Bottled water idiocy

This post is not really on topic, but it is one of my PET peaves -- bottled water. Throughout most of the United States, regulatory standards for water quality for bottled water are less strict than for tap water. In many cases, the bottled water is taken directly from springs or streams without any sterilization before it is put in the bottle, where organisms can grow while the bottles sit on the grocer's shelves or in your pantry. Tap water is far cheaper and usually of better quality. Yet, people continue to spend enormous sums for bottled water. Why? Not only are they paying more than 10,000 times what they could be paying for water, but they are polluting the environment as they do so. Why? Consider this study:

Bottled water consumption, which has more than doubled globally in the last six years, is a natural resource that is heavily taxing the world's ecosystem, according to a new US study.

"Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing, producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy," according to Emily Arnold, author of the study published by the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based environmental group.

Arnold said although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can end up costing 10,000 times more…

That has translated into massive costs in packaging the water, usually in plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which is derived from crude oil, and then transporting it by boat, train or on land.

"Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 US cars for a year," according to the study. "Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year."

Once the water is consumed, disposing the plastic bottles poses an environmental risk.

The study, citing the Container Recycling Institute, said that 86 percent of plastic water bottles in the United States end up as garbage and those buried can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.