Tapped

is a US American documentary from 2009 about bottled water and you can find out more at: www.tappedthemovie.com

The film is split into the issue of where the water comes from and then the bottles. Communities in water-rich states of the US are rallying against Nestle (a Swiss corporation), Pepsi & CocaCola who steal their drinking water. In some states, according to the legislation, water is practically free for anyone and so these companies come and pump as much as they can to later sell it at a huge profit. These companies even kept operating the year (2007?) that over 30 states were facing dorught conditions and municipalities restriced water usage. I understood their rage but I also kept thinking: don't buy bottled water! It's such a logical consequence that will put the corporations out of that business! It still leaves them in the need for water to produce coke and other pop drinks/ sodas but it would help a lot.


Don't buy bottled water.

Why is bottled water so big? - In 1989 it became possible to put water into lightweight, cheap, clear PET bottles. Bottled water became a huge commodity and private corporations have not stopped making their profit of it. 

Don't buy bottled water.   
 

One of my favourite quotes in the film goes something like this: We have all become like big toddlers .. that need to know constantly that there's something there; we want it individualized, personalized, we don't want to have take care of it, just throw it away. We want it immediately available and convenient otherwise we'll have a fit. -- It explains why most of us do not reuse a (BPA-free!) bottle that can be simply refilled from the tap. I do of course. 


Don't buy bottled water. 

Advertisement makes us believe that bottled water is purer & healthier than tap water. 40% of all bottled water in the US is simply filtered tap water and due to "processing" and packaging not better than tap water. Different tests have found bacterial contaminants, arsenic, benzene, vinyl chloride, styrene, phthalate, and other carcinogenic substances. Why is this?  Municipalities have to test their water several times per day to insure its safety - Pepsi & Co. don't have to do this. Even when these companies do their own tests on water sources and products they don't have to make them public. The government does not help either. In all of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) there's only one person looking after bottled water regulations, and she has other responsibilities too. The FDA only regulates products that move between states, so if water is bottled and sold in the same state the FDA does not care about it. Unfortunately consumers have too much faith in a self-regulated industry!
 
Don't buy bottled water.  
 

Now the bottles are usually made of PET or PETE which requires a substances that derives from the refining process of crude oil which tends to come with cancer-causing "by-products". The production of plastic bottles contaminates water!!! & air. Big sturdy bottles often contain Bisphenol A (BPA). The review of 700 studies concluded though that BPA is related to diabetes, breast & prostate cancers, obesity,  liver diseases, diseases of the uterus, brain disorders (hyperactivity), low sperm count and more. 

Don't buy bottled water. 


Once the bottle's been used it needs to go somewhere preferably into recycling. While worldwide 50% of all beverage containers get recycled it's only 20% in the US. And who pays for it? Often the municipality that provides safe tap water. In some states there's a deposit. It's proven that deposits ensure bottles are returned for recycling. The bottled water industry prefers curbside recycling though and ignores the fact that 50% of Americans don't have access to curb side recycling. Consequently millions of bottles each year are incinerated releasing dioxin, or end up in landfills and in the ocean! Another great quote: The beach of the future does not have shells, corals and sand - it has a plastic cover! 
In the Pacific two garbage patches have been located, one in the East, one in the West. That's where due to currents plastics have accumulated from Asia and America. The same applies to other oceans!  In 2008 researchers found 48 times as much plastics as planktons in these garbage patches. A researcher resumed: Bottled water might be good in disaster relief but is a disaster in every day use.

Don't buy bottled water. 

Time to put a cap on bottled water

When 100% Canadian Bottled Water states to be “the real environmentally friendly company” then that is a bold lie to me because the business of bottled water alone is a far cry from environmentally friendly. Here's why: I bought a BPA-free water bottle recently. A little leaflet on the bottle stated that the energy required to manufacture, fill, and transport a chilled disposable bottle of water is equivalent to filling the bottle ¼ full of oil. Bon Appetit! Plastic bottles take up to 1000 years to decompose. In North America an estimated 70 million bottles are dumped in land fills each year, and buying bottle water costs up to 3000 times as much as tap water - the willingness to pay that price (in a developed country) pis stupid to me.  

An article in today's paper refers to a new book called "Bottled and sold" by Peter Gleick. The author underlines that every second in the US 1000 people buy a bottle of water and another 1000 throw an empty bottle away. Terrible, alone the thought of so much plastic used to bottle something that comes tasty right out of the tap, at least in developed countries. I have drunk tap water for many years now, my parents don't like it. Advertisement did the trick for them, they think it's not as good as bottled water but that's not right. They surely would not do what I did - drink water out of rivers in New Zealand and Iceland when hiking and camping. Water should be safe to drink or we "smart" human beings have screwed up once more!  ...  Oh yes, we have screwed up big time again. 

Europe is pretty good at recycling, some countries more than others. In Germany you take your bottles back to the store where you bought them and receive your deposit back. In Edmonton we have to make all the way to the Bottle Depot which not everybody does. I do it and the stroller comes in handy even though others think I'm crazy. Oh no, I'm not, it's for a good cause. But I return milk jugs and the odd wine bottle, never water bottles.

The European Federation of Bottled Water says that the recycling of PET bottles has been rising and has reached 41% in 2008. Sounds disappointing to me! That's still 59% that don't get recycled and possibly end up in landfills. I strongly support the stand that there should not be such a thing as bottled water. But drinking fountains in the city that's a good idea to me. Basel in Switzerland has them.