To All You Drinkers of Bottled Water,...

you're getting duped. You've been scammed.

As the author Brian Howard in lays out in his article, "Message in a Bottle: Despite the Hype, Bottled Water is Neither Cleaner Nor Greener Than Tap Water," in the Sept/Oct 2003 issue of E Magazine, blind taste tests and extensive scientific studies have shown that the American paranoia about our tap water is unfounded. In fact, some bottled water is not as clean as tap, and the consumption of bottled water contributes to the unnecessary use of plastics (made by petrochemicals, by the way) while helping the bottled water distributors rack up massive profits.

And the contention that bottled water is "convenient" is a falsity too. How hard is it to buy a reusable bottle and fill it with tap water or tap water that's been filtered from your home? The bottled water manufacturers have been savvy in exploiting Americans' obsession with good health. Sure bottled water is better than soda/pop, but at what cost to your wallets/purses/man purses, and at what cost to our environment?

Add that to the fact that approximately 40% of all bottled water started as tap water (Howard p. 28), that bottled water is largely self-regulated (29-30), that the FDA doesn't have a full-time staff member who regulates bottled water (29), that the carcinogen phthalate can leach out of the plastic (30), that bacteria grows in bottled water when stored for a short time (30), that aquifers are being depleted at an alarming rate, and that the Container Recycling Institute "estimates that supplying thirsty Americans with water bottles for one year consumes more than 1.5 million barrels of oil, which is enough to generate electricity for more than 250,000 home for a year, or enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year" while only approximately 5% of plastic waste is actually recycled (37), Americans need to seriously consider their consumer habit of buying bottled water.

Here's an article, "The Bottled Water Lie" by Michael Blanding, that provides a more recent take on this scam.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/stories/43480/

So don't buy into the bottled water lie.

Or you can simply keep scarfing down Aquafina (tap water from Wichita, among other places), Dasani (tap water from Queens, Jacksonville, among other places), Everest (tap water from Texas), Yosemite (tap water from the LA suburbs) with no eye toward to the future (Howard 34).

Enjoy.