Bottled Water is a Pollutant

Bottled Water

Bottled water was unheard of until the 1990. However, selling bottled water has become a very profitable industry in the last decade. Local and Multinational companies make billions of dollars by packaging and marketing ordinary tap water at about 2000 (yes, two thousand) times the price of normal water. They have no conscience about misleading the public and no consideration of the environmental pollution they are causing. These companies either bottle tap water or extract the water from the ground. They put the water in an artistic bottle and stick a label on it and charge a price which can range from $1.00 to $4.00 or more. Major water companies are Pepsi (marketing as Aquafina), Coke (marketing as Dasani), Nestle (marketing as Perrier), Evian, and Fiji Water.

Bottled water is inferior to tap water.

Currently there are very regulations which govern the supply of bottled water. There are no regulations on what bottled water can and cannot contain. Society and governments have differing views on the benefits and drawbacks of bottled water. Many studies have been done comparing bottled water with other forms of water. No two municipalities are ever alike, no two bottled water companies are alike, the water being bottled is not alike in two different locations. These dissimilarities make comparative studies either very difficult or impossible.

Many studies have been done on bacterial count of bottled water with that of tap water. Bottled water had higher bacterial count. Therefore, on this measure bottled water was judged to be inferior to tap water.

Other studies investigated the amount of harmful substances contained in bottled water vs tap water. A vast majority of these studies showed that tap water was safer than bottled water. One four year study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that bottled water contained small amounts of poisons. These included arsenic, lead, and other carcinogenic compounds. This study investigated 103 different brands of bottled water. The study found that one third of these bottles exceeded the quality of household tap water. However, it was alarming to note that two thirds were inferior to tap water and yet commanded a price which was more that 2000 times higher than that charged by local water authority.

Conclusion: Tap water is superior to bottled water by 66 % to 33 %.

Bottled water is more expensive than tap water.

This is one area where I will not have to write much to make an impact on readers. All readers know that they pay between $1.00 and $4.00 for a bottle of water. Yet for the same price they could use water all day, from the tap and have money to spare. I hope this convinces readers that bottled water is more expensive than tap water.

Bottled water is definitely more polluting than tap water.

Many of us are let to believe that recycled bottles are safe for the environment. No one talks of the bottles which are thrown about and will remain in the environment of thousands of years. Do we really want to fill up our dump sites with plastic bottles and then wait for thousands of years for them to decay. When they decayed plastics will leach into the water and poison it.

Burning plastics is not a choice either. Poisonous gases and carcinogens are released into the environment immediately.

Conclusion: We as nurses need to educate the public on the harms of bottled water. Let us take a stand for the good of society’s health and protection of environment. There will never be such a clear case where intervention at grass roots level could have three clear benefits. Drinking tap water will save consumers money, they will have better health and the environment will be protected from plastics.