The Positive Economic And Ethical Effects Of Bottled Water

Seventy percent of the human body is comprised of water. This makes drinking water quality vital. The EPA estimates the average adult consumes 1.2 liters daily or 115 gallons of community (tap) water daily while the average consumption of bottled water per capita in the U.S. is in excess of 30.8 gallons per year and is expected to continue to increase according to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the Beverage Marketing Association’s 2013 report. Bottled water costs anywhere from 240 to 10,000 times more per gallon than the average cost of tap, but people’s perception that bottled water is purer, safer or healthier is driven, in part, by strong bottled water marketing campaigns that focus on news reports about crises that involve municipal water supplies. (NRDC, “Bottled Water Pure Drink or Pure Hype”) The sources for both tap and bottled waters as well as additives to either enrich or neutralize contents of water determine the mineral and chemical composition of drinking water. Is bottled water really any purer or healthier than local tap water?

In fact 22% of test water bottle brands had chemical contaminants higher than the state limit (ABC, 1). So why do Americans think bottled water is so great? Maybe it’s because of how much companies advertise the product, advertising expenses for bottled water totaled $61 million in 2012 ("International Bottled Water Association" 1). Whatever the reason may be, bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the U.S.A., and more and more bottles of water are being produced and distributed this very second.

One of the biggest harms to the world is pollution caused by people. Most of the plastic materials used by people are left to pollute. Bottled water is one of the biggest plastic materials produced. Some people say that bottled water is safer, convenient, and provide jobs to workers in many ways. The reasons for buying bottled water differ. Some people buy bottled water because they don’t like the taste or smell of tap water, while others on the other hand buy it because of health concerns with water contamination. Pollution is one of the biggest problems hurting the environment today, and water bottles that are thrown out after each one-time use, contribute greatly to its increasing buildup. Bottled water is not only expensive to us, but also to the environment. Bottled water is hurting the economy, harming human lives, and damaging the environment.

Billions of gallons of bottled water are consumed in the United States every year. Many Americans choose bottled water for its convenience and say that the taste is much better than tap water. They say tap water is flat and tasteless. Some argue that the cost of bottled water far exceeds the cost of tap water. One study showed that one bottled water per day would cost the consumer $365 per year while the same amount of tap water would cost ten cents. While bottled water is more expensive, it provides over 130,000 jobs resulting in over six billion dollars in salaries for american workers “Bottled Water Matters.” In the article, “ Bad To The Last Drop,” Tom Standage says that bottled water is too expensive and encourages people to stop buying bottled water and give the money to charity. In the article “ In Defense of Bottled Water,” Thomas J. Lauria says that eliminating bottled water would have the unintended consequence of driving people to choose more unhealthy beverages which have thicker plastic bottles and would be worse on the environment. He also says that bottled water is an important choice in situations where there is a lack of tap water or concern about water

Water is essential to life, scientific fact, not debatable (Tracy). More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly (Olsen). Many drink or buy bottled water simply because they believe it is of better quality, cleaner, and better tasting. On the contrary, several individuals do not know the cons of drinking bottled water. Today, there are many misconceptions and myths about bottled water. Many people are uneducated about what goes into our bottles and how it not only affects us but also our environment. In the article “The New Oil” by Jeneen Interlandi and Ryan Tracy they discuss the issues that have to do with water and the privatization of it. They believe there is a crisis and something has to be done. Due to the cost, pollution, shortage, and health issues, bottled water should be outlawed. Water should not be controlled by water bottle companies and should not be allowed to be sold in plastic bottles.

When working for a company or any business for that matter, It’s important that you allow yourself to take in constructive criticism from consumers, in order to make your business more successful. Yes, everyone has Consumer’s right, meaning that you have the right to be heard, the right to environmental health, the right to service, the right to be informed and the right to choose what you buy. Consumers Association of Penang. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2017, If I was to work at the public relations department at one of the water bottle companies, I’ll respond by telling the consumers that drinking bottled water has its perks. Say you were traveling aboard, drinking tap water is not the safest

In Peter Gleick’s “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show” and Cynthia Barnett’s “Business in a Bottle”, bottled water is argued to be an excessive commodity falsely advertised as healthier and more beneficial than tap water to society and the environment. Both authors discuss that bottled water is actually equivalent in quality to tap water and in some cases even more hazardous to the human body. Public water itself is a less expensive resource that is more accessible to the masses. However, due to fraudulent companies focused on profit and the lack of effective oversight, people are deterred from realizing that there does not need to be an alternative to municipal water. Gleick

Op-ed New York Times contributor Tom Standage 's article“Bad to the Last Drop” has stated that people spend too much money on buying bottled water. What they don 't know is the difference between bottled and tap water. People buy bottled water because they think it 's safer to drink. What they don’t know is that bottled water is bad for the environment. Bottled water manufacturers begin by putting the water into plastic bottles which then is shipped from one part of the world to another and then kept refrigerated before they sell it. Not only that, but people around the world are lacking safe drinkable water and are dying of water-borne diseases. Bottled water is a problem and people should stop spending money on such an unnecessary product. Instead, they should give that money to water charities. Standage effectively argues that bottled water is not good for the environment nor for the people.

According to The Water Project, “Bottles used to package water take over 1,000 years to bio-degrade and if incinerated, they produce toxic fumes. It is estimated that over 80% of all single-use water bottles used in the U.S. simply become ‘litter’” (“Bottled Water is Wasteful”). This fact is not the only reason I believe that bottled water does not outweigh its costs. Although statistics show that bottled water is efficient, there are many reasons to believe otherwise.

The chapter “Selling Bottled Water”, by Peter Gleick, works within the argument of Cynthia Barnett’s “Business in a Bottle”, which illustrates the superficial and deceptive image of bottled water, due to false advertising and pseudoscientific claims by greedy bottling companies. The companies take advantage of a free resource and make millions in profit. Although utilizing different styles, Gleick and Barnett’s grounds intertwine, exposing bottling companies’ manipulative tricks while opening the population’s eyes to the lie that bottled water is cleaner, healthier, and safer than tap water. Barnett focuses on specific bottling companies’ data and incorporates statistics for support, while Gleick separates his argument into various segments and provides a brief historical lesson on false advertising; these techniques expose the psychological effect of false advertising in the population and neatly organize the information proving false advertising exists.

Bottled water is probably the biggest scandal since Jordan Belfort was a penny stock broker. We pay extra for something that is convenientconvnant for us, but inturn is hurting ourare planet. We try to help by recycling, but still 38 billion plastic bottles made it to the landfills in 2010 and since then the numbers have just kept rising.In 2013, 10,130.3 million gallons of bottled water were produced in the United States, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp.(page #) Depending on who you ask, that’s either proof that more Americans are turning away from sugary soft drinks, or an environmental and ethical problem.

Tom Standage’s essay “Bad to the Last Drop first appeared in the New York Times” (pages 662-664) on the first of August, 2005. In his essay, Standage argues that we, as a society, should do away with bottled water. He justifies his stance with several points including the shear monetary cost to the consumer, the lack of any nutritional benefit in bottled water, and even his results in a “water tasting”, a parody of a wine tasting which he partook in with the help of a few of his friends. By far, one of Tom’s strongest points, though, is the plight of impoverished nations around the world and their lack of clean water. One can almost feel his contempt for the seeming hypocrisy of first-world countries and their rejection of their perfectly adequate tap water, especially in the face of such global need. He demonizes the “illogical enthusiasm” with which wealthy nations turn up their noses at tap water. But in the midst of his tirade, he makes sure to pardon developing countries as bottled water is often times the cleanest water available to them. As his final point, Standage concludes that the most reasonable thing for the populace of developed nations to do, in light of the deficiency of water in other countries, is to cease consumption of bottled water and send that money to water charities instead.

“One of the biggest challenges facing the bottled water industry is how to respond to the environmental claims levelled against it” (Grocer). Every time someone throws a bottle away, they have taken up more space in a landfill for the next four hundred fifty to one thousand years. Besides the long decomposition rate, water bottles are the cause of several more environmental issues. Overfilling landfills, health hazards caused by refilling, and the economic stresses due to the constant and inconvenient repurchasing are just a few of the negatives water bottles have on us. These plastic pollutants are doing more harm to both the environment and their users than good.

Have you ever had any concerns about bottled water? Do you think that bottled water consumption should be banned? Bottled water is water packed in plastic containers and sold for human consumption (Health Canada, 2013). Currently, the amount of bottled water consumed has increased considerably since many people feel it is safer drinking bottled water than tap water (Parent and Wrong, 2014). According to The Statistics Portal, the global sale of bottled water took a leap from 161, 589 to 181, 608 liters from 2009 to 2011. Only in the United States, each American citizen consumed around 32 gallons of bottled water in 2013, thus meaning an equivalent growth of 15, 94% over 2009 (The Statistics Portal, 2014). In fact, due to good portability, bottled water has been helpful in both simple and complex situations such as daily exercises and natural disasters. Even though having those few considerable advantages, bottled water still have been less beneficial; especially due to the negative impacts in the socio-economic, health and environmental fields.

Life springs up around water sources. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest civilizations have been build need fertile bodies of water. Known life relies on water to sustain that life. So it is no surprise when a debate arose in 2013 around comments made by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck regarding privatization of water and the fundamental human right to survive from dehydration and illness from non-portal water consumption. Although the context of Brabeck’s comment was taken out of context, issues surrounding the access companies like Nestlé have been given to bottle their water when people do not have access to clean water and droughts are threatening crop production. Adding a price tag is not the answer. The market, both these companies and their consumers have a major role to play in the management of water; a role that requires a change in mindset of privilege many citizen of the United States, and other countries that do not see the direct effects that serious clean water issue have on people that do not have it.