Research Essay

(this is undoubtably really boring but I felt like I should update. I'll post the first draft of my creative writing project later this weekend.)

The average adult requires 8 glasses of water day to maintain a healthy body. This is a long established fact that seems uncomplicated, but choosing a source for this necessary water can lead to unexpected problems. In Edmonton today, water is available for next to nothing from millions of water faucets, while at the same time offered for sale on virtually every block. As a consumer product, water flies off of shelves at rates faster than beer or milk (Royte 7); however, despite the convenience and variety of bottled water, water straight from the tap remains the most economical, ethical, and environmentally sound drinking option.

The bottled water industry is a booming one. Sales of bottled water have more than doubled in the last ten years, becoming globally a sixty-billion dollar industry. More people are paying for water as a packaged product now than ever before, with the U.S. per capita consumption reaching 27.6 gallons in 2006, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation; this is up from 5.7 gallons in 1987 (Royte 7). Billions upon billions of litres are sold worldwide annually, and it’s not hard to see why. It is a product of convenience and fashion. It’s easy to run into a gas station and purchase a litre of water for a long car ride, or buy a flat of bottles from Wal-Mart for a camping trip. Celebrities are often seen toting Fiji and Evian water, making it almost equivalent to an accessory like a purse or a scarf. It’s a healthy alternative to soft drinks, and comes in a wide range of flavours and brands.

Bottled water is popular despite its expense, but what is wrong with tap water? In this city, water waits patiently in the pipes of nearly every building, year round, ready to be drunk. Like most municipalities in Canada and the USA, Edmonton water is highly regulated and tested, and must live up to standards set by the provincial government. With the turn of a crank or the pull of a lever, drinkable water is available for a tiny fraction of the cost of bottled water. The average Canadian pays $1.26 for 1000 litres of tap water, according to Environment Canada (“Water Use” par. 3). In comparison, very few companies sell bottled water for less than one dollar a litre.

The use of reusable water bottles has increased in popularity in recent years, as awareness of environmental issues has increased. Filling and refilling an aluminum or polycarbonate bottle with water over and over again is undoubtedly a more environmentally friendly choice than purchasing multiple bottles of Dasani water. As Elizabeth Royte points out in her book, Bottle mania, seventeen million barrels of oil are used each year just to produce the plastic bottles for water in the U.S. market alone(139). This does not include the energy used to transport these bottles, or to fill them with water. Billions of bottles must be transported, sometimes from all the way across the world, before they reach the consumer. They then are often cooled in refrigerators for weeks before actually being drunk. The amount of energy that goes into this whole process is enormous. In fact, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute has made estimations that “the total energy required for every bottle’s production, transport, and disposal is equivalent, on average, to filling that bottle a quarter of the way with oil” (Royte 139).

Tap water from the municipal water supply gets to consumers using only a tiny fraction of the energy that it takes to get bottled water to consumers. This municipal water also leaves no packaging behind to be sent to recycling plants or landfills. Only 25% of plastic water bottles are recycled, with the rest left to litter streets or fill up landfills where only after 420 years will they break down (Gyekye 1). Although recycling is undoubtedly a better alternative than sending the plastic to landfills, energy is required to transport bottles to facilities as well as for the process of recycling itself. Recycled plastic is rarely used by water bottlers anyway, because as Don Dyer of Nestle Waters says, “There are taste issues with it” (Royte 155). Water straight from the tap comes with no packaging at all, to be recycled or otherwise.

Many Canadians today rarely drink water that has not been packaged, transported and sold at prices higher than gasoline. These Canadians make several arguments against tap water; however, many of these arguments are uninformed or easily countered. One prominent argument is that tap water isn’t as healthy as bottled. While contamination has occurred, as was the case in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000, such instances are few and far between. Tap water is tested thousands of times a year for contaminants and viruses, with the results reported to the public and the government; by contrast, bottling plants self-test their water, sometimes only three or four times a year (Royte 145). Since bottling companies aren’t required to state their source on the bottle, many brands of bottled water is actually drawn from municipal water supplies in the first place (Royte 145). As if that weren’t enough, there is strong evidence suggesting that dangerous chemicals in plastic bottles may leach into the water inside of them over time (Ahmad, Bajahlan 1). Other arguments against tap water include the perception that the fluoride added to municipal water supplies may not be healthy. While there is no convincing evidence on either side of this argument, tap water filters to screen out fluoride are available to be purchased for those who are concerned.

After considering issues such as cost, environment and health, the choice between tap and bottled water doesn’t seem difficult; however, there are ethical issues to take into account as well. According to the Water and Canada page of Environment Canada’s Freshwater Website (par. 2), Canada has close to twenty percent of the world’s freshwater supply. Clean drinking water is abundant for Canadian citizens, and yet we import water from remote parts of the world, such as Fiji, where about half the nation doesn’t have access to clean water at all (Royte 153). Millions of Canadians thoughtlessly spend money on a product they could have virtually free at home, when 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to drinkable water. (Water Supply, Par. 1) Surely the billions of dollars spent needlessly on bottled water every year could be put to a better use?

Water is a basic necessity for human life. It is available in many forms, and in this country is plentiful. Bottled water is product of convenience, which is consumed at an alarming rate in areas such as Edmonton, where safe drinking water is available to the public through pipes in most homes and workplaces. A little planning ahead is all it takes to drink tap water from a reusable water bottle rather than purchasing commercially bottled water. In our water rich country, drinking bottled water is an environmentally, economically, and ethically irresponsible choice.

Works Cited
Royte, Elizabeth. Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. New York City, NY: Bloomsbury USA, 2008.
Gyekye, Liz. “Call to drink from tap, not bottles.” Materials Recycling Week 20 July 2007: 6-6
“Water and Canada” Freshwater Website (August 2008) Environment Canada. 16 Sept. 2009 http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:JoUxyOkdNRkJ:www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/pubs/wwf/e_intro.htm+freshwater+world+distribution+canada&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
“Water Supply and Sanitation” World Water Council (27 May 2009) 16 Sept. 2009 < http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=23>
Ahmad, Maqbool and Ahmad S., Bajahlan. “Leaching of styrene and other aromatic compounds in drinking water from PS bottles.” Journal of Environmental Sciences Apr. 2007: 421-426.
“Water Use” Freshwater Website (November 2008) Environment Canada. 16 Sept. 2009 http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/manage/use/e_price.htm