Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - The deception behind the bottled water industry

keyshawn · 02-18-2006, 11:00 AM

Hey,

I recently attended a panel talk at school about bottled water. It always had seemed a bit fishy to me that some bottles had said 'purified' or 'mineral' water to me, and I considered myself naive even then (after all, EVIAN, a french bottled water company, is spelled naive backwards

) that the bottled water was somehow better than tap. But after attending the panel and reading a bit more about it, I've found out that bottled water has minimal regulation and the bottled water is more likely to taste fishy than tap water itself.

Bottled water is not necessarily safer than your tap water (1).
I was a bit disturbed by reading that the pollution is not just from the constant extraction of water from the earth.
To reach Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year (2). Granted, the convenience of traveling around with a bottle of water is nice. In third world countries where the public drinking water is not always truly safe, the bottled water can be very useful. However, here in the first-worlds, we use tons of bottles each time.
Suggestions to end the bottled water theory include to just use one plastic water bottle (a Nalgene one, which are pretty trendy here at my college) over and over and fill it up with tap water each time for trips.
When I went on a 3 week trip to Europe a couple years ago, I refilled my bottle every morning before going out. I ended up staying hydrated the entire time and save money by not having to buy bottled water.

Either for economical or environmental reasons, it really doesn't pay to go with bottled water.

regards,
will.

(If the intro paragraph is a bit unclear, well, sorry for that. I'm using experimenting with other writing styles. I've been struggling a bit in school with my writing structure, so I tried with the 'catchy' hook in the beginning. I know I'm very crudely citing sources at the end, like an academic paper, but it's a concept (of citing sources) that needs to be done more on the TFP, and especially, the internet in general. By citing sources, it encourages authors to verify their facts, and gives readers a reference point if they would like to do more research on the subject. Also, I'm aware that I sort of just slacked off on the issue a bit, I'll probably edit it some more in a bit.

[some sources:]
(2)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/200...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/op...SYSTEM_IS_EVIL

http://www.polarisinstitute.org/pola.../articles.html

http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/wot/pdfs/bo...ontap_full.pdf

(1) http://www.nps.gov/public_health/int.../faq_dw.htm#15

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/standards.html

02-18-2006, 11:00 AM	#1 (permalink)
keyshawn Psycho	The deception behind the bottled water industry Hey, I recently attended a panel talk at school about bottled water. It always had seemed a bit fishy to me that some bottles had said 'purified' or 'mineral' water to me, and I considered myself naive even then (after all, EVIAN, a french bottled water company, is spelled naive backwards ) that the bottled water was somehow better than tap. But after attending the panel and reading a bit more about it, I've found out that bottled water has minimal regulation and the bottled water is more likely to taste fishy than tap water itself. Bottled water is not necessarily safer than your tap water (1). I was a bit disturbed by reading that the pollution is not just from the constant extraction of water from the earth. To reach Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year (2). Granted, the convenience of traveling around with a bottle of water is nice. In third world countries where the public drinking water is not always truly safe, the bottled water can be very useful. However, here in the first-worlds, we use tons of bottles each time. Suggestions to end the bottled water theory include to just use one plastic water bottle (a Nalgene one, which are pretty trendy here at my college) over and over and fill it up with tap water each time for trips. When I went on a 3 week trip to Europe a couple years ago, I refilled my bottle every morning before going out. I ended up staying hydrated the entire time and save money by not having to buy bottled water. Either for economical or environmental reasons, it really doesn't pay to go with bottled water. regards, will. (If the intro paragraph is a bit unclear, well, sorry for that. I'm using experimenting with other writing styles. I've been struggling a bit in school with my writing structure, so I tried with the 'catchy' hook in the beginning. I know I'm very crudely citing sources at the end, like an academic paper, but it's a concept (of citing sources) that needs to be done more on the TFP, and especially, the internet in general. By citing sources, it encourages authors to verify their facts, and gives readers a reference point if they would like to do more research on the subject. Also, I'm aware that I sort of just slacked off on the issue a bit, I'll probably edit it some more in a bit. [some sources:] (2) http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/200...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/op...SYSTEM_IS_EVIL http://www.polarisinstitute.org/pola.../articles.html http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/wot/pdfs/bo...ontap_full.pdf (1) http://www.nps.gov/public_health/int.../faq_dw.htm#15 http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp http://www.epa.gov/safewater/standards.html __________________ currently reading: currently playing :