Ok, so I’ve become more conscientious about how I recycle
plastic bottles and caps. But I
still notice that the majority of the bulk in my recycling bin is made up of
empty water bottles. So, the next
step is to get them out of my life altogether. I have to go back to drinking tap water.
“Ewww,” you may say, as I have. It’s icky; full of contaminants, lead, and
God-knows-what-else, and it always tastes a little off. But here’s the thing: not only are the bottles a problem; the bottled water itself might be fooling us.
What do we imagine when we gulp down that clear,
pristine-looking liquid? As for
me, I don’t need it to come from a mountain stream or an underground spring,
but I always have believed that it might come from a plant that purifies it, at
least. Sad to say, the National
Resources Defense Council reports that as much as 40 percent of bottled water
is actually from a tap.[1] Yup, that’s right folks. Open a tap, fill a bottle, sell it for
a huge profit.
What’s to stop the bottled-water companies from doing just
that? We have become complacent
about food safety and water quality over the last century because of the broad
involvement of government in regulating our food and water supply. We believe that if we can buy it in a
store, it’s been checked, and it’s ok.
Who has the time to look into whether that’s actually true for every
product we buy? Not I! Unfortunately, the reality is that we do have to do that, both for our own individual health,
and to make the food and water industries do no harm.
So when we believe that the government is watching out for our
safety—and it generally is—the devil’s in the details, and we have to educate
ourselves.
For example, do we know which agency is responsible for
regulating the quality of bottled water, and why that matters? Our tap water is monitored by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the rules in the Safe Drinking Water
Act. Utility companies have to
test municipal water supplies constantly, many times per day. Bottled water, on the other hand, is
classified as a food product, and so
falls under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the
rules in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Under FDA rules, bottling companies have to test their
supply only once per week. There
is not enough budget to enforce even these regulations stringently across the
board, and in any case they only apply to 30-40% of the bottled water that
is sold across state lines. Trying to buy from your local
micro-bottler? You may want to ask
how regulated its product is.
About 40 states have their own regulations, but many just mirror those
of the FDA.[2]
The watchdog Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC)
testing revealed really bad stuff in about a quarter of bottled water—from the
water supply, the purification process, or even leaching from the plastic
bottles themselves. (There’s a lot
to say about the environmental impacts of those bottles, but let’s stick to the
water quality for now.)
Given all of this, I’ve become convinced that turning to bottled water for
health reasons is just an illusion.
But I know my taps; in my old house the tap water also is scary. Even though I live in a big city and I
trust that my water supply meets EPA standards, the pipes that bring the water
into my house are old, and probably contain unspeakable substances. So, what to do? (1) Get my tap water tested, and (2)
support the clean water movement.
I like the idea of a federal clean water trust fund, which would provide
an ongoing stream of federal dollars to upgrade municipal water systems. The federal budget is cash-strapped,
you say? Yes, but fees and fines
are not taxes. Levy fines on
polluters, add a fee to things that are flushed, to producers of toxic
materials, to solid-waste dumping, and pretty soon we’ll have the funding
stream we need.
There’s one more thing that nags at me about this issue, and
that is an additional incentive for me to localize my water consumption. I know that, because of human
practices, the planet is running short of potable water, period. This is not just a distribution
problem; we’re all at risk. Food
and Water Watch and other groups forecast that two-thirds of the world’s
population expected to run short of fresh drinking water by 2025.[3]
And, this isn’t just a problem in
arid regions like sub-Saharan Africa.
The aquifers right under us are being depleted. Do we really want to support—with our
retail dollars—private companies extracting more water from some places, for
distribution and sale at others, for profit? No. Speaking as
a member of “the public,” it’s time to make water a public good, again.
