Bottled Water

green | March 19th, 2010 - 9:00 AM

Those eight daily glasses of water you’re supposed to drink for good health? They will cost you $0.00135 — about 49 cents a year — if you take it from a New York City tap.

Or, city officials suggest, you could spend 2,900 times as much, roughly $1,400 yearly, by drinking bottled water. For the extra money, they say, you get the added responsibility for piling on to the nation’s waste heap and encouraging more of the industrial emissions that are heating up the planet.

But trends in American thirst quenching favor the 2,900-fold premium, as overflowing trash cans attest. In fact, bottled water is growing at the expense of every other beverage category except sports drinks. It has overtaken coffee and milk, and it is closing in on beer. Tap, if trends continue, would be next.

Now officials in New York City, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and San Francisco are campaigning to get people to reverse course and open their faucets instead of their wallets.

But beverage industry representatives say their version is not just about health and taste — its plastic container, scorned by environmentalists, is a plus for consumers.

“The tap water quality is fine in most of the United States,” said John D. Sicher Jr., editor and publisher at Beverage Digest, a trade publication. “The issue is convenience and shifting consumer preference.”

Bottled water has profited from the sagging image of soft drinks, a category in decline for nearly a decade (but still the most consumed of beverages, by far). Preferences evolve — could it be tap’s turn?

“Through education and motivation you can get people to change their habits,” said Emily Lloyd, commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, citing smoking, recycling and wearing seat belts. Convenience comes in different forms, she added: “It’s easy to fill a bottle of water and stick it in your backpack.”

With surveys showing climate change a growing concern, officials and advocates say they hope people will consider the implications of billions of bottles.

“More than 90 percent of the environmental impacts from a plastic bottle happen before the consumer opens it,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Oil for plastic, oil for shipping, oil for refrigeration — and in the end, most of the effort goes to landfills.

“The bottle is going to have to change,” he said, noting research in plastics made from plants. “I’m seeing more interest in this than any time in 30 years.” BILL MARSH

The New York Times: Bottled Water

Thanks to the SSBottleCo for making us aware of this article.

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