Book Review: Bottlemania
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.30.08
In Medieval times, you couldn't trust the water and most people, including kids, drank beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After reading Elizabeth Royte's new book Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale and Why We Bought It, one is tempted to take up the practice. One learns all the water that we drink, from bottle to tap and, yes, toilet, is fraught with compromise. Yes, the bottled water boom is all about hype and marketing (as is the bottle backlash) that there is much, much more floating around in the stuff.
Drink tap water? it can have contaminants, hormones, fertilizers, pesticides, arsenic, sodium and radon, let alone e coli.
Carry it in your own bottle? It might be made of polycarbonates that release bisphenol A, a gender-bender estrogen mimicking chemical.
Put it through a Brita filter? they are not recycled in North America and sixty million cartridges have gone to the dump since 1992. And, while the filters are effective at removing chlorine, lead, copper, cadmium and mercury, they don't do much for bacteria or cysts.
must be something in the water
And then of course, there is bottled water. First, the politics of taking it, with coverage of the battle between the residents of Fryeburg, Maine and Nestle, owners of Poland Springs. The locals claim that local lakes are dying because of the loss of groundwater, but Maine, like Texas, operate under a rule called absolute dominion, where landowners can pump as much as they want without regulation.
Then there is the marketing of it; as one Pepsico marketing VP said to investors in 2000, "when we are done, tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes." And don't call those bottles garbage; Coke's "Director of Sustainable Packaging" says "Our vision is to no longer have our packaging viewed as waste but as a resource for future use." -pretty farcical from the company that helped drive returnable bottles off the market, shifting pickup from a producer responsibility to a taxpayers.
And don't think those ethical waters that donate to charity or have corn plastic bottles are any better; recyclers say it gums up the conventional recycling and can't be composted in your back yard, it has to be done commercially. And Ethos water? it "perpetuates the idea that water is a commodity, and it subtly makes us forget that Starbucks, or any other food-service establishment has a perfectly good spigot behind its counter."
It is important that we are honest and open and not simply say TAP TAP NOTHING BUT TAP when there are clearly some circumstances when bottled water has a place, or deny that public water is not as perfect and pristine as we would like it to be.
And it is realistic to say that perhaps the best solution is to use tap water with a Brita filter, even though we are mad them for not recycling in North America, and to carry it about in a SIGG bottle, even though they won't tell us what their liner is made of.
But one is still tempted to go medieval and have a beer or two, while contemplating the compromise in every glass of water. And be sure to read ::Bottlemania as a rare example of a book that covers the many sides of a story, instead of taking the simple certainty. It's as unusual and refreshing as, well, a glass of clean cold water. http://www.bottlemania.net/
On Water
How to Green Your Water : TreeHugger
Drugs Are In Our Water ! Should I Switch to Bottled? : TreeHugger
Brita Water Filter Ad Campaign Provokes Strong Reactions
Care for a Drink... of Toilet Water?
On Bottled Water
Lipstick on a Pig Dept.: Rob Walker on Fiji Water
FIJI Water Leads Bottled Water Industry In Looking Green(er)
Survey: Can Fiji Water Be Green?
Steve Greenberg on Bottled Water
On Bisphenol A
Don't Buy A Nalgene Water Bottle Until You Read This
Canada Calls Bisphenol A "Dangerous"
On Elizabeth Royte
Garbage Land- a Review
This Month in Gourmet Magazine
Garbage Land: on the Secret Trail of Trash : TreeHugger
Garbage Land: The Website
Trace Pharmaceuticals in Water Supply Not a Good Reason to Drink ...
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I contacted PUR a while back and was told a recycling program was in the works. Tap + PUR + Klean Kanteen is my formula.
Perhaps we could filter the water with a Berkey or British Berkefeld gravity filter (which lasts WAY longer than a Brita - like years) and carry our water around in a Kleen Kanteen or ThinkSport bottle (no worries about mystery liners with Stainless.)
There's a campaign in the works to try to convince Brita to take their filters back for recycling here in the US (as they do in Europe). Check it out at www.takebackthefilter.org
I'm curious to know about the program that Pur has in the works. Anyone have more info on that?
The Take Back The Filter campaign is collecting signatures AND used Brita filters AND urging folks to write letters and spread the word.
Clorox has a lot of money for advertising its Filter For Good campaign and presenting Brita filters as the green alternative to bottled water. And whereas Brita is certainly better than bottled water, Clorox has not done anything to EARN the green label!
In Europe, the Brita company has been recycling the filters since 1992! AND they not only recycle the plastic housing but the inner filtration materials too!
Clorox purchased the North American company in 2000 and has not provided any way for us to recycle and now they are dragging their feet when questioned about this.
Like I said, they have a lot of money for promotion. The members of the Take Back The Filter campaign do not. Still, we have managed to collect over 6,500 signatures. Please help us reach the 10,000 signature mark and to collect over 1,000 filters to present to Clorox.
Visit http://www.takebackthefilter.org for more information.
I've not met many people who consider counter top vapor distillers. I guess you must then concern yourself with the energy required to boil the water, though.
What's up with SIGG?!!? Why are they cagey about the bottle liner? I just bought a bunch for my gf and me, and my parents, thinking that I was leading the charge against Bisphenol A, now I'm worried, based on Lloyd's suggestion.
What do they say when people ask them? I know from the site and I think from reading in Co Op America, that they claim it to be non toxic, so can we sue the sh*t out of them if that's wrong?!!?
A campaign has just launched here in the UK to try to encourage consumers to turn away from bottled water and start drinking tap water again - take a look www.wewanttap.com