We’ve all heard the warnings about how fizzy drinks can damage our wellness and wellbeing, and so it’s no surprise that many of us are looking to bottled water to provide a better alternatives. Even traditional soda companies like Coca Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo are cashing in on this by producing water and marketing it as a healthy alternative.
This has directly lead to the United States consuming more bottled water than any other country (despite having a natural abundance of clean drinking water coming straight out of the taps!) and this in turn leads to serious environmental problems. Every 27 hours, the US throws away enough empty water bottles to run, end to end, around the circumference of the equator.
If it were vital for our health, then perhaps the environmental toll would seem more worthwhile, but in truth, bottled water could be doing more harm than good. Marketers use words like ‘fresh’, ‘pure’ and ‘pristine’ to sell this bottled water, and try to undervalue the health benefits of tap water. At the same time, issues with contamination have led to over 100 different recalls of bottled water batches in recent years. Tap water is tested hundreds of times every day and is constantly monitored, whereas bottled water manufacturers are not required to test the water at all. This is completely unregulated and the FDA has no jurisdiction over the quality of the bottled water sourced.
Some of this water is even the exact same water that comes out of your taps – mined and bottled in the same state where you live, and then sold back to you at a hugely inflated price.
Not only that, but small towns across the United States and the rest of the world are being exploited due to their water resources, feeding the demand of giant corporations and selling public water to make a profit. Poor neighborhoods are even being poisoned by the toxins involved with manufacturing the plastic bottles.