Max Gladwell

Water is quickly becoming the new oil. It’s more scarce, thanks to droughts and waste. And our consumption habits have been called into question. This is the great water debate in three acts.

Act I: Message in a Bottle

Last summer, Fast Company magazine published Message in a Bottle. This superb article by Charles Fishman is one of those rare pieces of journalism that captures the moment…dare we say, the zeitgeist. Though the momentum was building before it, it seemed that the public suddenly awoke to the absurdity of drinking bottled water, especially in the United States. At restaurants, it became fashionable and responsible (not just cheap) to ask for tap water. So this article is a key reference for the bottled water debate. We’re happy to reduce, reuse, and recycle it here.

Message in a Bottle outlines the history of bottled water, dating back to the 1800s, through to its rebirth in the 1970s with Perrier, on to the introduction of plastic bottles with Evian in the 1980s, and the cornucopia of bottled-water brands we know and loathe today. If nothing more, it symbolizes the gilded age that may be rapidly coming to an end.

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it’s just a bottle of water–modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don’t need–when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation–it’s worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We’re moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That’s a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water.

There is [another] item in bottled water’s environmental ledger: the bottles themselves. The big springwater companies tend to make their own bottles in their plants, just moments before they are filled with water–12, 19, 30 grams of molded plastic each. Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person. Durable, lightweight containers manufactured just to be discarded. Water bottles are made of totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, so we share responsibility for their impact: Our recycling rate for PET is only 23%, which means we pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year–more than $1 billion worth of plastic.

Supporters of bottled water, including Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, typically have a vested interest in the business and justify the product because it’s healthy. The reasoning is that bottled water is effectively displacing less-healthy alternatives like sugary juices and sodas in our diets. But can a case really be made for paying for something that’s otherwise free, especially when it leaves behind such a significant environmental footprint?

We buy bottled water because we think it’s healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn’t healthier, or safer, than tap water. Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world’s $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four–the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico–that has universally reliable tap water. Tap water in this country, with rare exceptions, is impressively safe. It is monitored constantly, and the test results made public.

And for this healthy convenience, we’re paying what amounts to an unbelievable premium. You can buy a half- liter Evian for $1.35–17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren’t paying attention.

In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It’s so good the EPA doesn’t require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.

The story of Fiji Water is perhaps the most absurd. In fact, this article directly inspired Stephen Colbert’s satirical jab at the industry.

The label on a bottle of Fiji Water says “from the islands of Fiji.” Journey to the source of that water, and you realize just how extraordinary that promise is. From New York, for instance, it is an 18-hour plane ride west and south (via Los Angeles) almost to Australia, and then a four-hour drive along Fiji’s two-lane King’s Highway.

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles’ journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation–which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity–something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from “one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth,” as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze. Each water bottler has its own version of this oxymoron: that something as pure and clean as water leaves a contrail.

Getting bottled water from Fiji or France just isn’t sustainable. As the economics of higher fuel prices, which effect the cost of the plastic, the cost of transportation, and the cost of running those diesel generators, come into play, prices for exotic brands will have to go up. As Americans decide bottled water is a luxury they can no longer afford or justify, demand should fall. But we can’t pass laws banning bottled water, as we can with plastic bags, because it would only increase consumption of less-healthy alternatives. This is a choice consumers and the market need to make, and it requires awareness. Each bottle should list its carbon footprint and possibly other environmental impact data in order to inform consumers about what they’re actually paying for.

Packing bottled water in lunch boxes, grabbing a half-liter from the fridge as we dash out the door, piling up half-finished bottles in the car cup holders–that happens because of a fundamental thoughtlessness. It’s only marginally more trouble to have reusable water bottles, cleaned and filled and tucked in the lunch box or the fridge. We just can’t be bothered. And in a world in which 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water, and 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water, that conspicuous consumption of bottled water that we don’t need seems wasteful, and perhaps cavalier.

Once you understand the resources mustered to deliver the bottle of water, it’s reasonable to ask as you reach for the next bottle, not just “Does the value to me equal the 99 cents I’m about to spend?” but “Does the value equal the impact I’m about to leave behind?”

Act II: Something in the Water

In the past few months, we’ve seen at least two articles highlighting the potential dangers of tap water, and it defies the imagination: prescription drugs and other narcotics.

Our water system is essentially a closed loop. Part of that cycle runs through our bodies. As it becomes more common for one to be on prescription drugs than not, it’s bound to have an effect on the water supply. Evidently, it already has.

According to an investigation by the AP, a “vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.”

The concentration levels measure in parts per billion or trillion. Not so much, right? But a zoologist points out that these pharmaceuticals are specifically designed to be effective in very small doses. If Congress and Big Pharma have their way, Americans will be consuming increasingly more drugs in the coming years, so without some type of action, these levels have one place to go: up. “Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12% to a record 3.7 billion, while non-prescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.”

Does this mean we’re clear to drink bottled water? Not so fast. The problem is that this affects all water in all countries, and it’s not just from humans. Steroids and growth hormones used in raising livestock are also contributing to the problem, as are the veterinary drugs used on our pets.

Oh yeah, there’s also “evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.” Indeed, the cure is worse than the disease.

The AP interviewed several representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the story. The same EPA that’s been instructed not to talk to reporters about its internal workings; the same EPA that’s being threatened with legal action by five states for shirking its duty on air pollution controls; the same EPA who’s director is being called upon to resign by three US Senators. And this is the bureaucracy that’s tasked with addressing this issue and “protecting” us?

In London, England, Environmental Graffiti explores a related trend and shows that all drugs in the water are local.

The largest part of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals we ingest every day ends up in waste water, before passing through treatment plants not designed to filter it and eventually back into our water supply. Effectively the contents of our medicine cabinets – that’s everything from aspirin to LSD – ends up in the water we cook with, bathe in and drink everyday. The content of tap water in each area thus depends largely on what the residents of that area ingest.

Van Bulen’s study showed that water in Notting Hill benefits from the high density of organic shops found in the area and is free of food additives and pesticides, whereas water from the city of London is enhanced with all kinds of stimulants, from caffeine-rich drinks to cocaine. Golders Green, which houses an important Jewish community, apparently even produces very ‘fertile’ water due to the low concentration of people taking anti-conception pills in the area.

And you thought that noise was the only problem with your neighbors.

Act III: T. Boone Pickens Wants to Drink Your Milkshake

We wrote briefly about the Pickens Plan in Part 3 of How to Debate Climate Change. First, we want to clarify that this plan is tragically flawed. Pickens wants to trade dependence on foreign oil for dependence on T. Boone Pickens. He is the largest natural gas lease holder in the U.S., and as soon as demand for natural gas goes up as a result of switching any significant portion of our vehicles to this “alternative fuel”, Pickens will become the Sheik of Texas. Perhaps he’ll then build another Dubai on the Texas panhandle. He could, because Pickens also has a ton of water rights in the area, which means he can tap the vast Ogallala Aquifer.

From Cleantechnica: Pickens’ company, Mesa Water, bought more than 200,000 acres of ground water rights in Roberts County, Texas. Estimating that he could make more than $1 billion off of the $75 million investment over the next few decades, Pickens wants to drain the Ogallala Aquifer to meet the demand for water in west Texas.

Though scattered and difficult to watch, this video from ZapRoot illustrates the issue.

This could be just the beginning of the water grab for the Ogallala, since it spans several dry and highly agricultural states. He who has the biggest straw will win.

Water is a big issue with many dimensions that’s just starting to get the attention it deserves. As with oil, perhaps it shouldn’t be so cheap. Perhaps the government shouldn’t subsidize agriculture with a blank check for water. Perhaps the government should take steps to make sure our water supply is safe and then promote that fact to encourage more responsible choices and less waste. Perhaps we should pay a hefty deposit for plastic water bottles to encourage recycling. The solutions are at hand. All it takes is some thought and the political will to make them happen.

Photo: Flickr

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