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Abstract
This research paper studies the problem of choice between tap and bottled water, and the reasons why most people in the developed countries prefer bottled water over tap water. For this research paper 5 external sources of information were used. "Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved" by PubMed Central (PMC) presents the results of a study of plastic bottles in which bottled water is contained after packaging. Under certain circumstances like hot weather such plastic bottles can release dangerous chemicals into the water. “Thirst for bottled water may hurt environment” by T. Paulson describes the negative effects that water bottles production has on the environment. An article by Petraccia et al. "Water, mineral waters and health" tells the difference between tap and purified water, and compares such water to tap water. “Bottled vs. Tap Water: Rethink What You Drink” by P. Torres is a voluminous article that studies almost all aspects of the dilemma between tap and bottled water: places of origin, production, safeness, environmental effects etc. "Exploring Beliefs About Bottled Water and Intentions To Reduce Consumption: The Dual-Effect of Social Norm Activation and Persuasive Information" researches the social myths that bottled water is surrounded, and reveals truth about the type of water we drink.
Water is the most common, but still not fully studied substance. It is necessary to support for the water balance in the body (a person should drink up to 3 litres of water per day), mineral water cures, dousing with cold water, bowel disease and kidney helps to cope with diseases of the cardiovascular system, calm nerves, and just lift your spirits. Live natural water, surrounded by greenery, provokes desire to touch and quench the thirst. But water flowing from our faucets is not the same. The water produced by water companies and packaged in plastic bottles is different, too. After all, if the water is muddy and rusty, anyone will tell you that it is better to skip through a filter for cleaning. And if the water is clean and clear in appearance? Whether it's a guarantee that it does not contain harmful impurities? Unfortunately no.
Nowadays people in the developed countries have a choice for the water they drink. They can just open the tap to drink water, or they can visit the closest market and buy a bottle. The second option is a little more expensive, but recent research shows that more and more people prefer it to the first one. People around the world buy bottled water more and more because they think that this option is better for their health. Why?
In the USA the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) oversees the production and quality of the bottled water. At the same time, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is concerned with the cleanness of the tap water. These two organizations use similar approaches to testing water.
The FDA is cooperating with bottled water manufacturers. It oversees the sanitary norms of bottling, holding and transporting the water, protects water sources from contaminants of organic and non-organic types, and has a lot of chemical laboratories to ensure safety of the water tested. The EPA provides annual reports for the customers. They contain information whether a particular water source (river, lake, aquifer) contains any contamination and how safe it is to drink water from it. The potential health effects are also predicted, studied and informed about.
In the modern world, more and more people prefer bottled water because they believe that it is of higher quality and the final product is more objected to quality testing than the tap water. Surprisingly, this preference is not scientifically proven. “But no one should think that bottled water is better regulated, better protected or safer than tap,” says the Natural Resource Defence Council director Eric Goldshtein (Torres 1). This organization’s goal is protect the environment and make it safer for the people. He convinces that irrespective of the branding showing that bottled water is practically the purest liquid around us, people should not be misguided. Over 25% of bottled water comes to our markets from the municipal supply. It does not originate from the clear springs. This water comes through long and difficult stages of cleaning, filtration and purifying, and then it is sold to consumers often by a price that is much higher than it should be. The problem is that the companies that produce bottled water are not required to list the source of it on the label. Basically, most bottled water companies sell glorified tap water, not pure spring water as they advertise.
As consumers of bottled water, people must be aware of the fact that labels can often be misleading. Water coming from a well that is located near a busy city can be labeled as one that comes from the clearest springs. Eric Goldshtein gives an example of a case when the water from public water system in Alaska was merchandised as “pure glacier water”. The disappointing fact here is that bottled water is sold by most companies for very high prices.
The latest major scientific research on the quality of bottled water available to consumers was conducted in 1999. The NRDC tested more than 1000 bottles of water produced by 103 companies. Most bottled water was safe. But at least one sample of a third of the tested brands contained different levels of contamination (for example, carcinogens) at levels that do not allow to label it as safe. The problem is that after research no measures were taken to improve the situation, so it can be thought that the contamination is still there.
In the same research the NRDC found two bottles that contained a chemical called phthalates, which is used to make plastic softer (nevertheless in these cases it did not come from the plastic used for the packaging). This chemical has a negative influence on the health of a person, disrupting normal processes in the endocrine system. It affects the reproductive system very negatively. Because the NRDC found that the mentioned chemical was not contained in the plastic bottles containing water, it probably got into the water during the processing at the bottling plant.
Even though the FDA requires the bottled water production companies to regularly test their products, bottled water is commonly considered a low-risk product. The water manufacturing plants are not inspected every year. Usually, the responsibility to ensure the quality of the product is the manufacturer’s. The positive fact here is that FDA is not the only agency that controls all the bottled water around the USA. There is also an controlling organization called NSF international. It is a trade group regularly conducting unannounced plant inspections within different bottled water manufacturing companies. The results of their inspection are delivered by reports.
Some bottled water companies belong to the IBWA (International Bottled Water Association) also performs unannounced tests and inspections and to become a member company of IBWA the manufacturer has to pass tests that are far stricter than the requirements of FDA. The manufacturing companies are not obliged to let consumers know about the results of the tests. However, if the regulating organization has found some serious contamination the water manufacturer has to pull their production out from the stores. Peter Gleick, the member of Pacific Institute of Oakland in California, says that this has happened more than 100 times between 1990 and 2007. The reasons of such contamination were different: water was contaminated with benzene, mold, microbes, coliform etc.
The next source of bottled water contamination can be the very bottle in which the product is packaged. Most of the water comes in bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate. PhD Ken Smith, the head of American Chemical Society, says that generally the water bottles are safe under right storing conditions. But when the water is stored in higher temperatures than it is meant to, the plastic chemicals can spread right into the water. So, it is especially important to buy only the water that is stored in proper conditions. Unfortunately, the consumer is not able to oversee the conditions of storage that the bottle of water was in before coming to the store.
It is also important to store the water in a right way for the very person that is drinking it. For example, sipping water sitting in a hot car can be a potentially dangerous experience. Leaving it in the car when it is hot outside is not recommended, too. There is a simple solution to this problem, however: water can be stored in special reusable portable cups. The health risks to what a person is exposed drinking the bottled water that has chemicals spread from the plastic are not yet clearly studied, but there is evidence that long-term exposure to such risks can make damage to health.
Antimony is known to be a toxic material used in making plastic bottles for water. The recent research conducted by scientists from Germany revealed that the longer the water is stored in a bottle, the more antimony it develops. High concentrations of the mentioned chemical can lead to such symptoms from the gastrointestinal tract as nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. The study conducted has shown that the water cannot contain such large amounts of antimony after long-term storage, however this fact needs further consideration.
There is also an environmental aspect of bottled water production (Van der Linden, 2011). Bottled water consumption increases the usage of fossil fuels. The plastic bottle production requires virgin petroleum. The more water bottles people use, the more virgin petroleum is used in factories. This fact is true not only for water bottles production, but also the production of juices, soda and other popular beverages.
Another negative impact of bottled water production is transportation. Many bottled water factories are located far from the final destination. Shipping these bottles from far distances can cause air and water pollution with carbon.
Also, tap water has to be treated and filtered many times before its quality becomes high enough to package it into the plastic bottle and deliver it to the store. It is a scientifically proven fact that from the two litres of unfiltered water the factories makes one that we see in the store. The production of bottled water is a very significant environmental burden.
The other problem is that bottled water production involves production of tons of plastic that is not properly recycled. Research shows that only less than 20% of water bottles are recycled and given a new life. This is especially true for the small single-serving bottles. Most of the water bottles overburden the environment, adding to the large amounts of the unrecycled waste our planed already has. Plastic bottles are not recycled in nature for thousands of years.
Facts show that the amount of fuel spent on bottled water production every year equals to 17 million barrels of oil, which is enough to fuel over 1 million cars for a whole year. If bottled water manufacturers could use more recycled material, they would have saved millions of dollars. For example, if the bottled water production companies have used 25% of used bottles and made new ones from them, this would be enough to electrify more than 680000 homes every year. A bottle which takes just a few minutes to drink will biodegrade in nature for thousands of years (Paulson, 2007).
All of the abovementioned considerations make a good reason for a person to start drinking tap water again. Of course, this is possible only in the regions where the quality and purity of the tap water is high. To be sure that the water from the tap is clear enough to drink, a person may request a water-quality report from the local water testing company once a year. If the report shows that the tap water does not contain contaminants exceeding the sanitary norms, it is safe to drink such water.
Also, even if the tap water is safe, it should be properly filtered. A cup filter or an inbuilt filtration system can be used for this purpose (Petracci et al., 2007).
Drinking tap water is better for the budget and safer for the environment. Also, drinking tap water keeps the funds local, which means that paying a water bill will give money to the local services which will improve.
Recently it became a trend to carry beautiful colourful water bottles which can be filled with tap water. This does not only save the budget and the environment, but also prevents a person from risks that occur from drinking plastic bottle water, which were enumerated before.
On the one hand, large cities have large water stations, equipped with the latest science and technology, which ensures the safety of tap water. Indicators can be seen on the websites of the controlling organizations in every particular state. On the other hand, large cities, as a rule, are supplied with water from surface sources: rivers, lakes and reservoirs. This water is not too appealing to the taste and smell of the flowering period, and during the floods it can be washed off from fields and dirt roads. The quality is unstable and depends on the season. However, cleaning and disinfection of the system, even in such cases, the guarantee microbiological safety.
The second problem is relevant for some states of the country: deterioration of water supply systems in some areas, especially in old buildings. Destruction of the pipe leads to the fact that harmful substances can get into the water. Water stagnation in the end portions with a small draw-daily networks can lead to the fact that its microbiological indicators deteriorate. Therefore, short of your apartment, the water may be of poor quality and even unsafe. Fortunately, our senses are capable of detecting inconsistency water standards in many security indicators, such as the content of iron, manganese, copper, zinc, phenols, nitrates, nitrites, petroleum, hydrogen sulfide, surfactants and, of course, chlorine. So one should trust their senses and do not drink the water, the taste or smell of which seems suspicious.
The water from surface sources has a few useful items, and purification often generally reduces their contents to zero. Therefore, the mineral composition of such water is poor: in contrast to the groundwater, surface water is low in calcium, magnesium and fluorine. If there is no water in calcium and magnesium, it will promote the consumption of deficiency of these substances in the body. Calcium is a basic element of our skeletal system, magnesium is necessary for normal functioning of the nervous system and heart. Lack of fluoride causes dental caries, iodine deficiency - thyroid disease. Therefore, if a person has no other sources of fluoride (toothpastes, sodium fluoride tablets), the decay due to the use of tap water is almost inevitable, and a reduced amount of calcium and magnesium aggravate.
If we talk about small towns and rural areas, there are much more likely residents drink water with high content of iron and some other substances, the excess of which is harmful to humans.
Most people in the developed countries nowadays prefer bottled water over tap water. They believe that bottled water is more pure and has a better influence on their health. Unfortunately, companies that make bottled water are not required to indicate what source the water comes from. Many of these companies sell purified water from the city water supply systems as one that has been taken from pure springs. Studies show that bottled water has to be contained properly; otherwise dangerous chemicals can be spread into it. Preferring bottled water to tap water causes a negative effect on the environment. Tons of plastic are produced every year in order to manage the supply of bottled water, and plastic bottles are recycled in nature only over 1000 years. Moreover, water production and supply requires a lot of fuel which also affects the nature negatively. If tap water is properly filtered and purified (which can be done in a simple way with modern technologies) and taken from a clear water supply chain it is absolutely safe to drink. In this way, people can prevent environmental damage with the same effect on their health.
Finally, the decision whether to choose bottled or tap water is for every person to make. It should be taken into consideration that both of these types of water can be contaminated, so measures should be taken to prevent this situation. Bottled water has to be properly stored, and it is best to choose it in glass bottles. Choosing tap water helps to reduce plastic production and waste and in this way helps the environment. With modern filtration systems it is easy to have water filtered at home. Moreover, tap water is far more cheaper for the consumers.
References
"Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved". PubMed Central (PMC)
Paulson, T. (2007) “Thirst for bottled water may hurt environment”. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Petraccia, L., Liberati, G., Masciullo S.G., Grassi, M. & Fraioli, A. (2007). "Water, mineral waters and health". Clinical Nutrition 25 (3): 377–385.
Torres, P. (2008). “Bottled vs. Tap Water: Rethink What You Drink”. Reader’s Digest. Retrieved from http://www.rd.com/health/diet-weight-loss/rethink-what-you-drink/
Van der Linden, S. (2011). "Exploring Beliefs About Bottled Water and Intentions To Reduce Consumption: The Dual-Effect of Social Norm Activation and Persuasive Information". Environment and Behavior.
