Posted on 02/10/2006 9:16:02 AM PST by ConservativeBamaFan
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Bottled water consumption, which has more than doubled globally in the last six years, is a natural resource that is heavily taxing the world's ecosystem, according to a new US study.
"Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing, producing unecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy," according to Emily Arnold, author of the study published by the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based environmental group.
Arnold said although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can end up costing 10,000 times more.
"At as much as 2.50 dollars per liter (10 dollars per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline," the study says.
It added that the United States was the largest consumer of bottled water, with Americans drinking 26 billion liters in 2004, or about one eight-ounce (25 cl) glass per person every day.
Mexico was the second largest consumer at 18 billion liters followed by China and Brazil at 12 billion liters each.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I'm partial to drinking gasoline, myself.
The whole bottled water craze is pretty ridiculous. Tap water is just fine for me.
I'd like to see a pile of all the used bottled-water bottles, right next to a pile of all the discarded MSM newspapers. Don't forget to throw in the newsprint pile a container for all the water used in paper manufacture, as well as for the chlorine and other chemicals used for bleaching, printing, etc.
Its nice to know...after global warming, global cooling, the destruction of the African Red Beetle, the deforestation of the northwest Pacific, the demise of the Amazonian rainforrest...now we must worry about a lack of bottled water and this will eventually destroy our ecosystem.
Between the lines...you can easily grasp that Emily Arnold...the author...doesn't have much to do. She earned a degree somewhere...and really can't put it to much good. So she had to creat a new disaster...hoping that some think-tank...will take her in, pay her $80k per year...to bleed and weep to National Public Radio...about our serious bottled water situation.
Emily needs a job at Wal-mart...stocking the bottle water and cola beverages...and a happy husband named Walter who cooks blueberry waffles for breakfast.
It must be an objective study with an equally objective conclusion. Tight?
... and labeled "Tequila".
For years we've been hearing these eco-domsayers scraming about the water you drink being polluted and damaging, and you should only drink bottled water. Now that people are drinkig bottled water, they're in a frenzy anyhow.
I'm thinking that it's not THE WATER that's the issue here as to "taxing" natural resources.
IT'S THE PACKAGING, particularly the PLASTIC BOTTLES. They aren't often recycled and the manufacture of them is almost certainly posing the problems.
Particularly in countries mentioned...Mexico, China, Brazil...not known for recycling and known, instead, for mountains of trash and garbage nearly everywhere.
The tap water is good in my area, but it doesn't come in the cool bottles I can take to the gym.
But its not great like the well water from my parents house over in Wanker county, with no flourine and all.
Take out the flourine and I would be totally happy. My kids brush their teeth anyway.
Tap water (aka Government water) is different form place to place. When it tastes like garbage, one has to buy private sector water.
I's not the water, it's the packaging. Mexico, especially, has a huge trash problem (d'oh), noticable to anyone who visits anywhere outside the grounds of a "nice" hotel.
Mexico, China, etc., evne the U.S. could create greater incentives to recycle the water packaging after use...like, maybe, require one empty be returned (or maybe two) for every new one purchased.
I know that in CA, there are several aging Asians making what appears to be a daily living by retrieving the recyclable water bottles out of the garbage throughout neighborhoods. Maybe people in Mexico and Brazil, especially, should get with the notion that all the garbage all over then countries is because they are leaving it there.
More recycling is the answer, combined with a fluoridated water supply in Mexico, especially. One tiny bite of one tiny morsel washed in Mexico's public water supply is enough to keep the average visitor in the infirmary for a week with intravaneous fluids. I know of what I speak.
Enviro-freaks will bitch about anything.
But, the fluorine helps to eliminate other things other than tooth decay. There are many very aggressive problems that affect humans that are water borne.
I wouldn't recommend drinking flourine under any circumstances.
Yup, all that crap they put in tap water in the city is nasty. I have well water at home, which is great, and take a bottle of my well water to work so I don't have to drink the tap water.
I agree, though, as to fresh well water that isn't flouridated. It's superb. Problem is, most Americans nowadays no longer have access to an independent (and clean, unaffected) water source, even if they CAN dig their own wells.
I do relish the fresh water, however, that's available on a brother's farm and also in a favored remote area of the Rocky Mountains. Sad that we even need a public water supply but that's the way it is today with our ever expanding human population.
Water is only as pure as it is not affected by other runoff.
We have Baltimore City water - best in the world!
What gets me is this - at a local college, they eliminated drinking fountains (probably terrified of "lead" lawsuits) and but up signs - "Bottled drinking water is available in vending machines" - @ 1.25 a pop. In desperation once, I purchased one and read the content - "City of Dallas municipal water supply" -so I paid 1.25 for Texas water. Cool?
Also, all these people running around with bottles of room temperature water remind me of babies clasping their "botties".
In the U.S., just get a PUR water filter on the tap and use the PUR pitchers otherwise. PUR filers out most if not all fluorine and heavy metals, along with microbials and other nasties.
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