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There are places in the world where it is unsafe to drink the local water supply, and you would be best served by drinking bottled water. Most municipalities in Canada and the United States do not fall into this category. Why then do so many of us insist on buying bottled water, at a cost that defies belief when compared to turning on your tap. I’m not talking about the occasional bottle on a hot day when you’re out and about. I’m talking about the individual serving bottles that are sold by the case at your local grocery store.

According to Statistics Canada, almost 30% of Canadian households drank predominantly bottled water in 2006, whether they had a municipal or private water supply.

Some choose bottled water because “it’s easier” to chill and affords easy access when we’re on the run (i.e. going to the gym). Well I don’t know about you, but where I live, the water that comes out of the tap in the middle of February when it’s 25 below outside is plenty cold enough. No refrigeration required. In the summer, I fill a glass pitcher with water in the morning and place it in the fridge. Easy. As for take along, I have always used a stainless steel thermos. Again easy.

Some choose bottled water because it’s perceived to be “better for you”. As Katarina_HD points out in her article “Hydration and Why Water is so Important”, the best bottled water is artesian water, followed by water purified through reverse osmosis. However, rather than buying individual serving bottles, which are outrageously expensive in comparison to tap water, go to a local shop that supplies water for water coolers. An 18 litre refillable bottle of reverse osmosis treated water will cost about $4.00. That’s 22 cents per litre, still substantially more than tap water, but significantly less than individual serving bottles. You’ll save money, your mind will be at ease, and by using a refillable container, you won’t be adding to the plastic waste in which our municipal dumps are drowning, recycling efforts notwithstanding. Alternatively, you can install filtration equipment and even reverse osmosis on your tap to provide filtered water for far less than bottled water. Hell if you want it cold, the filtered water can be piped through your refrigerator, if your fridge has the proper dispenser.

A look at my last utility bill indicates that I paid a grand total of $12.31 for 27 days of water service. This includes a flat rate monthly service charge, and a charge of $0.513 per 1 cubic meter, or 1000 litres of water used. Do the math. It works out to less than 1/10 of a cent per litre. Compare that to the 500ml bottle of Dasani, courtesy of Coca Cola, which retails anywhere for approx $1.00 per bottle. At $2.00 per liter, I would be paying TWO THOUSAND TIMES more than I would if I filled my glass from the tap. Guess what? I refuse! By the way, that bottle of Dasani you’ve been drinking? Chances are the source is either Calgary’s or Brampton’s municipal water supply.

Bottled water packaging has also come under increased scrutiny of late.

The bottles are made of plastic, a petroleum product and a non-renewable resource, and as such require new raw materials to be consumed all the time.

Whether the plastic leaches toxins into the water is the subject of much debate. During production, phthalates are added to make the plastic flexible and have been shown to leach from the plastic, potentially causing health problems.

William Shotyk, director of the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Heidelberg, Germany undertook a study of bottled water that included 132 brands from 28 countries, all bottled in containers made of PET, polyethylene terephthalate. He found that the concentration of certain chemicals, including antimony, which is chemically similar to lead, increases with the amount of time the water has been in the bottle.

An Italian study found that the level of DEHP, Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, in bottled water also increases after prolonged storage.

The bottles are typical of the “use once and never again” mentality that has invaded the consumer mindset and created our “throw away” society. Has society become that lazy and inefficient that we cannot take two minutes to clean a thermos or a pitcher, thereby encouraging industry to generate more greenhouse gases in their production of these bottles? Are we that blasé about our environment, that we find it acceptable when non-biodegrable packaging finds its way into our garbage. I sincerely hope not, it’s the only environment we have!

The message we send to our politicians when we purchase bottled water is this;

1. My municipalities’ drinking water and its infrastructure are not important to me,
2. I’d rather contribute to a multinational’s bottom line.
3. It doesn’t matter to me that the water supply is slowly being privatized
4. I don’t care that I pay two thousand to three thousand times what I can get from a tap for pennies a day.

Today we still have a choice. In the future, when we may be forced to pay a private company many more times what we pay now to publicly owned utilities, there will be no choice.

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