by Stephen B.

Created on: July 15, 2008

There are two big issues involved in the sale of water bottles: The resources used (water and oil) and the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills. Since the rise in popularity of bottled water special terms like "spring water" and "mineral water" have been thrown around like they really mean anything. The water used in public water utilities are often taken from springs and rivers just like bottled water. In the United States the amount of bottled water that is just taken from the water treatment plants and just put in bottles is somewhere around 40%.

The industry is now a $70 billion a year market and it is using up water and oil at an alarming rate. In 2007, the United States used around 17.7 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic in bottled water called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). But it gets much worse because the amount of oil used to ship raw materials and bring the water to store shelves is added in the amount of oil used is around 50 million barrels as reported by the Pacific Institute. That much oil would be enough to power 3 million cars for one year. With oil prices as high as they are it is time to look at all products that use oil not just automobiles.

Even the amount of water used to fill the bottles is extremely wasteful. The American History Museum presented an exhibition on water resources in February 2008, and part of that exhibition showed that the average amount of water used to create one litre of bottle water is three litres. There is no other product on the planet that is even remotely close to this type of waste, and if it is then there is no way it is profitable like bottled water. The real issue with this lies in the image that is presented to the public by bottling companies. Their aggressive marketing campaigns undermine our faith in public water systems and create an illusion of private sector infallibility.

The truth is that bottle water is overseen by the Food & Drug Administration which places guidelines on companies to do their own purification. This policy has allowed many unsafe drugs and foods to come into the market place for public consumption. Municipal water facilities have federal regulators from the Environmental Protection Agency doing hands-on oversight to ensure that public drinking water is safe. In the last decade the FDA has proven time and time again that they cannot handle greedy business practices when it is out of control, but EPA has never been accused of doing a bad job in bringing the US

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