February 22nd - “Water, Water Everywhere But Not a Drop to Drink” ?

Friends of the Earth describe bottled water as “environmental madness” stating that it is absolutely absurd to be putting this very heavy, bulky, super-cheap product in bottles which weigh almost as much as the product and carting them round the world. In a world where many people still do not have access to clean drinking water critics may also quite reasonably be outraged at the sheer decadence of western consumers wiling to pay 10,000 times the price of tap water for the bottled equivalent - http://www.foei.org/en/resources/video/videos-we-like/the-story-of-bottled-water for an interesting short video called “The Story of Bottled Water” on the FoE website

Well, when you put it like that I feel rather daft for ever buying it! (although as one of the fastest growth areas in the food and drink industry I’m not alone).

The WWF states that 22 million tonnes of bottled water are transported each year between countries resulting in thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and producing up to 1.5 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. Depressingly the industry is largely controlled by multinationals like Danone (who own Volvic and Evian) and Nestle (Buxton, Perrier Vittel, San Pelligrino) and Coca Cola who’s brand Disani was withdrawn from the UK after it was revealed to be tap water originating from the Thames!!

But what to do when we’re constantly warned that the practice of making water safe to drink actually involves adding large amounts of extremely poisonous chemicals such as liquefied chlorine and aluminium sulphate to it?

According to http://freshlysqueezedwater.org.uk/, despite the fact that the fluoridisation of water is banned in all other European countries and a huge and ever-growing body of evidence that the science behind this mass medication programme is questionable to say the least, around 10% of the UK’s water supply is fluoridated. Fluoride is currently associated with all sorts of problems and can affect the brain, thyroid, bones etc etc. Add to that the fact that our water generally travels through Victorian water pipes it seems pretty much certain that it’s going to pick up some pretty nasty additions along the way such as lead, arsenic, hormones, pesticides, bacteria etc. You can buy water testing kits from places such as http://www.simplexhealth.co.uk/potential-water-contaminants-cms-43.html but these are pretty pricey.

Yuck! But it appears that our bottled water may not be that clean either and is subject to far less stringent safety tests than tap water. While tap water must be checked daily under a rigorous inspection regime, by contrast, bottled makers are only required to undertake monthly testing at source. Once filled and sealed, a bottle of water might remain in storage for months before it is sold and so not containing disinfecting additives such as chlorine brings other problems. In addition there’s the whole recent worry that plastic can leak dioxins (which cause cancer) not great!

So bottled water is:
· Expensive
· Bad for the environment
· No cleaner / less clean than tap water
· Feeds the non-ethical big corporations

Apparently tap water is safer if you bring it to a rolling boil for at least 5 minutes (although this process also removes the oxygen and makes it taste flat) - not really very practical (!) or you can filter it. This seems like the best option. Some fridges have filters attached or you can just buy a jug with a filter Brita for example will take back your used filter cartridges and recycle them.