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Film summary
What is the expense, and environmental cost, of bottling water when tap water is freely available?Key facts
- Bottled water is up to 10,000 times more expensive than tap water.
- Bottled water has a high carbon footprint and is a waste of energy.
- Fossil fuels are used in transporting and packaging bottled water.
- The bottled water industry is trying to improve its environmental impact by planting trees and using renewable energy.
Transcript
Bottled water is a common purchase in developed countries.
53 billion gallons are consumed each year.
But given the developed world's access to clean tap water, is it worth the cost?
Prof Tim Lang, London City University, UK – "Bottled water really ultimately is an energy waste, it's energy being used to transport it to us, energy reflected in the plastic bottles which are thrown away and go into landfill or if it's glass even worse, huge amounts of energy being generated and used in the making of it, all to throw it away, all to pee it out, I mean think of it, you can get water through a tap."
Bottled water is up to 10,000 times more expensive than tap water.
And the carbon footprint of a bottle of water can be over 600 times higher.
Transportation
Tap water is piped to homes from relatively local supplies, whereas bottled water can be shipped around the world, using huge amounts of fossil fuel in its transportation.
Packaging
The majority of bottles are made from plastic that is produced using yet more fossil fuels.
Dr Richard Thompson, University of Plymouth, UK – "These packaging materials are used once and then thrown away, and yet the plastic that's used to make those materials will last in the environment for hundreds if not thousands of years."
Local Needs
Phil Woolas MP, Former UK Environment Minister – "I think it borders on morally being unacceptable to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on bottled water when we have pure drinking water, when at the same time, one of the crises that is facing the world is the supply of water, there are many countries in the world who unfortunately haven't got pure tap water, we should be concentrating our efforts on putting that right."
Solutions
The bottled water industry is working on improving its environmental impact.
Planting trees to offset the carbon that they produce.
Switching to renewable energy in production and transportation.
Providing clean drinking water for developing countries.
And reducing or recycling the amount of plastic in bottles.
But, bottled water will continue to contribute to pollution and emissions until consumers make the choice to switch to tap.
