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SEPTEMBER 21, 2018
AIKEN-AUGUSTAʼS MOST SALUBRIOUS NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED IN 2006
WATER LOGGED If you’re reading this in Flint, Michigan, fi rst of all, thanks for reading. If your house and kitchen hasn’t been home to countless cases of bottled water over the past year or two, something is wrong. But for many of the rest of us, bottled water is a puzzling commodity. Tap water is practically free. A household can run through tens of thousands of gallons of the stuff in a month and get a bill that’s lower than what they spend at Starbucks in a week. Flint, Michigan, aside, municipal water systems in this country are among the finest and most carefully regulated in the world — a fact not lost on bottled water companies. Many a $1 or $2 bottle of water, resplendent behind a label showing a crystal-clear mountain stream, will list “municipal water” as its source. It’s tap water. No wonder bottled water sales in the U.S. exceeded $18 billion last year. It costs pennies to produce yet brings in dollars in sales. People think this is a modern hipster phenomenon, but it’s far from that. Bottled water was sold in the U.S. as early as 1767. Back in the day, there were two kinds of customers: city dwellers who risked cholera and dysentery if they drank ordinary tap water in their crowded tenements and apartments; and the rich, who would travel to health resorts to revel in their healing waters, then take a few bottles back home to continue their rejuvenation. By 1856, upstate New York’s Saratoga Springs was selling 7 million bottles of its spring water every year. Sounds like a lot until you fast forward to 1978, when Perrier projected sales that year of 75 million bottles of its heavily marketed water, “Earth’s fi rst soft drink.” Other companies saw Perrier’s success and began to salivate, and the water revolution was well on its way, helped considerably by the notable inventor who patented PET plastic bottles (for more about his remarkable story, see page 4). Buying billions of bottles of water year after year is a
two-edged sword. First, we’re paying exorbitant prices for an incredibly inexpensive commodity, and that applies even when you get a super-duper deal on cases of the stuff at your local super-store. On average, in volume bottled water costs 10,000 times more than tap water. It’s far more expensive than gasoline. Secondly, what do we do with all our billions of empty water bottles? We toss them in the trash to the tune of 2.5 million bottles per hour nationwide. It hardly seems possible. Another source estimates 30,000,000 bottles end up in U.S. landfills every day; that same source says we only recycle about 5 percent of the plastic water bottles we use. (See page 3 for recycling info.) “But wait!” someone says. “You’re failing to mention that bottled water has surpassed sodas as America’s most popular beverage. Think of the billions of calories we’re saving, and the millions of cavities.” That is definitely a good thing. But why does the water we drink have to be commercially bottled? Here is a splendid alternative: stop buying bottled water and use the savings to purchase a quality thermos. Fill that thermos every day with fresh, ice cold tap water. Feel free to throw in some lemon wedges or other flavoring. The whole thing might cost you a nickel a day. “I’ve got a better idea,” says someone. “I’ll just wash and reuse my trendy bottle from the bottled water company. Two birds, one stone.” According to independent sources (not bottled water sellers), single-use water bottles are designed for, well, single use. While PET plastic is considered safe, over time chemicals in the bottles can begin to break down and enter the contents of the bottle in trace amounts. By all means let’s keep up our healthful and salubrious water-drinking ways. But there’s no need to waste our hard-earned money on a penny’s worth of tap water in a two-dollar bottle. — See also page 3 +
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