The Perils of Drinking out the Bottle
11 September 2008
The ‘bottle’ is bursting as individuals and organisations wake up to the truth about bottled water.
The amount of money spent on bottled water and bottled water coolers verges on the obscene with reports varying between $35 billion spent a year in the US and £2 billion spent in the UK. But the actual benefits of buying and drinking bottle mineral water, are in sharp contrast to the general public consensus. A product that appears as ‘fresh,’ ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ is in fact not disinfected, something that our public water is astringent in doing to prevent diseases such as cholera and typhoid. According to Thames Water ‘all bottled water should be treated as perishable goods’ and you should ‘never drink out of the bottle’ Water that is not disinfected contains higher level of bacteria. Even storing your bottled water past its sell by date (yes there is a sell by date) is a risky business, prolonged storage times (such as sitting on supermarket shelves) allow bacteria present in the water to multiply and grow.
Thames Water goes on to says that the quality of bottled ‘natural mineral water’ is governed by less stringent regulations than tap water and that other bottled waters such as ‘spring water’ are required to comply with the standards set for drinking tap water but only at the time of boiling. Bottled water companies have been excellent at exploiting the idea of enhanced health benefits attained from bottled water enhanced by the names ‘mineral’ and ‘spring.’ Drinking tap water or water from water coolers may not seem as glamorous as drinking water such as ‘Evian’ but it has at least been tested against 57 possibly harmful substances (pesticides, aluminium and nitrates); natural mineral waters are tested for just fifteen.
A British government adviser condemned the success of bottled water earlier this year, as ‘morally unacceptable’ and hoped to make it as unfashionable as smoking following a blind folded survey conducted by Watchdog that found we actually prefer the taste of tap water. Research conducted on the environmental impact of bottle water says drinking one bottle has the same impact on the environment as driving a car for a kilometre and other research claims that a litre of Evian or Volvic generates up to 600 times more CO2 than a litre of tap water.
There seems to be very little in favour of drinking bottled water. Not only is it infinitely more expensive than tap water- 1 litre of tap water costs 0.057p in comparison to 95p for bottled water (earlier this year, the Dudley council were accused of spending £110,000 in one year on mineral water alone), it is quite literally an environmental landfill. Only 10 percent of bottles are recycled, the rest go to landfill where they take 450 years to break down.
A lot of people like bottled water because it can be put in the fridge to get cold but water cooler dispensers will provide you with cold water instantly- without the environmental, possible health sacrifices and cost of drinking bottled water. Coventry City Council has saved over £300, 000 by installing water cooling dispensers.
Pressure Coolers, the water cooler and drinking fountain specialists supports the move away from drinking bottled water saying ‘not only is it extremely harmful to the environment, it has no actual health benefits, if anything, it can be a health risk. Water coolers can be instantly installed, never run out of water and with the right filtration system they provide refreshing, chilled drinking water at a fraction of the cost. They also can provide hot water for tea or coffee and sparkling water if desired.’
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