Background Information: (Introduction)

Bottled water can cost about $12.00 per gallon, almost four times the cost of gasoline and almost 4000 times the cost of tap water. But is bottled water really better? Actually a lot of bottled water is just tap water. We are just paying for the convenience of carrying it around. Many people across the world have begun to question the environmental impact of the bottled water industry and some cities are beginning to ban bottled water because they feel that the cost of the environmental impact of all those plastic bottles in garbage dumps, in oceans and littering our natural spaces is not worth the human benefit of convenient bottled water.

Below is a chart that outlines the arguments for and against bottled water:

Claim:

In the United States and Canada, the human benefit of bottled water is not worth the huge environmental impact of creating and disposing of all that plastic.

Bottled Water is not better water. (counter argument)

About 25% of bottled water is actually tap water. Dasani and Aquafina just bottle water from Queens and from Jacksonville, FL. So the idea that the bottled water is better than tap water does not make sense, because so much of it is actually just tap water. The water that is not tap water is not regulated by the EPA like municipal water and may actually be worse for you than tap water. A study by the NRDC found that one company was taking water from a site next to a hazardous waste dump. Much of the advertised “spring water” or “glacier

water” is neither and the companies do not have to report where they really get their water from. The NRDC study also found harmful chemicals and bacteria in about one fifth of all the bottled water they tested.

Both Good Morning America and Showtime have done taste testing studies and in a blind taste test, participants actually thought the tap water tasted better. So bottled water is neither safer, nor better tasting than tap water. The advertisements just want to make you believe that in order to sell more products.

The Future: (Conclusion)

Bottled water is connected to the oil industry, to land pollution and to climate change. So much about this issue is really much bigger than convenient water. It is about money and making money for the water bottle industry. What would happen if those companies were held responsible for the clean up process? Would the industry change?

Water bottles cannot be banned completely, but there are many actions people and governments can take to help their citizens make better choices. People should be encouraged to recycle the bottles they do use and also educated and encouraged to use their own containers to carry water. Towns and cities can begin to build hydration stations, like many college campuses and the city of Toronto, so people can fill their water containers conveniently and still get the healthy water they need.

The bottom line is that really it is up to each person to make the right choices. A few minutes of convenience is not worth thousands of years of pollutants and chemicals leaking into the earth and our normal drinking water. The long term effects are really damaging and we must take action now to make a better planet for tomorrow.