You may not be drinking what you think you are

By: Tyler Hess

Posted: 2/19/10

Bottled Water: it's clean. It's pure. It's fresh from the mountain springs of... the Detroit River? You paid over a thousand times the price; looking into the brand might cause you to avoid buying remarketed tap water in such an unsustainable manner.

Aquafina (Pepsi Co.) & Dasani (Coca-Cola) have run into recent trouble in regards to their labeling system. Campaigns around the country wish for the words "Public Water Source" to be on their label. This occurred due to the discovery and subsequent Coca-Cola admission that their Dasani brand bottled water, which we have here at DePauw, is actually drawn straight from the city tap and re-sold to consumers under false pretenses.

Deception within this industry doesn't end at the counterfeit labeling. Environmental harms are piling up without notice. In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. Nearly a quarter of all bottled water crosses national borders to reach consumers, transported by boat, train and truck. Additionally, making bottles to meet America's demand for bottled water uses more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year. And that's not even including the oil used for transportation.

Furthermore, this waste of fuel only supplements consumers for a single use. In 2008, Americans consumed roughly 50 billion bottles of water, 38 billion of which were simply "thrown away." With this meager and unimpressive recycling rate, DePauw should not only encourage more recycling, but also stop the sale of a deceptively commodified public good. Besides, bottled water costs consumers 240 to 10,000 times more per gallon than tap water that is as good, or better, and far more monitored.

In the U.S., public water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requires multiple daily tests for bacteria and makes results available to the public. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water, only requires weekly testing and does not share its findings with the EPA or the public. Additionally, the one person in charge of overseeing the entire industry has many other duties that likely compromise her utility.

With this in mind, the DePauw community hosted the first in a series of Bottled Water Forums last night. Speakers will be brought to campus in order to facilitate discussion on this important, campus-wide issue. For World Water Day in March, a special screening of "TAPPED," a documentary about bottled water, will be shown. I know we all hope that all of our water comes from frosty glacier peeks or pure and natural springs. However, 25 percent of bottled water comes directly from municipal sources, including the two most popular American brands mentioned above. Come out in March for the screening, attend a forum, or read a book yourself. These waters may be labeled as "artesian, purified, or glacial" water, but instead the correct wording should be "tap, distilled or well" water.

-Hess is a freshman from Louisville, KY and plans to major in Environmental Science. He is the Dining Services Sustainability Intern, and is involved with the Bottled Water Initiative on campus.