for first flush samples, and represent the lead that leaches from your home plumbing after sitting at least 8 hours. Just let the faucet run for a minute in the morning to clear the water that sat in your plumbing overnight. Don't make your coffee with the first flush of water from the system! Problem solved.
If you are paying $1/gallon for bottled water (low estimate) and say $5/1,000 gallons for tap water, bottled water is 200 times more expensive. Is it 200 times better for you? If you think so, please post the constituents you are concerned about in your tap water, plus lab results for your tap water and preferred bottled water, plus credible dose/response data for those constituents. I would be amazed if anyone here can justify buying bottled water.
Bottled water is mostly a tribute to marketing genius...sorta like antimicrobial soap (another big joke...which, by the way, ends up in all of our drinking water supplies). Most people drink it because they don't like the chlorine taste in tap water. Just add a little lemon juice to your glass of water to get rid of the chlorine, and you have saved a fortune (ascorbic acid is a reducing agent that reacts with chlorine, which is an oxidizer).
Not sure how anyone can claim that tap water doesn't contain electrolytes. You would have to run it through RO to remove salts (electrolytes). If you are buying bottled water to get the electrolytes you need to survive, how did previous generations of your family manage to live without bottled water?
As the recession deepens and we have to cut back on the things that keep us alive, like cable tv and bottled water, how many people think we will drop dead within a month?
cancer
http://www.fccc.edu/news/2005/Plastic-Packaging-Estrogens-04-18-05.html
i don't understand how it is no one seems to know that plastic is a big factor in the rise in breast cancer, feminization of men, ie. lowered sperm count and early puberty in children. the national average for puberty having gone from 14 to 12 to a current 10 years old. which besides being sad is just gross.
i agree tap water seems better to be avoided but it's scary that people are actually thinking plastic water bottles are a better health alternative for themselves.
obviously plastic is a disaster on the environmental front but it is also a real threat to individual health.
i don't have a great idea for how to get water to drink that isn't in some way questionable in the states or abroad but i really want to tell people about the danger of plastic that seems some how to be so over looked or just not talked about.
I wish our tap was
I wish our tap was drinkable. Here in Corpus Christi, TX to cook with tap you first have to filter and boil the water before use. Our city water treatment is constantly in trouble and there are constant health advisories to boil our water. I get my water delivered once a month in those 5 gallon jugs to cook and drink. I just don't see any better way to have clean water in a city like mine.
"the truth is that bottle of
"the truth is that bottle of water is up to 2,000 times more energy intensive than just turning on the tap." - This particular line got all of my attention!!!
i am not a regular bottle-water and I feel that bottled water should only be consumed in situations like travel, disease conditions, etc.
Reason for drinking bottled water
I drink tap water, but not that much. I don't trust the tap water. If the tap water is contaminated, the government would never say anything. They would keep it low. If the news comes out and someone sues, the government can pay the settlement. But the damage is already done.
Steven
It is really a alarming
It is really a alarming situation that we are wasting this much of oil by using water bottles. I use bottled water during travelling mostly....otherwise, i use tap water with filter..
You got your point here,
You got your point here, thanks for sharing it would us, it's an eye opening point, at least for me it was. I've been considering installing a water filter for a while now but I never was really sure if this is the best thing to do. Whit your recommendation it will be easier for me to make a good decision. I just home my local Atlanta plumbing is available to help me right away. As for bottled water, every morning I have to throw several bottles in the plastic garbige tank, it's a waste that shouldn't be there, so yes, water filter it is.
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