The Consequences of Drinking Bottled Water

Drinking bottled water has been a rising trend. At upscale restaurants, many diners can be seen quaffing from a ubiquitous bottle of Evian, and bars and hotels often get away with charging upwards of eight dollars for a small half liter of "Vitamin-Infused" water.

In fact, increased bottled water consumption has been a global phenomenon, reaching 154 billion liters from the 98 billion liters consumed just five years prior. Even in the United States, where tap water is safe to drink, the public drinks over 30 billion liters, or approximately one 8-ounce glass per person every day. Mexico are second in terms of bottled water consumption, and China and Brazil follow. However, in developed countries, Italy leads the pack in bottled water sales.

When compared to tap water, both transporting and packaging bottle water is not environmentally friendly. Tap water is often distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, and transporting bottled water involves massive quantities of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are also used in the bottling process. The plastic used for making water bottles is commonly polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is derived from crude oil. Once the water has been consumed, roughly 86% of the plastic bottles used in the U.S. become garbage or litter. Incinerating used bottles can also result in the emission of toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash.

While affordable, clean drinking water is absolutely essential to the health and well-being of the global community, this puts a significant strain on our ecosystem, and does nothing to secure a water supply for the other 1.1 billion people in the world.

If Americans are concerned with the quality of their water, perhaps other measures should be taken in order to alleviate the burden bottled water places on our environment. Improving and expanding on existing water treatment and sanitation systems, and instituting home water purification units such as UV water purifiers will more than likely enable us to drink clean water without harming the environment.