Drugs Are In Our Water! Should I Switch to Bottled?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 03.11.08
Croton Dam, New York
All the webs are abuzz about an Associated Press study that found pharmaceuticals in drinking water. Our resident chemist didn't think much of it (it is all old news to TreeHuggers) and concluded: "Thanks a lot AP, for handing a dopey talking point over to the bottled water marketers."
John was right, and it did not take long; No Impact Man Colin Beavan was asked in an interview if bottled water was a solution to the problem. He references Food and Water Watch to remind us why it is not:
- 40% of the bottled water sold in the United States is tap water anyway.
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires hundreds of tests each month on municipal water supplies, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates bottled water, requires only one test a week on bottled water.
- Only 40% of bottled water--that which is sold across state lines--is regulated by the FDA in the first place.
- Plastic bottles in the United States require some 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture each year--enough to power 100,000 cars.
- 86% of plastic bottles in the United States never get recycled.
- Tap water costs about a penny a gallon and bottled waters costs up to $10 a gallon.
- Chemicals that leach from plastic water bottles may affect our health.
- If people abandon the use of municipal drinking water, then there will be no political will to ensure that we invest the necessary resources in the water infrastructure.
- The United States has some of the best drinking water in the world and we must keep it that way.
Now we are not denying that antibiotics and hormones in our water supply is a problem; it is, as we have noted in numerous posts about gender-bender chemicals in our water. The problem is that bottled water is, for so many reasons, worse. Here is what TreeHuggers should do:
- Properly dispose of drugs and antibiotics; don't flush them down the toilet.
- Stop falling for the marketing hype and boycott products with the antibiotic triclosan in them; we provide a list here and here.
- Read our Guide: How to green your water.
- Cut back on factory meat and go organic; those cows and pigs live on a diet of antibiotics.
- Consider other methods of birth control; 85% of the estrogen in birth control pills goes right through you into the toilet.
- Consider a charcoal filter; it helps a bit. Most are made of polycarbonates but there are some, like the Stefani, that are terracotta, and the British Berkefeld is metal.
- Move to New York City. for over a hundred and fifty years it has delivered pure water from pristine sources. Check out where you live and see if it does the same.
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Convenient, Tasty, Healthy Water is Only a Tap Away
- Shocking Report Reveals Marine Litter Madness (Plus 10 Easy Ways to Help Save Our Oceans!)
- New York Takes a Big Step Toward Banning Bottled Water
- Green Glossary: Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)
- Remove Nail Polish Remover From Your Life
- Worried About Water Pollution? Plant a Tree
are you going to brush your teeth, take a shower, and wash your dishes in bottled water too? i think not
Great post! I was having a conversation with someone about how this study will make people run back to the bottled water and was looking for the reasons why we should still stick it out with a filtered tap.
Glad to see this post, and good points made by the first (anonymous) commenter. For a lot of people, the knee-jerk reaction is to buy their way out of a problem with technology.
But the real issue, of course, is dealing with the problem at the source--why has this pollution of drinking water been allowed to happen in the first place? To me it's comparable to the situation we have with our rivers, streams, and lakes, where it's almost impossible to find safe water in any major public waterway--it's all been polluted by Big Agriculture.
How is it that the protection of such vital resources is such a comparative afterthought? Homeland Security, indeed.
"The United States has some of the best drinking water in the world and we must keep it that way."
Great, but is "the best" good enough? I don't care how pure your source is, it's polluted with toxic chemicals to kill bacteria, which you get to drink too. I distill my water. The best tap water is not healthy. Period. I wouldn't touch water in plastic bottles either. McDonalds is touted as having the best french fries, Krispy Kream is the best donut, but I wouldn't put that garbage in my body either. The best crap is still crap.
The report stated that San Francisco had "sex hormones" in their water. The SF Chronicle reported that it turned out to be an error, and in fact SF was the ONLY water tested that did not have ANY drug residue. That's before they run it through the chlorine and fluoride bath, of course.
Great article! Thanks.
Mary
Is it a coincidence that San Francisco's water was erroneously reported as containing sex hormones after Mayor Newsom banned bottled water from being purchased with city funds?
I really think this was just one of those AP stories that belongs more in the tabloids than in a newspaper. With all the nasty surfactants, fertilizers, pesticides and MTBE that makes their way into our water, who cares about the stupid medicines. I totally agree. This story sells fear, newspapers, and bottled water.
JL sez: don't forget to read the extensive comments and updatesI included in the post Lloyd references. If you think the bridges are crumbling in the US, you should see the sewers and wastewater treatment plants. A good many are bypassing raw sewerage every time it rains and for several days afterward. No one really has studied the absolute effectiveness of existing WWTP's in breaking down prescription drugs at low concentrations; but who cares? Unless we stop bypassing untreated sewerage into the rivers that downstream cities withdraw water from to drink we are no better than China is in this regard.
If you want to blame someone for this blame the Congress critters and the Administration officials that have cut the USEPA budget and the Municipal Wastewater Construction Grants Program year after year.
They're stealing your essence with that flouride, anonymous.
"Now we are not denying that antibiotics and hormones in our water supply is a problem; it is, .... The problem is that bottled water is, for so many reasons, worse."
Thankfully you are not in a position to make the choice for me. I would much rather drink bottled water from a reliable supplier than play drug roulette with the public water supply.
People believe easily and quickly what they want to believe. So, whatever they currently do is most likely what is most convenient to do and they will grab hold of whatever supports their habits. That is even more so when it costs money to do something. It HAS to be good for something if it is not free. Drinking bottled water and believing it is best is just one of those things.
It makes creating big changes in any area really difficult. Scientific thinking, risk assessment, risk management, etc. are not wide spread among humans.
Karsten
--
http://www.polluteless.com
_________________________________
Living on Earth:
Sufficient resources - Wasteful existence - 6.5 Billion humans; Preserve two and abandon the third.
_________________________________________
Watch your water intake, it won't last long before we run out
Actually there is some bottled water that is better than tap water. You just have to use the right purification technology.
Check out this blog: http://drinkmorewaterblog.blogspot.com
Actually, the USA is not very good provider of drinking water(especially New Jersey). Its actually one of the worst places that provides drinking water. Now, Italy on the other hand has really great drinking water, it comes from the mountains. Most European countries has really good drinking water from my experience so far. But still, I would personally not drink the tap water from this country, unless it is filtered of course.
wow! did not know all that.
You forgot to mention toxic flouride in most tap water.
It remains a personal choice about what and how we consume. People are getting very tired of having others tell them what to do. I suppose, if we want to be told what to do, we could move to communist China, right? I wouldn't drink their water.
I drink bottled water, and I will continue to drink bottled water. I have tried several brands, and the Walmart water seems to be the best. I would like to know more about where Walmart gets their water. My family and I drink bottled water because I firmly believe that tap water is contaminated by drugs (tap water is the recycled water from what people excrete...urine!) Drugs, such as birth control and a widearray of pharmacuticals cannot be filtered-out of the recycled water. How appetizing, recycled waste water! I've had several canine pets that had developed stomach cancers (and eventually died despite the numerous surgeries). Is it just coinincidental? Ironically, I live in an area which prides itself with the 'purest spring water in the world', yet it is heavily chlorinated, and crytosporidium (eventually traced to a dead bat that contaminated the wells) threatened those who drank the municipal water.
My advice...think for yourself, research what you consume, and tell those who cannot stand not being in charge to make their point and zip-it! Be your own boss.
That article completely failed to address one of its main concerns: whether the drugs in tap water are harmful. There are a myriad of concerns about drugs in our tapwater including increased rates of diseases over the years and earlier puberty/sexual development among adolescents/teens.
That's ridiculous to imply that anyone would bathe in, or wash their dishes with bottled water. That statement really goes around the issue of consuming bottled water. Unfortunately, we no longer live in a society (such as Little House on the Prairie) where we can realistically grow our own food, hunt our meat, make soaps and toothpastes, etc. You get my point. Trying to do so might be an honorable attempt, but even so...our deer in Wisconsin have CWD (chronic wasting disease), most people cannot sustain themselves with container gardens, and people lack the time and knowledge to manufacture their own personal products. We have to make the best choices that we can, but we do not have to follow the herd. It is my choice to avoid municipal water for consumption. I will avoid the carcinigens and contaminants found in tap water. Does anyone remember Woody Allen's movie, Sleeper? It was determined that people of the 20th century got it all wrong about eating healthy; All that 'healthy food' was found to be unhealthy. Twinkies turned-out to be the 'real' health food. My point...data changes all of the time. Experts flip-flop with their findings. Again, reasearch and think for yourself.
You make a lot of great points keep up the good work
im not a tree hugger is that ok i am just doing a project but can i be a tree hugger what is a tree hugeer any way
Has anyone tested bottled water for these contaminants? If most bottled water is just the same as tap, wouldn't the bottled stuff have traces of drugs as well?
I love the posts from people who are adamant about sticking with bottled water but don't address the fact that it's the same as tap.
Bottled water is no better. When plastic is used and it is exposed to various weather and tempurtures it creates a process called "leeching"
You have to realize that plastic is a petrolium bases product as mentioned by this site in an earlier article.
We at Pursanova created a solution for water bottled consumers.
We will try to spread the word and hopefully it will catch on.
Vadim Dyachenko
Pursanova LTD
i only purchase bottled water from health food stores. i believe theirs is OK.
It really is mind blowing, how people can so blindly believe that you can buy sanitation. It is merely a false sence of secureity the media sells to us. Buying clean water is quite contriversal to the purpose, which was to spare ourselves the pollutants of public water. In effect we cause more pollution which in time returns to us in form s of desease, inpurity, toxions.
Plastic never built us before and we certainly dont need it now. Not only is drinking from a bottle extreaming wasteful, it is empowering to conpanies who produce millions of plastic pollutants. Why is it the only concern is - how- we intake our water, rather than the toxions WE allow and partake in emmitting into our drinking supply!?!
We are only 1 of 6.5 billion inhabitants, but together is their not billions who want to fight waste and harmful pollutants? The ignorance of the past is a sound comfomation of the future. We need to cut our losses and reform from energy consumption. We continually fail to see that our actions are part of the life cycle. We do not live in a unfiltrated bubble. We share air, earth, water with all living and non-living things on this planet. And still we pay no heed to the constant abuse of nutrients and resources. We Get No More..We Never Get Back..
The beginning of clean safe drinking water is in the government, we need a political head capible of addressing health and environmental concerns before they become GLOBAL CATASTROPHES!
I think this article is truly amazing, and I do not understand why people buy humongous supplies of bottled water, spending much more than needed, when a cheap and trustworthy alternative is right in front of them. I would like to reccomend a book called "Bottlemania" which really discusses the topic really well. Great Job!
I think the story is really great!!!! It is true and i would like to no if you could give more information on our water. I need it for my science project. I also liked to say what water would you prefer Tap water or Bottled water?
I would choose tap...and then filter it. :) I've got the Berkey Light and it takes care of alot of these contaminants specified above.
www.bigberkeywaterfilters.com
Whenever I think that the representative population of the world could not POSSIBLY be "that dumb", I find comments on the internet that always prove me wrong.
I have just finished a study of antidepressants in wastewater, and while the good news is that antidepressants are not particularly hazardous to human health (from reclaimed water), they're damned hazardous to the ecology of any environment (river, wetland) that happens to receive the wastewater. The effects these drugs have on humans are secondary; that is, they affect something that in turn affects us.
You think anyone gives a gold-plated hoot about what antidepressants do to mess up the sex lives of mussels? Do a street poll and I guarantee the best response you'll get is, "Well, we shouldn't pollute the environment, I guess," but when you tell them that the antibiotics in their urine is making Staphylococcus and Clostridium more and more difficult to treat, resulting in more human disease, you might get a slightly stronger response.
Not that we should do away with petroleum products, as one nutjob commenter thinks we should. Nor are the leachates from the plastic that contains water a significant source of harm to you. Dear God, if you don't understand something, for heavens' sake, don't develop an opinion on it and then go around trying to convince people that yours is the best way to think about something! Let people with brains and degrees figure out how to best manage problems.
We all want to drink clean healthy water...I do drink my tap water and water from any potable water source, but I use my AquaPhD filtered water bottle to do so. I was amazed the first time I drank from it. I took a drink of my tap, then a drink from the AquaPhD bottle and I could taste the difference a BIG difference! Our filter is designed to eliminate 99.9% of bacteria, (Guardia & Cyptosporidium) and improves water taste. Each filter will yield up to 20 gallons which equals 128 refills, PBA FREE, enviromently friendy, made in the USA, as well as FDA approved. You can read more about these incredable healthy filtered water bottles at www.aquaphd.com. It's a healthy alternative to bottled water, which 40% of all of them are tap water anyway, and very costly.
Tatse for yourself...
Drink Healthy, Be Healthy!!
Lisa