Water has become America's comfort food. At $8.3 billion per year, bottled
water is a major business. Americans now drink more bottled water than beer,
coffee, tea, or milk at a rate of about 22 gallons per person per year. Far
be it from me to say that water is a bad thing since, at 0 calories, this is
a far better habit than soft drinks or booze. But think about the plastic!
This rate of consumption amounts to 40 million bottles per day, and
recycling rates for the plastic are around 15% and falling. Oddly, the
recycling rates for soda bottles are twice as good, at about 30%. That's a
big pile of plastic.
I am puzzled where all this comes from but several strands come to mind.
Like so much of nutrition, there has no small amount of medical mythology
coaxing this along. Patients tell me that they've been told, in some cases,
to drink a gallon or more of fluid per day. So people feel they have to have
near constant access to water and tend to want to carry it with them. Too,
we live in times that have encouraged suspicion and distrust of the
environment so people are distrustful of what comes out of the tap. Finally,
there is the throwaway mind set. Out of sight, out of mind, how convenient.
The unfortunate reality of plastics is that every bit of plastic ever made
is still with us, and this unimaginable pile grows every day by millions of
tons. Most plastics are not recyclable and those that are only get recycled
incompletely and imperfectly. The result is that plastic is now, some 50+
years after its WWII birth, as ubiquitous as anything on the planet. There
is not a square foot of ocean anywhere that is not polluted with small
particles of plastic, some of them so tiny that they are taken up by the
phyto plankton that are the basis of every food chain. Others fragments are
large enough to choke fish or birds, while still others entangle or ensnare.
Out of sight is only that, out of sight. And all of this plastic is fossil
fuel derived.
We all have heard the recent disclosures that bottled water is nothing more
or less than bottled tap water. In fact tap water quality is far more
heavily controlled and regulated than bottled water, which costs thousands
of times more.
Consider the moral dimension. While we Americans spend almost $10 billion
per year on this extravagance, one billion people worldwide are suffering
from severe water shortage.
So, what to do? First, while water is healthy stuff, there is no evidence
that the current vogue of hyper hydration has any basis in medical science.
Under most, non strenuous circumstances it is safe to drink very simply
according to thirst. Second, if you want or need to carry water, use a
reusable bottle and fill it from your tap. We are blessed with safe,
reliable water sources, and there is nothing wrong with your tap water.
finally, take a little of the money you save by not buying bottled water at
the going rate of $8/gallon, and contribute to some relief effort somewhere
that water is scarce. This is win-win for the causes of environmental health
and social justice.
- Steve Bien