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The myth of the bottled water
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Is your bottled water purer than this? The answer may surprise you.
Over the weekend, the 14th annual Festival of Faiths had a special ceremony that included individuals taking water from their community and pouring it into a bowl that had been blessed by the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. During it's run, the Festival will discuss water-related crises and traditions all around the theme of "Sacred Water: Sustaining Life."
With Sunday's blessing, it's time to take a look at drinking water. Louisville is lucky to have award winning tap water filtered from the Ohio River, but bottled water is still the trendy choice here and in the United States. The big drink companies latched on to this "blue gold" a few years ago when Pepsico acquired Aquafina and when Coca-Cola launched the Dasani brand. You'll find those brands in the vending machine next to your favorite soft drinks, and at the same price.
But why? What is so special about Aquafina or Dasani that's so special that one can't get from the tap?
Nothing.
Both brands, and many others, use the same water that comes from the faucet in your kitchen. There are a few other filtering agents and, in Dasani's case, some added minerals, but the bottom line is that the water that you pay pennies a gallon for to be delivered to your home, is also the water that you're paying $10 a gallon for because it comes in a plastic bottle and has a pretty label. Even gasoline costs less three.
So then the question becomes, is bottle water healthier for you? Apparently the bottle water companies don't want to say since the Government Accountability Office found that over one third of the reports those companies filed are incomplete or unclear. Meanwhile Cornell University found that 22% of the brands they tested had at least one instance of "chemical contaminants at level above strict state health limits."
How? Because the FDA doesn't even bother to regulate about 70% of tap water due to a loop hole that says that if the water is bottled in a state and stays in that state, the FDA does not have an obligation to regulate. In other words, if the water came from the Ohio River, was bottled in Louisville and is for sale here, the FDA didn't bother to look at it.
The environmental impact just as enormous. Look at the loose litter, landfill occupation and the waste of petroleum to make the pretty bottles.
How sacred does that bottle taste now?
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