Young and Brilliant

dihard:

1. Mainly because I don’t like being taken advantage of.

• The bottled water industry is a $46 billion dollar industry.
• Americans bought over 31.2B liters of water in 2006.

2. It’s a colossal waste of money for what comes out of the tap.

• It’s not always natural, nor is it spring; most of what you’re buying (25%, or so I’ve read) is just from the tap, and Amerians spend $15B on it a year.
• Remember when Dasani had to change its label to include the words “Public Water Source?”

3. It’s also bad for the environment.

• It takes 3 to 5 times more water to make and fill one plastic water bottle than the bottle contains.
• In order to fulfill US’s demand, over 17M barrels of oil is used. That’s enough to fuel 1M US cars for a year.
• 86% of water bottles are not recycled and end up in landfills and take over 1000 years to decompose.

4. Tap water could actually be healthier.

• The EPA holds higher standards for testing tap water than the FDA does for bottled water.
• A 1999 study found that 60-70% of bottled water sold in the US was exempt from FDA’s bottled water standards because they don’t apply to water bottled and sold within the same state.

5. And, of course, the bottles are said to leach chemicals.

• Take a look at your bottle and you’ll see the inscription “Do not refill.” You may even see “store in a cool, dry and clean place away from light.”
• PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is the plastic most bottles are made of, can leach benzyl butyl phthalate (endocrine disruptive chemicals, cause of liver & male reproductive damage in rodents), and DEHA (a known carcinogen) - though we are not yet certain how and to what extent these are harmful to humans.
• Even your Nalgene is not safe. Nalgene’s are made of a polycarbonate plastic called Lexan that contains bisphenol A (BPA), which if consumed can cause chromosomal disruption, miscarriages, birth defects and obesity. Nalgene’s were recently pulled from the shelves at some stores in Canada until further research.

I definitely try to stick to my reusable water bottle, or rather, glasses when I can, purely based on the fact that somehow, my water bottles never seem to get washed. But it’s hard to keep this up. Mainly, I think, because it’s so culturally accepted, no, expected, no, glorified to drink bottled water as opposed to tap. 

One of those famous things about Evian water, is that it’s naive spelled backwards. People laugh and point at you if you use Evian water, because supposedly it’s price makes it absolutely ridiculous to do so. (Personally, I think it’s almost worse when you’re drinking Dasani or something similar, since you’re essentially paying for the priveledge of drinking tap water.) But the thing is, what people buy when they buy Evian is a brand. Like many consumer choices today, you’re buying a statement about yourself. When was the last time you saw a celebrity carrying a Nalgene bottle in a paparazzi shot?  Bottled water is just one more of those small little luxuries that Americans enjoy and abuse. People drink bottled water for the same reason that people buy a Lexus over a Toyota. Even the question, “Bottled or tap?” innocently asked in a restraunt continues to promote the luxurious brand image that bottled water as a whole enjoys. 

On the flipside, if they’re lucky, water bottles carry around the stigmatism of their biggest brand, Naglene. A quick google brings up quotes like “a staple on many college campuses” and “ubiquitous on college campuses.” You then take into account the brand’s outdoorsy, almost hippie-seeming roots, and it’s clear that there’s simply no comparison. Why would the modern urbanite carry around something so sophomoric, when they could carry around a sophisticated bottle of Fiji water? It’s almost ridiculous that the whole thing hasn’t been addressed, aside from maybe a few half-assed attempts at selling (very poorly constructed, btw) water bottles at Starbucks. 

Secondly, it’s not as easy as you think. I travel a lot, and I’ve been thinking lately, about how places where we consume the most bottled water don’t really promote tap water, or even bringing our own bottled water. For example, think about when you’ve been traveling for a long time, and you enter a gas station or an airport with your water bottle. Usually, the only place you really have access to fill up your water bottle comfortably is the restroom. Given that public restrooms are basically the most disgusting, disease-infested places you can imagine, why on earth would anyone want to fill up their water bottles there? It’s not inviting at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d just rather buy a bottled water. Sinks in public places just don’t exist. Generally, even water fountains are a problem: if you get over the slight cultural taboo of filling your water bottle at a water fountain, then you run into the awkward problem that water fountains are designed to drink from, not fill from. How difficult would it be to add a tap somewhere so people could fill up a water bottle? 

Even with these cultural problems, I’d say that it’s worth of it for all of us to be more aware. In a lot of the reblogging of this post, I see a lot of people say, “I try not to buy bottled water, but I always end up getting on at the gym/newstand/subway station/whathaveyou.” Always? If always is the case, then you should know by now to have a waterbottle stashed in your gym bag/car/briefcase/whathaveyou. 

As for the last bit, about Nalgenes and they’re supposed unhealthiness, well. I am still using my Nalgene bottles, two pink ones, one from my middle school and another from Stanford; as well as a smaller purple one. But I’m starting to switch over to Sigg water bottles, which I highly recommend to anybody. They’re metal (so no bisphenol!) and very lightweight, they come with a variety of caps, designs, colors, and sizes, so you can pick one for your needs. They even have some for kids. As a bonus, they also don’t retain the “flavor” of the last drink you put in them, so you won’t have water tasting like this morning’s OJ.