2008 Maps.com

Geography In The News

Neal Linebackand Mandy Lineback Gritzner

BOTTLED WATERSTRUE COSTS

Americans spend $10,000 a minute on something that is usually available free from the tapdrinking water. Collectively, the world spends $100 billion a year on bottled water. The result is a waste of resources and little or no health benefi ts to consumers.

Sales of bottled water in the United States have grown rapidly since the early 1990s. By 2003, bottled water was the second-largest com-mercial beverage consumed by volume. In 2007, the to-tal volume of bottled water consumed in the United States surpassed 8.8 billion gallons (33.3 billion liters), a 6.9 percent increase from 2006. That volume translates to more than 29 gallons (110 liters) of bottled water con-sumed each year by every person in the United States. Americans now drink more bottled water annually than any other beverage except carbonated soft drinks.

Globally, the volume of consumed bottled water is also growing. Worldwide, bottled water consumption surged to 49 billion gallons (185 billion liters) in 2007, up from 25 billion gallons (98 billion liters) in 1999.

The loss of normal sourc-es of potable (safe) drinking water is one force in the growth of the bottled water in the world market. Another, however, is the growing perception that tap water might not be pure or safe. Lastly, consumers view bottled water as a conveniently packaged commodity easily carried to events and meetings.

There is no guarantee that bottled wa-ter is any healthier than tap water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

sets higher quality standards for tap water than does the Food and Drug Administra-tion for bottled water. Some 40 percent of bottled water begins as tap water. Some-times minerals, with no proven health benefi t, are added to the bottled product. A recent study of ten leading samples of bottled water found a variety of contami-nants often found in tap water.

The Earth Policy Institute, an environ-mental think tank, argues that while af-fordable drinking water is essential to the health of the global community, bottled water is not the answer in ?developing countries. For several reasons, bottled water cannot solve the problem of drink-ing water for the 1.1 billion people in the world who lack a secure water supply.

While consumers spend $100 billion on bottled water annually, the United Na-tions spends only about $30 billion on im-

proving and expanding water treatment and sanitation systems in the developing world.

With demand for bottled water increas-ing worldwide, researchers are becoming aware of the plastic garbage created by its consumption and the vast quantities of en-ergy used to package and transport it.

Energy effi cient public water systems bring urban tap water into our homes. On the other hand, bottled water must be

transported long distances by truck, boat, train or airplane using huge amounts of fossil fuels. One-fourth of the worlds bot-tled water is transported across national borders. In one example, a company in Helsinki, Finland, shipped 1.4 million bot-tles of Finnish tap water 2,700 miles (4,300 km) to Saudi Arabia.

Producing the packaging for bottled water also consumes fossil fuels. Polyeth-ylene terephthalate, derived from crude oil, is the main component of plastic water bottles. In fact, it takes one quarter of an in-dividual-sized water bottle fi lled with oil to produce the water bottle itself. Just for the bottled water consumed in the United States, that equals more than1.5 million barrels of oil annually or enough oil to fuel 100,000 U.S. cars for a year. The bottled water industry worldwide uses some 2.7 million tons of plastic yearly.

An estimated 86 percent of all plastic water bottles in the United States becomes trash or litter after a single use, destined for incinera-tion, landfi lls or elsewhere. Incinerating plastic bottles produces toxic byprod-ucts, such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals, linked to a host of human and animal health problems. It can take up to 1,000 years for a plastic bottle to biodegrade in the natural environment or in a landfi ll.

In 2004, the United States exported 40 percent of its recycled plastic water bot-tles to destinations as far away as China. In this case, transport after disposal consumes even more fossil fuels.

Even though bottled wa-ter is often no healthier than urban tap water in the de-veloped world, it can cost between 250 and 10,000 times more per gallon. Some bottled water in the

United States is more costly than gasoline. Perhaps consumers will realize that drink-ing bottled water is just pouring money down the drain.

And that is Geography in the News. Oc-tober 31, 2008. #961.

Co-authors are Neal Lineback, Appalachian State University Professor Emeritus of Geography, and Geographer Mandy Lineback Gritzner. University News Director Jane Nicholson serves as technical editor.

LeadingCountries

Percent Growth,2002-2007

Percent Growth,2002-2007

LeadingCountries

1. Hungary ................................ 52.7

20. Saudi Arabia ...........................1.2419. France ......................................3.618. Spain........................................6.317. Cyprus .................................. 10.816. Portugal ................................ 11.215. Czech Republic ................... 14.214. Switzerland .......................... 14.213. Thailand................................ 14.812. Lebanon................................ 15.011. Austria .................................. 16.4

10. Germany............................... 16.59. Italy........................................ 17.18. Belgium-Luxembourg ......... 17.27. Slovenia ................................ 25.46. Mexico .................................. 30.35. United States....................... 31.44. Croatia .................................. 38.63. Israel ..................................... 46.52. United Arab Emirates ......... 48.7

Leading Countries, 2007

Gal

lons

per

Cap

ita

Bottled Water Consumption by Country

2002 consumption2007 consumption

U.A.

E.M

exic

o

Switz

erla

ndItaly

Hung

ary

US

Leba

non

Spai

n

Ger

man

y

Portu

gal

Isra

el

Thai

land

Cypr

us

Saud

i Ara

bia

Croa

tia

Czec

h Re

p.

Aust

ria

Slov

enia

Fran

ce

Belg

ium

-Lux

.0

60

80

30

50

10

70

20

40

Geography in the News 10/31/08 C. FrankoSource: Beverage Marketing Corporation

2008

Guzzling Down the Gallons

Sources: GITN #679, Ubiquitous Bottled Water, June 6, 2003;http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081015/ap_on_sc/impure_bottled_water;

and http://www.bottledwater.org/public/statistics_main.htm

/ColorImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorImageDict > /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages true /GrayImageMinResolution 300 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict > /GrayImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayImageDict > /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages true /MonoImageMinResolution 1200 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict > /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False

/CreateJDFFile false /Description > /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ > /FormElements false /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles false /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (2.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK /PreserveEditing true /UntaggedCMYKHandling /LeaveUntagged /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> ]>> setdistillerparams> setpagedevice