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Jewish World Review April 27, 2005 / 18 Nissan, 5765 From bottled water, hypocrisy springs By Lenore Skenazy
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Oh, please, spare me your clean-living, pore-hydrating, toxin-flushing aria about why you cannot put down your water bottle! Go ahead and guzzle if you must. But did you realize that every time you buy a plastic bottle of what is likely to be simply overpriced tap water, you are actually committing an eco-sin that, ironically, will end up polluting the very spring water you so venerate?
You are. Here's the deal: Every day millions of Americans buy bottled water instead of turning on the tap.
Water isn't bad for you (unless you drink too much of it while exercising, dilute your blood and die, as doctors are starting to warn). But anyway, usually water is fine. What is NOT fine is what those water bottles are doing to the environment.
For every ad showing a sun-dappled brook (or sweaty hunk) there is a water bottle lying in a landfill, leaching toxic chemicals and guaranteeing us toxic brooks (and hunks) for years.
"Unfortunately, millions of plastic bottles are being landfilled every year and many of them are from the fast proliferation of bottled water," says Mark Izeman, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "These bottles break down and seep chemicals. Leaching landfills are one of the largest sources of contaminated underground water."
Well golllllly! Bottled water prances around pure as the polar ice cap but secretly, it is putrefying our water. Coca-Cola alone sells almost 2 billion bottles of Dasani a year, according to Ray Crockett, Dasani spokesman. While those bottles are, in theory, recyclable, only three states require a deposit on water bottles (as opposed to soda bottles). That means untold Dasani empties — and the empties from Aquafina, Poland Spring, etc. — end up either buried or incinerated, which also releases toxins.
As our environment grows ever more disgusting, many Earth Day types will praise bottled water as the perfect, purifying antidote. But in truth, says Erik Olson, NRDC's water expert, "Bottled water is not necessarily any purer or cleaner or safer than the stuff that comes out of your tap." After testing over 1,000 bottles of water, NRDC found most of it fine. But in a third of the brands, "We found things like arsenic and bacteria and components of gasoline."
Tap water is not only free, it is better regulated. What's more, it is exactly what you find in a quarter of all bottled water bottles — sometimes purified and sometimes straight from the faucet!
"You could take a hose, fill up water bottles and sell the stuff," says Olson.
Not a bad idea. But an even better idea is to drink water the old-fashioned way. Go to the sink and fill a glass. Remarkable how many well-intentioned people have forgotten how to do this. Remarkable what they're doing to the Earth.
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