What You Need To Know About Bottled Water

  • New Yorkers think they are a wise lot and they are pretty discerning about everything. In a recent taste test 75 percent of those tested said they chose the taste of tap water over the expensive bottled water.
  • At least one third of all bottled water produced cannot meet safe water standards and exceeds industry standards for bacteria and arsenic.
  • In the US, if bottled water is sold in the same state it is produced, there is no regulation for the safety of the water. There could be anything in it.
  • One third of the population in Fiji does not have clean, safe drinking water, yet Fiji water that is bottled there sells for over $12 per gallon.
  • The people of Tennessee must be very lucky to have such wonderful water. BlingH20 which is bottled there sells for $40 USD for a 25 ounce bottle, which works out to about $200 per gallon.
  • The alarming fact that the bottled water industry is probably the least regulated in the world was reported in the Toronto Star newspaper. It still is.
  • It is estimated that only about 2 to 3 percent of plastic drink and water bottles ever arrive at a recycling depot. The rest end up as litter, in landfills or become part of these huge plastic continents growing in the worlds oceans.
  • It is estimated that about 38 billion plastic bottles get dumped in landfills every year. This is a huge carbon footprint that may one day create a valuable resource for mining plastic from landfills in the future.
  • In 2005 there were 2 million tons of plastic bottled that didn’t arrive at the recycling depot. It took 18 million barrels of oil to replace them which could have gassed up a million cars for a year.
  • To manufacture one plastic bottle, its cap and packaging material uses twice as much water as the water bottle actually holds.
  • Bottled water buyers worldwide spend over $100 billion dollars annually for water that is no better than tap water and may not be any purer. Some have higher levels of contaminants than most tap water.
  • A recent survey shows that 20 percent of North Americans only use bottled water for daily drinking purposes.
  • Phthalates that make up part of the plastic constituents in water bottles are hormone and endochrine disruptors that can leach into the bottled water. It is interesting to note that there are regulations for their content in tap water but none for bottled water.
  • If bottled water is stored at room temperature for about six months, antimony, a cancer causing heavy metal that is used as a catalyst in the plastic bottle production, can be found at higher levels in the water. It leaches from the plastic and the longer the water is stored, the more it leaches.