Newsflash: Water is less bad for you than soda. Earlier this week, Nestle employees trotted out some ideas about how good bottled water is and how it’s less bad than soda. Forgive me if I’m non-plussed by the idea that the world’s largest food and beverage corporation tries to sell the public on the idea that selling us a human right for the same price as carbonated sugar liquids aren’t equal, create more plastic waste, and pilfer communities.
Let’s take a look at this argument. Back when I was Food and Water Watch’s campus representative at Penn State, we had a kerfuffle about bottled water. I unsuccessfully tried to get Penn State to sever its contract for Aquafina. Tom Uhl, a Nestle employee, argued with me in The Daily Collegian. He said, “bottled water is actually a better environmental choice than other packaged beverages.” This argument was a distraction then and it’s a major distraction now.
From beginning to end, the more than tens of billions of bottles of water sold in the United States wreak environmental, social, and economic havoc. Anyone who wants to question that should wonder about why they have plastic and plastic leaches in their blood. After that wonder about the other systemic impacts.
First, it takes 1.85 gallons of water to manufacture one bottle of water – more than 14 times the amount of water finally delivered in a 16 oz. bottle itself. Why waste so much water?
Second, bottled water is fossil fuel intensive through its production, transport, cooling, and its disposal. Why waste so much oil to move water around?
Third, with a national plastic recycling rate of between 17% and 20%, I hardly think that we can call this a good environmental choice. Why waste so much plastic?
Finally, bottled water commodifies a biological need. It puts water into a “beverage” (it is still water isn’t it?) for “on-the-go” people (what are we hamsters in wheels?) at a price 700 to 10,000 times that of municipal water. Who profits? Not local communities and economies and the bioregions in which they live. It lines the pockets of already excessively rich people who have no right to that water. Why waste the money?
So do your part – grab a reusable bottle or cup and drink essentially free water from our Spring Creek Watershed.
Peter Walks for Democracy 