bottled is better? wassup with that
Haven’t you wondered why there is any market at all for bottled water in Hawaii?
I mean, these islands’ out-of-the-tap water is top five globally, guaranteed.
Yet, gazillions of plastic bottles with “pure” water from somewhere else are sold here every year.
Now, at least, a London food critic is fessing up to the foolishness of this footprint.
Says Giles Coren, “Last year we bought three billion liters of bottled water. What morons we are.”
Calling bottled water “a preposterous vanity”, Coren notes that this product is “flown and shipped around the world, and ends up in the landfill or in one of the ‘plastic patches’ the size of Texas currently gyring in our oceans.”
“While half the world dies of thirst or puts up with water you wouldn’t piss in, or already have, we have invested years and years, and vast amounts of money, into an ingenious system which cleanses water of all the nasties that most other humans and animals have always had to put up with, and delivers it, dirt-cheap, to our homes and workplaces in pipes, which we can access at a tap.”
The USDA estimates that Americans bought 23 gallons of bottled water per capita in 2004, up from 11 gallons 10 years earlier.
Oh, and, Japanese companies have turned deep sea desalinated water into Hawaii’s fastest growing export — at $5.50 a bottle (via Intl Herald Tribune).
As team treehugger points out, “All bottled waters are problematic and unneccesary, and obviously the further it travels the worse it is, but what really matters is how things travel:
- A ton of tasmanian rainwater travelling 7938 miles by ship uses 15.44 gallons of fuel and emits 342.77 pounds of CO2;
- A ton of Poland Springs going by truck travelling 1141 miles from Maine to Chicago uses 16.54 gallons and emits 367.19 pounds of CO2.;
- A ton of Evian going from Lake Geneva to Edinburgh by truck uses 15.77 gallons and emits 350.09 pounds of CO2.
Do the math: this means bottled water is worth 20% of its weight in carbon…just for the shipping footprint. And never mind the energy used in pumping or making the bottles or getting around in the cities.
Treehugger concludes its review of various bottled water products:
“In the end they all suck about equally- drink tap, or if you must, buy local.”
Sure, there are now corn-plastic bottles that can be multiply reused and biodegrade in 80 days (via ohgizmo).
And our friend Jason Donovan is working on a corn-plastic-bottle-spring-water venture here on Kauai, which could meet local demand in a green way.
Still, if we’re all learning to think about our footprint and its consequences, this water obsession illustrates how far we have yet to go.
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