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.
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
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http://www.polluteless.com
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Living on Earth:
Sufficient resources - Wasteful existence - 6.5 Billion humans; Preserve two and abandon the third.
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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