The latest environmental craze is taking hold. We have already been told, inconveniently though perhaps of dubious truthiness, that driving, eating meat, non-local produce, flying, turning the lights on, etc. are bad for the environment. Now we are being told that bottled water is bad for the environment.
The most common environmental argument for eschewing bottled water are based on waste of producing and disposing bottles and inefficiencies in transportation of water bottles. It is also argued that consumers should choose tap water or fountain water because of the high cost and insufficient health benefits of bottled water.
These arguments are unconvincing.
Waste and transportation are not big problems. The waste of plastic should not be a concern either, because cheap plastic is not hard to come by; if plastic were that valuable then it would not be used to hold water and would cost more money. Ditto for the argument that the disposal of water bottles is filling up landfills: if it is not getting more expensive to put things in them, then there is no problem -- such price signals are also a fine argument for privatizing public landfills. Similarly, the low price of water bottles indicates that neither is the cost of transportation of bottled water very high. Also, if we are going to compare all the energy that is used to make and transport bottles we should not assume that tap or fountain water is "free." We have to look at the cost of drainage, piping, electricity, treatment, etc. for fountains and sinks too.
An intermediate position suggests that maybe drinking bottled water is acceptable if only people would recycle. While I still do it, I do not understand how recycling can be that valuable. If it were cost effective, bottling companies would buy their bottles back from us for a nickel or a dime. Instead, under most circumstances deposit schemes are mandated by the government--if depositing saved companies money we would not need legislation to force the issue.
More pragmatic are arguments that we should stop drinking bottled water based on quality and cost. These days there is even more ammunition since it has come out that Aquafina and Dasani use purified tap water rather than spring water. Well, Aquafina tastes the best to me and not only is it bottled in compliance with various specifications by the government, but there is also the more reassuring market quality control of reputation. When Pepsi or Coke or another firm puts a bottle of water on the market they stand behind it with their multibillion-dollar name. If, for example, chemicals or toxins were found in a major brand of water, they would lose millions due to decreased consumption of their product (not too mention negligence law suits.) This is an incentive structure I am comfortable drinking water behind. More importantly, bottled water tastes better and cleaner and that is good enough for me.
An argument can also be made that bottled water costs too much. Maybe it is more expensive to buy bottled water than to consume sink water, but the 24-pack of Poland Spring I just bought at Wal-Mart for 4 dollars and change did not set me back too far. Indeed water is cheaper than beer, OJ, milk and just about every other beverage--at least at a supermarket if not at Topside or The Hop.
While there are no convincing reasons not to buy bottled water there are quite a few arguments in its favor. One is the alternative of walking around with a Nalgene. I took the Nalgene approach one summer and maybe it works for other people but mine got dirty and moldy after not too long and the top was not big enough to stick my hand in to clean it. And maybe this is okay for a college student walking around campus with a camping backpack to clip it on to, but for most people a water bottle is much more convenient.
More importantly, many places in the world do not have running water, much less clean running water. Water bottlers competing like crazy to meet American demand drives prices down and allows people in these parts of the world to afford water. In the market for medicines and technologies, companies in the developed-world innovate new products for wealthy people who test the first models at higher prices, subsidizing these products for the poor who get them cheaper and better. Why should the market for water be any different? If we stopped buying bottled water, people in undeveloped countries would be badly hurt. Buying that new bottle of water in the morning just might be the most humanitarian thing you do all day.
Behind the looming hysteria about the perils of bottled water there is not a lot of fact and some quite convincing reasons to keep buying bottled. So grab a bottle, toast to your favorite brand and drink up.
