Bottled water is a scam. It's less regulated than municipal tap water in most developed nations, companies suck up water from small towns and use tons of fuel to ship it out of those watersheds and then charge people 1000% markup.
For countries without clean water, the effort should be put into getting municipal water supplies.
Don't buy plastic disposable water bottles if you live in a developed nation. They prop up a terrible industry, generate tons of waste, use tons of oil and it's less clean than just drinking from a water fountain.
Edit: the documentary Tapped is a great film about the bottled water industry, and Blue Gold is a good one about the water industry in general.
Having a 1000% markup doesn't make it a scam. The raw material is practically free so anything they charge is going to be a huge markup. There's lots of competition and people are willing to buy it. What's wrong with that? You're not paying for the water, but for all the other value that comes along with it. You can carry it around, or store it in your car, or whatever. You don't have to remember to fill up the water bottle whenever you go out because you can just get a new full one anywhere. That takes mental burden off people so they can focus on more important things. You can give one to someone else without worrying about spreading meningitis. You can take a carton of them on a group trip without asking everyone to rinse out and old milk bottle the day before. There's value in making people's lives easier.
What's wrong with using tons of oil? It's not being burnt so it doesn't contribute to climate change. Are you concerned that it's wasting the valuable oil that would be better used to power a car or power station?
> What's wrong with using tons of oil? It's not being burnt so it doesn't contribute to climate change. Are you concerned that it's wasting the valuable oil that would be better used to power a car or power station?
Instead of having a VLCC bringing crude to a Gulf Coast refinery where a large part is converted into propylene for bottle and cap production, the crude could be kept safely in its original well, unused. If the demand for propylene (et al) is reduced, refiners would alter their production to make less, ultimately lowering their crude intake, ceteris paribus.
Plastics are incredibly useful. Tons upon tons of bottles end up in landfills, oceans, etc. Even with plastic recycling, PET yields aren't 100%. There is only so much oil and eventually the plastics we have will cease to be recyclable.
I'm not trying to say that it's wrong to use a disposable plastic bottle from time to time. There's not anything wrong with having a case of water. But no one with access to clean water should primarily use disposable bottles. It's lazy and shortsighted.
Oil is a limited resource that can be used for way more important things than disposable water bottles, such as medical supplies (syringes, IV bags, etc) and durable plastics components. Plastics themselves are a great resource that should not be wasted, not least because of the amount of energy and water it takes to produce them.
Most plastic bottles are burnt, so they do contribute to climate change; the small percentage of bottles that actually are recycled cannot be turned into new bottles --- plastics are always downcycled; recycled plastics are sometimes mixed in with virgin plastic pellets, but it's usually a relatively small amount of the total.
(I'm setting up an educational project for school classes on the topic of plastic recycling and renewable energy.)
this doesn't address the fact that all that plastic will then end up in landfills or in the ocean. within three decades, some models predict there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. and since we consume those fish, we will likely suffer detriments to our health because of it.
Not for thermal energy, but it is still being heated and the bits of the hydrocarbon chain that are not wanted are going... where? The process still uses energy and iirc most of the world, particularly where manufacturing occurs, is not using renewables. Maybe Nuclear if you're lucky.
Those standards are also very loose IMO letting a lot of crap though that I don't want to drink on a regular basis. So, it's really more of a mixed bag than you might think.
> Don't buy plastic disposable water bottles if you live in a developed nation
I´m playing with semantics here. But some parts of USA hardly count as developed states. As a country, the USA is overachieving in a lot of measures, but individual states found themselves at the same level than developing nations.
It´s difficult to apply the same rule to 10,000,000km2 of territory and 325 Million people.
If you live in one of those areas you're far better off with a filtration system than regularly purchasing bottled water which is also not in any way guaranteed to be safe.
I'll add that there is a deeply ingrained myth that New York City tap water is "the best in the world" when in fact it's not even among the 10 cleanest water supplies in the country and contains concerning amounts of dangerous pollutants like chloroform.
Bottled water is a classic example of profiting off of regulatory arbitrage.
In well-developed countries, bottled water is easy money: move to a friendly jurisdiction, ship a transportable product out, and sell to a self-selecting, discretionary customer base at obscene markups. It's pure profit.
In less-developed countries, bottled water is enabled by and further perpetuates structural inequality: it provides clean water to those who are willing and able pay for it, without the infrastructure and maintenance load of municipal piping, dealing with governments, or having to be exposed to risks that coincide with this inequality, including theft, leaks, and distributed contamination.
It's bad to perpetuate structural inequality within a country but not between countries? Or do you also agree that it's wrong for developed countries to have clean tap water because it gives their citizens an advantage over citizens of poorer countries? Preventing disease is very simply a good thing. How can you possibly say that you want people to be sick just to make life more fair?
Morocco as well. Be sure to check the seal because they refill them with tap water and sell it on the street. You can get sick even from washing your teeth with tap water. Sick as in ruin your vacation, not sick as in really sick.
How much is it because of reality and how much is because pf propaganda?
People on Brazil will always tell you to drink bottled water too, yet all the safety issues that make into news (always a very small note at the end of the news) are with bottled water and the sanitary standards are much more strict with tap water.
I think some of that is that you're only spending a week or two in the country and they don't want you to remember it as the time you were stuck on the toilet with a constantly exploding ass. Even if it is not likely that you'll get sick, the potential is high enough that it's better to just buy some bottled water instead.
I suspect most developing areas without clean water supplies are simultaneously unable to afford buying bottled water. They're often drinking dirty water, which they may or may not treat.
what do you suggest for people who cannot tolerate the taste of some tap water. The one in my area taste very metallic and makes tea/coffee brewed with it have an unpleasant flavor. I bought a brita-like water filter with great reviews on amazon, but despite that, some of the metallic flavor remains. My old home had a reverse osmosis system which tasted amazing, but I'm not going to invest in a super expensive water system for the apartment I am renting. I just want good tasting water
Buy a reverse osmosis system that you don’t have to install. They have them at Bulk Reef Supply for $100. Get one with a built in tds meter. It’s worth it. They come with every adapter you might need.
I started using mine for drinking water after Scott Pruitt was confirmed.
You can get a reverse osmosis system for ~$150. Maybe not cheap, but not super expensive either. Even if you're renting for a year and leave it behind that's less then $0.50 a day over one year.
I would highly recommend an inexpensive under-sink water filter, hooked up to the cold water line. I have a 3M "Aqua-Pure" which is far more convenient than the pitcher style, and probably filters better. I use it for everything; drinking water and cooking are the obvious options, but it also improved the flavor of my homebrew beer.
Hear, hear. I have a sensitive sense of smell (and thus taste) and tap water here (in a huge metropolitan city in the U.S.) tastes like chlorine, and it's a little sweet. People here say it's "delicious."
To avoid drinking "delicious" tap water I drink bottled water, and I have for decades. Also, fluoride in the tap water? No, thank you. I don't get cavities because I eat well and brush correctly.
get a megahome distiller. Doesn't require installation, so you can take it with . you when you laeve. Be prepared to be disgusted by the residue remaining.
> what do you suggest for people who cannot tolerate the taste of some tap water
Drink it until you get used to it, people are remarkably adaptable and will get used to just about anything if they're exposed to it long enough. In the case of water a month should be more than enough.
Just my personal experience: tap water in US tastes bad, bottled watered in US tastes also bad ("purified" water). As European on business trip I was forced to buy San Pellegrino or other imported (and expensive :/) brands. On the plane they also give "purified" water -> distilled water + salt.
You go to a restaurant, they insist on infinite refill on that bad tasting water...
I'm seriously not surprised with so called "Raw Water" movement in US.
I test my bottled water and it has ~4ppm of stuff in it... my well water has ~400ppm of stuff... I would rather drink the purest one... I could buy a reverse osmosis system to purify my water but I would not be saving money.
The people in my city that have city water often complain about cloudy water, so it's not any better (maybe worst).
Psychology is one. Many blind tests of tap water filled in bottles has people fooled.
Temperature is another. Ice cool water, from office water coolers, or just with ice cubes. Partially again psychology but cool water tastes better, tap or not.
Source and water treatment obviously matters the most. In my experience tap water in Norway tastes really nice. It is where I grew up so my taste buds expect water to taste like that so that may be a reason, but I think it is also down to the source of the water and its filtration technology. And it is cold water. I only choose to drink bottled water there when it is more convenient, not for flavour. (Other mountainous, water-rich 1st world countries I have been to also seems to have nice flavoured water).
But where I live now, in another flat, full of people country, the tap water is very safe and clean but I do not like the flavour. I still drink it to quench a thirst but prefer bottled when there is a choice.
So I guess for large parts of the world the flavour will be decided by where they live.
Filters like https://www.brita.com probably makes it nicer but at an individual cost and less convenient.
For anyone else wondering what effect microplastics actually have on the human body, it looks like the effects are still up in the air. Animal studies [0] show that microplastics can be taken up by tissue and circulation, and they are also present in the air [1]. Not sure what impact drinking bottled water would have on concentration inside the body. I couldn't find any long term studies on their effect on cancer, which is my main concern for any foreign contaminant entering the body.
Cancer is obviously no good, but other terrible life damaging consequences can also happen. Witness lead poisoning, with its reduced IQ and tendency towards violence for people who've ingested or breathed in lead. Also bad would be clogging of capillaries and causing some strange diabetes, with subsequent organ damage. Reduced fertility is another concerning type of biological damage.
All of these are life-changing and won't kill you on short order. I think these kinds of damages are more pernicious as they're less obvious but still impact your quality of life, and maybe more so than living in a developing country.
Full quote: "Mason's team was able to identify specific plastics over 100 microns (0.10 mm) in size but not smaller particles. According to experts contacted by CBC News, there is a chance the Nile Red dye is adhering to another unknown substance other than plastic."
Key point: they're unsure about the smaller particles, but they're sure about the bigger ones. There is microplastics in the samples.
That's not too surprising, given that this problem of consuming plastics is a relatively new one. There likely hasn't been enough time to fully understand the implications of eating tiny plastic particles. I doubt that they are all expelled from your body with other wastes given that this isn't something your body naturally deals with. More research is needed.
I wish there had been more European water brands tested, as out of this list I only know Evian and San Pellegrino, and they are the two least contaminated brands, but they are also a bit more upscale than what most people drink.
While there may be some questions regarding the exact methodologies used in this study and its accuracy, it is still pretty fucking scary to hear that microplastics are in so much of the water we drink and bottled companies are not filtering it out sufficiently.
Especially considering that the oil filter in your car is good to tens of microns for tens of thousands of gallons and costs ~$5.
You'd think that if you're running an industrial plant (at a scale where multi-stage filters, centrifugal separation, etc, etc are economically viable) you'd be able to do a heck of a lot better than 10 100 micron particles per liter.
0.1 millimeter or larger is not really that small, it's the size of fine sand. I admittedly never look for sand in bottled water but just assumed that such large particles would never make it through the filters.
I use a Berkey filtration system and feel mildly optimistic about not drinking plastic every time I fill my glass. From late September, 2017 [0].
> "There is nowhere really where you can say these are being trapped 100%. In terms of fibres, the diameter is 10 microns across and it would be very unusual to find that level of filtration in our drinking water systems.” With that being said, we know that the berkey can filter down to 2 microns and less, so until testing is done, we can only state that the berkey would be filtering out more of these microplastics than your town's municipal water filtering system
Readit News
For countries without clean water, the effort should be put into getting municipal water supplies.
Don't buy plastic disposable water bottles if you live in a developed nation. They prop up a terrible industry, generate tons of waste, use tons of oil and it's less clean than just drinking from a water fountain.
Edit: the documentary Tapped is a great film about the bottled water industry, and Blue Gold is a good one about the water industry in general.
What's wrong with using tons of oil? It's not being burnt so it doesn't contribute to climate change. Are you concerned that it's wasting the valuable oil that would be better used to power a car or power station?
Instead of having a VLCC bringing crude to a Gulf Coast refinery where a large part is converted into propylene for bottle and cap production, the crude could be kept safely in its original well, unused. If the demand for propylene (et al) is reduced, refiners would alter their production to make less, ultimately lowering their crude intake, ceteris paribus.
Plastics are incredibly useful. Tons upon tons of bottles end up in landfills, oceans, etc. Even with plastic recycling, PET yields aren't 100%. There is only so much oil and eventually the plastics we have will cease to be recyclable.
I'm not trying to say that it's wrong to use a disposable plastic bottle from time to time. There's not anything wrong with having a case of water. But no one with access to clean water should primarily use disposable bottles. It's lazy and shortsighted.
Most plastic bottles are burnt, so they do contribute to climate change; the small percentage of bottles that actually are recycled cannot be turned into new bottles --- plastics are always downcycled; recycled plastics are sometimes mixed in with virgin plastic pellets, but it's usually a relatively small amount of the total.
(I'm setting up an educational project for school classes on the topic of plastic recycling and renewable energy.)
Not for thermal energy, but it is still being heated and the bits of the hydrocarbon chain that are not wanted are going... where? The process still uses energy and iirc most of the world, particularly where manufacturing occurs, is not using renewables. Maybe Nuclear if you're lucky.
Those standards are also very loose IMO letting a lot of crap though that I don't want to drink on a regular basis. So, it's really more of a mixed bag than you might think.
I´m playing with semantics here. But some parts of USA hardly count as developed states. As a country, the USA is overachieving in a lot of measures, but individual states found themselves at the same level than developing nations.
It´s difficult to apply the same rule to 10,000,000km2 of territory and 325 Million people.
In well-developed countries, bottled water is easy money: move to a friendly jurisdiction, ship a transportable product out, and sell to a self-selecting, discretionary customer base at obscene markups. It's pure profit.
In less-developed countries, bottled water is enabled by and further perpetuates structural inequality: it provides clean water to those who are willing and able pay for it, without the infrastructure and maintenance load of municipal piping, dealing with governments, or having to be exposed to risks that coincide with this inequality, including theft, leaks, and distributed contamination.
Maybe in the US, it can be solved on a city-by-city basis. For some other countries, I think it's a much more complex problem.
People on Brazil will always tell you to drink bottled water too, yet all the safety issues that make into news (always a very small note at the end of the news) are with bottled water and the sanitary standards are much more strict with tap water.
Deleted Comment
And until the problem has been fixed, what exactly are they supposed to drink?
In Thailand for example, they have vending machines dispensing drinking water into your own bottle.
I started using mine for drinking water after Scott Pruitt was confirmed.
To avoid drinking "delicious" tap water I drink bottled water, and I have for decades. Also, fluoride in the tap water? No, thank you. I don't get cavities because I eat well and brush correctly.
Drink it until you get used to it, people are remarkably adaptable and will get used to just about anything if they're exposed to it long enough. In the case of water a month should be more than enough.
Deleted Comment
You go to a restaurant, they insist on infinite refill on that bad tasting water...
I'm seriously not surprised with so called "Raw Water" movement in US.
The people in my city that have city water often complain about cloudy water, so it's not any better (maybe worst).
Psychology is one. Many blind tests of tap water filled in bottles has people fooled.
Temperature is another. Ice cool water, from office water coolers, or just with ice cubes. Partially again psychology but cool water tastes better, tap or not.
Source and water treatment obviously matters the most. In my experience tap water in Norway tastes really nice. It is where I grew up so my taste buds expect water to taste like that so that may be a reason, but I think it is also down to the source of the water and its filtration technology. And it is cold water. I only choose to drink bottled water there when it is more convenient, not for flavour. (Other mountainous, water-rich 1st world countries I have been to also seems to have nice flavoured water).
But where I live now, in another flat, full of people country, the tap water is very safe and clean but I do not like the flavour. I still drink it to quench a thirst but prefer bottled when there is a choice.
So I guess for large parts of the world the flavour will be decided by where they live.
Filters like https://www.brita.com probably makes it nicer but at an individual cost and less convenient.
Sure it’s totally subjective and anecdata, but my sample size is over 100 brands in 20+ countries.
Dead Comment
Food (or drink :) for thought!
[0] https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ieam.5...
[1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71279-6_...
All of these are life-changing and won't kill you on short order. I think these kinds of damages are more pernicious as they're less obvious but still impact your quality of life, and maybe more so than living in a developing country.
If you can't get the plastics out of the water you can't get the other chemicals out, because the plastic has already grabbed it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23270427
"believed to be microplastics"
"there is a chance the Nile Red dye is adhering to another unknown substance other than plastic."
So it may, or may not be microplastics that they found/counted.
Key point: they're unsure about the smaller particles, but they're sure about the bigger ones. There is microplastics in the samples.
There isn't a whole lot to "manufacturing" water.
This is just our devouring of the planet, nothing to see here. Now reinsert head in ass and press play.
I wish there had been more European water brands tested, as out of this list I only know Evian and San Pellegrino, and they are the two least contaminated brands, but they are also a bit more upscale than what most people drink.
You'd think that if you're running an industrial plant (at a scale where multi-stage filters, centrifugal separation, etc, etc are economically viable) you'd be able to do a heck of a lot better than 10 100 micron particles per liter.
> "There is nowhere really where you can say these are being trapped 100%. In terms of fibres, the diameter is 10 microns across and it would be very unusual to find that level of filtration in our drinking water systems.” With that being said, we know that the berkey can filter down to 2 microns and less, so until testing is done, we can only state that the berkey would be filtering out more of these microplastics than your town's municipal water filtering system
[0](https://www.bigberkeywaterfilters.com/blog/category/micropla...)
Hmmmmm