Friday, July 27, 2007

Bottled Tap Water

Recently, a lot of attention has been raised about bottled water and its negative impact on the environment. In addition to the obvious need to manufacture plastic bottles (much of which ends up clogging up landfills), a lot of energy is consumed transporting the water to the consumer. Bottled water opponents also argue that bottled water is far more expensive and no cleaner than tap water (which, in the United States, is quite clean). In many cases, it is simply bottled tap water.

In fact, PepsiCo just announced that they would be changing the labeling on the Aquafina bottled water product to say just that. Aquafina bottles will now have the words "Public Water Source" listed on the label. I wonder if Coca-Cola will follow PepsiCo's move toward corporate responsibility by updating the labels on Dasani, their line of bottled water.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aquafina is not just tap water. It's tap water that has gone through an extra purification process before it goes into the bottle. I'm pregnant and working in Washington DC, and I would not endanger the development of my baby by drinking tap water here which has gone through lead pipes and contains levels of lead that far exceed the dose required by EPA regulations. At home I use a filter on my water source, so I do not need to use bottles. Even in areas where lead is not a problem, people may prefer the taste of water that is free from chlorine and other things that have been filtered out of bottled water. I do not drink water from Spring sources because the chances of contamination are higher than for bottled water from a public source. It's not like someone is filling bottles from a kitchen sink tap. Aquafina is filtered via reverse osmosis, which is better than the processes used by many public facilities, and it has not traveled through dirty old city pipes after it was purfied picking up metals, biofilm and who knows what along the way.

Anonymous said...

I am a consumer and have nothing to do with Pepsi or Coke from a business perspective.

I am glad they offer this water. It tastes so much better than the tap water in a lot of places I go.

They aren't just running it from the tap into the bottle. They tidy it up and make it taste good.

I live in the mountains and our tap water is excellent and I drink it when I can. However, I travel on business a lot and am thankful for Aqua Fina large mouth bottle!