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Bottled Water...

Sydney Morning Herald, Eco section

 

Disaster in a Bottle

April 24, 2007

Read this to get some perspective on the bottled water industry. Apart from this information, keep in mind that this industry is ‘self-regulated’, and we know what that means when profits are concerned... Also it has been shown that a lot of the expensive bottled water you buy is filled up from a tap in the suburbs… Better to ‘make’ your own, as described on our Water Solution page.

With global sales of $100 billion and average yearly growth of 10 per cent, the bottled water industry is one of the great marketing stories of our time. Only oceans of spin could persuade us to pay handsomely for something that we can get from the tap, virtually free.

But bottled water comes at a considerable environmental cost, one that puts the lie to labels featuring sparkling glaciers and pristine waterfalls.

"Bottled water is a disaster, for several reasons," Jeff Angel, from the Total Environment Centre, says. "First there's the issue of the sustainability of underground aquifers, from where much of the bottled water is drawn. And then there's the carbon footprint. Water is heavy, and transporting it around the world uses a lot of energy."

A study last year by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington calculated that the bottled water industry in Britain generated about 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year in transport alone - equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 6000 homes. "Tap water is delivered through an energy-efficient infrastructure," Janet Larsen, the institute's director of research, says. "On the other hand, nearly a quarter of all bottled water crosses national boundaries to reach consumers."

Then there's the packaging. The most commonly used material for making water bottles is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is derived from crude oil. According to Larsen, 2.7 million tonnes of plastic are used to bottle water each year. Though PET is made for recycling, nine out of 10 such bottles in the United States end up in landfill - roughly 30 million a day - where they can take up to 1000 years to biodegrade. In Australia, just 35 per cent of PET bottles are recycled.

"Bottled water is a classic example of the market ignoring the environmental cost of the product," Angel says. "Free trade is meant to be good because you're getting cheaper products from another country, but of course this never takes into account the environmental cost."

This point was illustrated earlier this year by Pablo Paster, a sustainability engineering consultant from San Francisco, who calculated that producing and transporting a one-litre bottle of Fijian water to the US consumed 6.74 kilograms of water and produced 250 grams of greenhouse gases. Paster says that getting that same bottle from Fiji to Sydney consumes six kilograms of water and produces 153 grams of greenhouse gases.

In the US, some 40 per cent of bottled water is nothing more than purified tap water, but in Australia almost all comes from underground reservoirs, or aquifers. "Given how little we know about the sustainability of these aquifers, it's important that we tread carefully," Averil Bones, the freshwater policy manager for WWF, says.

 

WWF was one of many groups to voice concern over recent plans for Diamantina Shire Council, in south-east Queensland, to bottle and sell water drawn from the Great Artesian Basin. Already under pressure from agriculture and mining, the basin is thought to take thousands of years to replenish, and is often referred to as "dinosaur water".

"When aquifers are under pressure from a variety of interests, sucking water out of them and bottling it for a quick buck is probably not a great idea," Bones says.

But bottlers say they take only a tiny fraction. Coca-Cola Amatil, which bottles the leading brands Mount Franklin and Pump, has even supported calls by hydrogeologists for national reform of groundwater management.

"Responsible stewardship of water, both mains and spring water, is something we take extremely seriously," a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola, Sally Loane, says. "Coca-Cola Amatil strictly monitors, measures and studies its water sources to ensure their sustainability."

Nevertheless, the company has run into trouble with its Peats Ridge plant at Mangrove Mountain, north of Sydney. A report published last year by the National Centre for Groundwater Management found the Mangrove Mountain aquifer, which supplies water to much the Central Coast, was grossly over-allocated. Despite this, Coca-Cola recently had its initial licence to extract 25 million litres almost tripled to 66 million litres (for which it pays an annual fee of $181).

"Everyone uses the groundwater here, including the council," Margaret Pontifex, the secretary of the Mangrove Mountain Districts Community Group, says. "The difference is that at least when the locals use it, on farms and agriculture, it has a chance of re-entering the local water cycle. But when you pump it up, bottle it and take it away, the water's gone."

Pontifex, whose family has lived in the area since 1826, says the effects are clear to see. "The aquifer's dropping, so there's less pressure there. Springs are drying up and wetlands are disappearing. There's no way that we want Coca-Cola or anyone else taking any more water from the aquifer. It's 6000 years old," she says. "We're all in trouble if we suck it all out”.