14 ms·

Bottled water is 3,500 times worse for the environment than tap water

184 points by kitkat_new 5y ago

cardosof 5y ago
Yes, but people still buy it (and market is bound to grow, ceteris paribus) because they think tap water is worse somehow. And with crumbling public water infrastructure in many countries, that's not really far from the truth.
- bialpio 5y ago
  Do you have a source to back up the claim from your last sentence? My understanding is that if you can cook with your tap water, then it should also be safe to drink (or can be made safe to drink by boiling it). If you're worried about lead or sth else in your water supply, you might as well disconnect it from your kitchen.
  - cardosof 5y ago
    You may find it biased but here it is. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/spring-2019/how-development-of-americas-water-infrastructure-has-lurched-through-history https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/spring-2019/how-d...
    - bialpio 5y ago
      Thanks! This seems to be US-specific, and I'd be interested to read about other places (the original claim was about "many countries"). Sibling comments seem to disagree, at least when it comes to Europe.
- Beaver117 5y ago
  Tap water is contaminated with numerous chemicals (known and unknown).
  - wolfi1 5y ago
    so is bottled water
  - jhoechtl 5y ago
    A claim which doesn't hold the test of science. Do you have a stake in Danone?
  - carstenhag 5y ago
    Don't talk in generic terms if it doesn't apply at all places. In Germany for example, tap water is perfectly fine. Some might not like it that much because it perhaps is too hard or something, or your house might have old pipes, but it is healthy.
    - A_non_e-moose 5y ago
      Isn't excessively hard water harsher on your kidneys?
  - MikeDelta 5y ago
    Depends on the country. In some European countries tapwater is extremely well controlled and can be considered cleaner than bottled water. I wouldn't say that the contamination is unknown: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/water/drinking-water https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/water/drinking-wate... Some companies are even selling tapwater in bottles for a good profit, so many drink tapwater from bottles without knowing: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-bottled-water-consumer-reports https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-b... Water in plastic bottles can contain solvents and microparticles, and be worse because of that: https://www.time.com/5581326/plastic-particles-in-bottled-water https://www.time.com/5581326/plastic-particles-in-bottled-wa...
  - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
    Not everywhere is Flint, MI
toiletaccount 5y ago
bottled water sucks ass, but how do you quantify this sort of thing? it's almost a meaningless number. after 3500 liters dispensed from a tap, is there one empty plastic bottle dumped in a landfill? or are you supposed to reuse a water bottle 3500 times before tossing it? are there 3500 times more co2 emissions from getting bottled water to my lips? last i checked there isn't much carbon involved in pulling from the ground, which isnt even how everyone gets their water. no i didnt read the article.
- carstenhag 5y ago
  Well you should have. Just to answer one question: You need to move the water to the bottling plant, distribute that to the retail logistics centers and then distribute it to the retail shops. The buyers are then also more likely to go the the shop by car, as heavy things are not great to buy when going by feet or bicycle.
  - ljm 5y ago
    Not to mention that, if you believe the typical marketing bullshit, your bottle water is probably sourced from the Alps or some stream in the arse crack of New Zealand and then transported across the globe for however long that takes, until it finds its way to a store and then to your lips. Brita filters (or any other filters/jugs) have their own environmental costs as well but you can chug through a decent amount of tap water before you need to replace one of those. Couldn't live without one of those in Barcelona (unless I wanted to down a glass full of limestone), and was much more useful than lugging back a few huge jugs of bottled water every few days. Back in the UK, not a single reason to buy water in a bottle unless you're outside and in a pinch.
    - qmmmur 5y ago
      Yeah UK water is pretty top notch as is all Australian water. I really just cannot understand or really envisage what it must be like to not have pure basically flavourless (or water flavoured??) water coming out of the tap which is 100% safe. How is it so hard to get right?
cosmotic 5y ago
Actual study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721039565 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...
rgrieselhuber 5y ago
I don’t understand why people don’t just buy water filters.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- MikeDelta 5y ago
  Depends on where you are. In Europe there is no need for that at all. What kind of water filter would that be? A simple small filter you attach to the faucet or a proper arm-sized cylinder you place somewhere along your water pipes? I am not sure how well those filters remove all contaminants like heavy metals and such.
  - lstodd 5y ago
    Depends on where in Europe you are. In most of eastern you need partuculate, charcoal and ion-exchange in series to somewhat approach acceptable levels of shit in it.
  - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
    It's much worse in the US, tons of heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, etc. Berkey water filters are a good basic option.
    - syntaxing 5y ago
      I would not classify chlorine and fluoride as the same group as heavy metals… While it sounds dangerous, it’s hard to argue there isn’t a net positive to use fluoride and chlorine to society when it comes to water distribution. Also to note, there is nothing particular special of Berkeley filters compared to other carbon filter, and it does not filter heavy metals (you typically need ion exchange filter for that). The company has a bunch of filter claims and state that they haven’t gotten the NSF certification because of cost reasons but I find it really hard to believe that is the case.
      - 5y ago
asciimov 5y ago
If you want to make people stop using water bottles you have to improve the water going to their house. I've been to very few places (in the US) that the water tasted good from the tap. One was a major metro, the others were places with well water. My parents live in a medium sized Texas city that has tap water that is typically brown, sometimes it comes out of the tap foamy. Some filter it, but many just buy bottled. I use a simple filter at home to improve taste. However, after living in hurricane and tornado prone areas, I keep a small supply of water on hand (a few cases of bottled) for emergencies.
- gruez 5y ago
  >My parents live in a medium sized Texas city that has tap water that is typically brown, sometimes it comes out of the tap foamy Source/pictures? I find it hard to believe such water would be allowed by the EPA. This is also strange, considering that I've been to countries without drinkable tap water (eg. you have to boil it), and the water doesn't look like that.
  - hobs 5y ago
    So you must have missed that whole "flint michigan" thing huh? One google search away https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-worst-tap-water-us-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-worst-tap-water-us-20...
    - gruez 5y ago
      IIRC the problem with flint michigan water was high lead concentration, which isn't something that's as visible as the gp described. I can see how elevated lead levels can fly below the radar, but not brown water.
      - hn8788 5y ago
        Might just be an issue with nearby pipes, and not something affecting the entire supply. When the municpal water pipes get cleaned around where I live, they put up signs saying that your water might be brown or rust colored for a few days, but to just let the tap run for a few seconds before you start drinking it or showering.
cosmotic 5y ago
Are they taking into account the carbon footprint of the enormous yachts the Nestlé executives buy and operate with the profits from water sales in their analysis? What about the pipe fitters union lobbying to require lead pipes decades after universal acceptance of the dangers of lead and the enormous cost to replace?
- gruez 5y ago
  That seems like unnecessary ragebait and opens up the metric to all kinds of manipulation. eg. is microsoft office better or worse libreoffice than once you factor in that bill gates' philanthropic activities?
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  I think this about my government's decision to implement electricity metering in all new apartment construction. Except apartment dwellers have little control over their appliances (they're generally included), and you pay $13+/month in account fees for the individual meters. They even tried to push this on existing apartments, but I'd have to consume 33% less than average just to break-even. Hard to do when HVAC&DHW are central and laundry is common. So while I would have some incentive to conserve, I end up poorer and somebody else gets rich off account fees and likely lives a very wasteful life. Then the transition to smart meters that do time-of-day billing, but its been shown to shift demand by under 1 percent. Meanwhile the thing consumes a few watts 24/7 + implementation capex. Meter-reading is now remote, but what did the meter-reader human start doing instead? > The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario's 2015-16 Energy Conservation Progress Report found "a 0.7 per cent reduction in peak demand among residential customers" attributed to time-of-use pricing over a four-year period. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/smart-meters-hydro-bills-ontario-time-of-use-pricing-1.3862462 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/smart-meters-hydro-bi...
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Meter-reading is now remote, but what did the meter-reader human start doing instead? presumably unemployed. Not that's a bad thing, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
kaycebasques 5y ago
Title should be updated to "Bottled water is 1400–3500..." based off "Highlights" section of the actual study that cosmotic linked to. I've learned firsthand that it's counterproductive to only quote the high-end of the range. Comes off as disingenuous.
throwaway803453 5y ago
I got blind sided by an argument when visiting a friend recently because I carry a reusable water bottle with me whenever I leave home for more than a few hours whereas he brings throwaway water bottles. At one point he gestures to my bottled water and asked "does that make you feel good about yourself ?" implying I am virtue signaling. I explained that I saw a documentary ~10 years ago where the claim was if you can do one thing for the environment, please stop purchasing bottled water. It seemed like an easy request, so why not. I then rhetorically asked him if he "felt good" about himself because he doesn't just throw his trash out the car window, which is what we city kids (and adults) used to do in the early 80s. "No you don't do it and you don't think about it, right ? It's the same with my water bottle. I don't lecture anyone, and I honestly didn't think once about what he or others are doing." Culture changes many times for the better. It's odd though how some people are the last to get the memo despite similar demographics.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  I misplace water bottles on a regular basis. So I buy bottled water and re-fill the disposable bottles until they get lost. The article wholey ignores the costs of production for non-disposable water bottles. They absolutely take more resources to produce and you thus need to refill any given water bottle a certain number of times before you break even with disposable bottled water. For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    >> For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment. Society doesn't and IMO shouldn't optimize for the absent-minded. Do you also loose your keys, wallet and phone on a regular basis? Maybe it's not a memory thing but more of a value thing.
    - animal_spirits 5y ago
      I agree it's definitely value based. I've own a hydroflask which is a fairly expensive water bottle and I got it for free, so I value it pretty highly. I think I'm more likely to lose my wallet of plastic/replaceable credit cards than I am my water bottle. Plus it's just a big object, so it actually takes up (virtual?imaginary?) space in my mind.
haltingproblem 5y ago
This bizarre thing is from a health perspective bottled water is toxic for you. Plastic, especially new plastic, actually leaches compounds into water. As plastic gets old, its leaching capacity goes down. Old plastic is safer than newer plastic. However, most plastic bottles, including BPA-free are estrogenic. They are bad for men and women causing a variety of problems which are still poorly understood. The worse use-case is plastic filled bottles, like water, that have sat or have been transported in hot environments which is to say all of them. Ditto for hot takeout food served in plastic containers - soups, curries, etc. People who buy bottled water are literally paying money to get poisoned for a teeny bit of convenience. I know most water fountains are not cleaned properly but that water is safer (by orders of magnitudes, but I have no data to cite) than bottled water. A lot of this is problematic for the evidence driven folks. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but please use the precautionary principle.
Jiro 5y ago
Suppose that for some reason tap water was actually completely neutral for the environment. It produced zero change in either direction. They could have headlines reading "bottled water is over 3000 million billion trillion googol times worse for the environment than tap water". They could then follow up with the same statement about cars, straws, recyclable straws, spinach, or anything with any non-zero effect at all. "How many times worse" is a nonsense comparison meant for sensationalism.
booleandilemma 5y ago
I live in a hundred-year-old apartment building that is not the best maintained. I have no idea about the condition of the pipes and I don’t know where my water is coming from. I can get a filter, but I feel like it’s similar to running my own email server. Sure, I could do it, but I’d rather put the burden of filtering (and quality control in general) on a 3rd party. Hence I buy bottled water.
- ghaff 5y ago
  You could get your water tested if you're concerned. ADDED: I don't mean this facetiously. Even if I drank bottled water rather than tap water (which I don't in general), I definitely would want to know if I suspected my tap water wasn't potable for some reason.
  - reacharavindh 5y ago
    It’s not as easy or straightforward to test drinking water. I tried and failed at Amsterdam, NL just last week. There is no easy reliable test for drinking water quality( one that tests for common bacteria, heavy metals, minerals and soluble pollutants). The only tests I could find were all lead tests, but that is just of my many concerns.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      In the US, if you can't access a pre-existing report, there is a list of EPA-certified labs: https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-to-test-your-tap-water/ https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-to-test-yo... As that article notes, home tests are probably problematic. I'm a bit surprised there wouldn't be equivalent resources in Western Europe.
- sunshineforever 5y ago
  Really old pipes will be carrying your water in a calcified layer
  - 5y ago
xnx 5y ago
You get roughly the same number if you compare the cost of tap water and bottled water per gallon. Monetary cost is a pretty good rule-of-thumb when estimating environmental impact. https://slate.com/business/2013/07/cost-of-bottled-water-vs-tap-water-the-difference-will-shock-you.html https://slate.com/business/2013/07/cost-of-bottled-water-vs-...
- kitkat_new 5y ago
  actually it is not - that's, for instance, why scientists suggest various carbon pricing models
sova 5y ago
Considering the devastation invoked when filling up newly minted plastic vessels with rich, inland aquifers, believe this factor is not 3500 but actually much higher. >They used something called a “life cycle assessment” which estimates the environmental impact of an item over its entire lifespan. That includes the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, distribution, use and disposal. Would like to point out that extraction does get more costly over time. Think of oil wells or any other resource, the low-hanging, easy-to-grab fruits are taken first, then the tech to extract must be advanced, then more precarious pursuits in search of resource are undertaken and the ecological devastation is quite a bit more each successive time.
reacharavindh 5y ago
Boy, talk about timing. I just used up about 16 liters of bottled water in about 4 days because we started to doubt that our tap water got us all(family) sick at the same time. When I tried to test the water, I found no easy way to do so; all test kits on Amazon turns up with comically bad reviews. Local water testing lab only tests for specific pollutants with legal precedence like Lead, Cadmium, Mercury etc. There was not a single trustworthy test I could find to say here is a decent test profile we ran on your sample, and here is the water quality score. Context: I moved 2 weeks ago to Amsterdam, NL from Denmark where we had been drinking tap water without any thought and trouble. A scientifically dumb test to get off tap water while we were all sick(sore throat, bad stomach, and mild fever - yes, COVID negative) worked and we are not sick now. I don’t know whether to stop using bottled water and go back to tap water or to continue this environmentally bad choice of bottled water in fear of health. I used to believe that tap water is a good natural choice as it packs minerals and useful natural solubles that would have been filtered out in bottled water. But, if it could get me sick, I don’t know what to do. Hopefully we don’t get the same sickness again now that we are drinking tap water, and I could build up my trust again on tap water.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Local water testing lab only tests for specific pollutants with legal precedence like Lead, Cadmium, Mercury etc. Does the pollutant list only contain chemicals, or do they include microbial pollutants as well? The EPA for instance has standards for microbial pollutants in addition to chemical pollutants.
  - reacharavindh 5y ago
    I believe the city water department tests for a more detailed set of factors(I could not get proper information because I moved here recently, and I don’t yet speak Dutch). However, the tests I could buy/order from commercial labs around here only tests for specific ones (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Nickel, Coliform bacteria). I’m guessing that is because those were the common culprits.
    - 5y ago
lmilcin 5y ago
I drink bottled water because if I did not the next choice would be stuffing myself with soft drinks and other crap. I can only drink so much coffee and tea per day. Tap water just doesn't taste well on its own. I would be first to switch to drinking tap water if I could somehow make it taste well.
- nvllsvm 5y ago
  Have you considered a reverse osmosis system? It made my tap water palletable.
- semi-extrinsic 5y ago
  Did you try just putting it in open jugs in the fridge for a few hours? It's surprising how much chlorine, dissolved gas etc. you get rid of with this. It's my go-to when travelling to places with safe-but-off-tasting water.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > safe-but-off-tasting water How do you actually tell if the water is safe? There have been so many news reports about unsafe tap water across the US.
    - semi-extrinsic 5y ago
      Sorry, I was assuming you live in a country where you can trust the public water authorities.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - bserge 5y ago
      Why would you assume bottled water is safer?
BurningFrog 5y ago
Just reading the headline: How bad is tap water for the environment? AFAIK, not bad at all. And 3,500 times 0 is 0.
- zachrip 5y ago
  Okay...?
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Nothing has zero environmental impact, at the very least there's energy and chemicals used to pump and treat tap water.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  My point, which in hindsight I made badly, is that saying something is 3500 times worse that something very small says very little about if that is something to be concerned about. It could be a huge problem, and it could be completely negligible. I think that phrasing is there to sensationalize and as clickbait.
dataflow 5y ago
Maybe 60 million Americans avoid tap water because they have reasons not to trust their own water, especially post-Flint. [1] Some quick Googling turns these pages up: - Consumer Reports founds PFAS in 117 of the 120 water samples they tested from across the US [2] - When [chlorine] mixes with other organic compounds it can create a few harmful byproducts, including trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids [3] - Lead poisoning is apparently also a problem in Detroit, Pittsburgh, DC [4] - Arsenic has seeped into the water supply in California, Arizona, and New Mexico [4] I honestly don't know if any of these are incorrect misinformation or if people are acting in a misguided fashion, but as far as I can see, there certainly doesn't seem to be a consensus on that being the case. [1] https://theconversation.com/nearly-60-million-americans-dont-drink-their-tap-water-research-suggests-heres-why-thats-a-public-health-problem-158483 https://theconversation.com/nearly-60-million-americans-dont... [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-safe-is-our-drinking-water-a0101771201/ https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-safe-is-ou... [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-tap-water-contaminated-unsafe-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-tap-water-contaminated... [4] https://www.businessinsider.com/toxic-chemicals-tap-drinking-water-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/toxic-chemicals-tap-drinking...
- snypher 5y ago
  The most popular bottled water at my store says right there: bottled from a municipal source. Is PFAS testing part of bottled water QC?
  - matwood 5y ago
    Municipal source, then likely purified and minerals added back (pure water does not taste very good).
    - nwallin 5y ago
      > Municipal source, then likely purified and minerals added back (pure water does not taste very good). If the water claims a purification method (RO, distilled) then it is purified via that method. If it does not claim a purification method then it is almost certainly not purified.
pyk 5y ago
One note that these articles and comparisons miss almost every single time - including the linked article. Bottled water is better for your health vs. the alternatives it sits next to in-store - sugar filled drinks, soda and/or diet soda - all of which are just as bad for the environment or worse. When that health comparison is made, it becomes difficult to understand how banning or restricting bottled water makes sense when the alternative is not really tap water.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I haven't been in an office regularly for years but, at one point, a company I worked for stopped stocking bottled water and gave everyone reusable water bottles. But in part because people often wanted something to drink when they were in a meeting on another floor people wanted to grab something else from the fridge on that floor. They usually grabbed a seltzer, the usage of which pretty much shot up to equal the previous bottled water consumption.
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    Last time I worked in an office they solved that problem by putting a water cooler in the corner of every meeting room.
Kubuxu 5y ago
I personally buy and drink bottled water for two reasons: 1. It tastes better as I enjoy highly mineralized water 2. It satiates thirst better. Water I usually buy has 100ppm magnesium ions, 340ppm calcium ions and 14ppm potassium ions and it actually tastes good in comparison to tap water. I would buy it in 20L bulk reusable bottles if it was available but it isn't.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > It satiates thirst better. I definitely have seen this effect. Do you know why this is? Is there a scientific reason why?
  - matwood 5y ago
    If I had to guess, added minerals and sodium. When someone sweats they are losing more than just water.
  - OnlyMortal 5y ago
    It’s chilled. People like chilled water. You can save a huge amount of money (and plastic bottles) by having a Brita jug in the fridge.
    - dataflow 5y ago
      Sadly no, that's not it. It definitely helps in lots of cases, but I've had perfectly cold tap water that doesn't really satiate like bottled water does.
      - OnlyMortal 5y ago
        Tap water isn’t chilled. Try stick tap water in a jug in your fridge for an hour.
        dataflow 5y ago
        > Tap water isn’t chilled. Clearly your winters don't get particularly cold? Being totally honest, it's practically insulting that you think the comprehension of cold water is somehow beyond the people you're talking to.
GrumpyNl 5y ago
I never carry a water bottle and im never hydrated.
hamburgerwah 5y ago
For perspective water bottles consume five hundreths of 1% (0.05%) of the annual US petroleum consumption. Worry about things that actually matter.
Ajedi32 5y ago
FWIW, bottled water is also ~1000 times more expensive than tap water. I find that the energy needed to produce any particular product tends to correlate pretty strongly (though not perfectly) with its price, so the headline is hardly surprising. [1]: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Purified-Drinking-Water-16-9-Fl-Oz-40-Count/992524020 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Purified-Drinking-Wat... [2]: https://www.move.org/utility-bills-101/ https://www.move.org/utility-bills-101/ [3]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%243.98+%2F+%2840*16.9+fl+oz+%29%29+%2F+%28%2470.93+%2F+%28365%2F12+*+3000+Gallons%29%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%243.98+%2F+%2840*1...

184 points by kitkat_new 5y ago

Yes, but people still buy it (and market is bound to grow, ceteris paribus) because they think tap water is worse somehow. And with crumbling public water infrastructure in many countries, that's not really far from the truth.

bialpio 5y ago
Do you have a source to back up the claim from your last sentence? My understanding is that if you can cook with your tap water, then it should also be safe to drink (or can be made safe to drink by boiling it). If you're worried about lead or sth else in your water supply, you might as well disconnect it from your kitchen.
- cardosof 5y ago
  You may find it biased but here it is. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/spring-2019/how-development-of-americas-water-infrastructure-has-lurched-through-history https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/spring-2019/how-d...
  - bialpio 5y ago
    Thanks! This seems to be US-specific, and I'd be interested to read about other places (the original claim was about "many countries"). Sibling comments seem to disagree, at least when it comes to Europe.
Beaver117 5y ago
Tap water is contaminated with numerous chemicals (known and unknown).
- wolfi1 5y ago
  so is bottled water
- jhoechtl 5y ago
  A claim which doesn't hold the test of science. Do you have a stake in Danone?
- carstenhag 5y ago
  Don't talk in generic terms if it doesn't apply at all places. In Germany for example, tap water is perfectly fine. Some might not like it that much because it perhaps is too hard or something, or your house might have old pipes, but it is healthy.
  - A_non_e-moose 5y ago
    Isn't excessively hard water harsher on your kidneys?
- MikeDelta 5y ago
  Depends on the country. In some European countries tapwater is extremely well controlled and can be considered cleaner than bottled water. I wouldn't say that the contamination is unknown: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/water/drinking-water https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/water/drinking-wate... Some companies are even selling tapwater in bottles for a good profit, so many drink tapwater from bottles without knowing: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-bottled-water-consumer-reports https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-b... Water in plastic bottles can contain solvents and microparticles, and be worse because of that: https://www.time.com/5581326/plastic-particles-in-bottled-water https://www.time.com/5581326/plastic-particles-in-bottled-wa...
- iamstupidsimple 5y ago
  Not everywhere is Flint, MI

toiletaccount 5y ago

bottled water sucks ass, but how do you quantify this sort of thing? it's almost a meaningless number. after 3500 liters dispensed from a tap, is there one empty plastic bottle dumped in a landfill? or are you supposed to reuse a water bottle 3500 times before tossing it? are there 3500 times more co2 emissions from getting bottled water to my lips? last i checked there isn't much carbon involved in pulling from the ground, which isnt even how everyone gets their water. no i didnt read the article.

carstenhag 5y ago
Well you should have. Just to answer one question: You need to move the water to the bottling plant, distribute that to the retail logistics centers and then distribute it to the retail shops. The buyers are then also more likely to go the the shop by car, as heavy things are not great to buy when going by feet or bicycle.
- ljm 5y ago
  Not to mention that, if you believe the typical marketing bullshit, your bottle water is probably sourced from the Alps or some stream in the arse crack of New Zealand and then transported across the globe for however long that takes, until it finds its way to a store and then to your lips. Brita filters (or any other filters/jugs) have their own environmental costs as well but you can chug through a decent amount of tap water before you need to replace one of those. Couldn't live without one of those in Barcelona (unless I wanted to down a glass full of limestone), and was much more useful than lugging back a few huge jugs of bottled water every few days. Back in the UK, not a single reason to buy water in a bottle unless you're outside and in a pinch.
  - qmmmur 5y ago
    Yeah UK water is pretty top notch as is all Australian water. I really just cannot understand or really envisage what it must be like to not have pure basically flavourless (or water flavoured??) water coming out of the tap which is 100% safe. How is it so hard to get right?

cosmotic 5y ago

Actual study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721039565 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

rgrieselhuber 5y ago

I don’t understand why people don’t just buy water filters.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MikeDelta 5y ago
Depends on where you are. In Europe there is no need for that at all. What kind of water filter would that be? A simple small filter you attach to the faucet or a proper arm-sized cylinder you place somewhere along your water pipes? I am not sure how well those filters remove all contaminants like heavy metals and such.
- lstodd 5y ago
  Depends on where in Europe you are. In most of eastern you need partuculate, charcoal and ion-exchange in series to somewhat approach acceptable levels of shit in it.
- rgrieselhuber 5y ago
  It's much worse in the US, tons of heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, etc. Berkey water filters are a good basic option.
  - syntaxing 5y ago
    I would not classify chlorine and fluoride as the same group as heavy metals… While it sounds dangerous, it’s hard to argue there isn’t a net positive to use fluoride and chlorine to society when it comes to water distribution. Also to note, there is nothing particular special of Berkeley filters compared to other carbon filter, and it does not filter heavy metals (you typically need ion exchange filter for that). The company has a bunch of filter claims and state that they haven’t gotten the NSF certification because of cost reasons but I find it really hard to believe that is the case.
    - 5y ago

asciimov 5y ago

If you want to make people stop using water bottles you have to improve the water going to their house. I've been to very few places (in the US) that the water tasted good from the tap. One was a major metro, the others were places with well water. My parents live in a medium sized Texas city that has tap water that is typically brown, sometimes it comes out of the tap foamy. Some filter it, but many just buy bottled. I use a simple filter at home to improve taste. However, after living in hurricane and tornado prone areas, I keep a small supply of water on hand (a few cases of bottled) for emergencies.

gruez 5y ago
>My parents live in a medium sized Texas city that has tap water that is typically brown, sometimes it comes out of the tap foamy Source/pictures? I find it hard to believe such water would be allowed by the EPA. This is also strange, considering that I've been to countries without drinkable tap water (eg. you have to boil it), and the water doesn't look like that.
- hobs 5y ago
  So you must have missed that whole "flint michigan" thing huh? One google search away https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-worst-tap-water-us-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-worst-tap-water-us-20...
  - gruez 5y ago
    IIRC the problem with flint michigan water was high lead concentration, which isn't something that's as visible as the gp described. I can see how elevated lead levels can fly below the radar, but not brown water.
    - hn8788 5y ago
      Might just be an issue with nearby pipes, and not something affecting the entire supply. When the municpal water pipes get cleaned around where I live, they put up signs saying that your water might be brown or rust colored for a few days, but to just let the tap run for a few seconds before you start drinking it or showering.

cosmotic 5y ago

Are they taking into account the carbon footprint of the enormous yachts the Nestlé executives buy and operate with the profits from water sales in their analysis? What about the pipe fitters union lobbying to require lead pipes decades after universal acceptance of the dangers of lead and the enormous cost to replace?

gruez 5y ago
That seems like unnecessary ragebait and opens up the metric to all kinds of manipulation. eg. is microsoft office better or worse libreoffice than once you factor in that bill gates' philanthropic activities?
Scoundreller 5y ago
I think this about my government's decision to implement electricity metering in all new apartment construction. Except apartment dwellers have little control over their appliances (they're generally included), and you pay $13+/month in account fees for the individual meters. They even tried to push this on existing apartments, but I'd have to consume 33% less than average just to break-even. Hard to do when HVAC&DHW are central and laundry is common. So while I would have some incentive to conserve, I end up poorer and somebody else gets rich off account fees and likely lives a very wasteful life. Then the transition to smart meters that do time-of-day billing, but its been shown to shift demand by under 1 percent. Meanwhile the thing consumes a few watts 24/7 + implementation capex. Meter-reading is now remote, but what did the meter-reader human start doing instead? > The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario's 2015-16 Energy Conservation Progress Report found "a 0.7 per cent reduction in peak demand among residential customers" attributed to time-of-use pricing over a four-year period. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/smart-meters-hydro-bills-ontario-time-of-use-pricing-1.3862462 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/smart-meters-hydro-bi...
- gruez 5y ago
  >Meter-reading is now remote, but what did the meter-reader human start doing instead? presumably unemployed. Not that's a bad thing, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

kaycebasques 5y ago

Title should be updated to "Bottled water is 1400–3500..." based off "Highlights" section of the actual study that cosmotic linked to. I've learned firsthand that it's counterproductive to only quote the high-end of the range. Comes off as disingenuous.

throwaway803453 5y ago

I got blind sided by an argument when visiting a friend recently because I carry a reusable water bottle with me whenever I leave home for more than a few hours whereas he brings throwaway water bottles. At one point he gestures to my bottled water and asked "does that make you feel good about yourself ?" implying I am virtue signaling. I explained that I saw a documentary ~10 years ago where the claim was if you can do one thing for the environment, please stop purchasing bottled water. It seemed like an easy request, so why not. I then rhetorically asked him if he "felt good" about himself because he doesn't just throw his trash out the car window, which is what we city kids (and adults) used to do in the early 80s. "No you don't do it and you don't think about it, right ? It's the same with my water bottle. I don't lecture anyone, and I honestly didn't think once about what he or others are doing." Culture changes many times for the better. It's odd though how some people are the last to get the memo despite similar demographics.

shkkmo 5y ago
I misplace water bottles on a regular basis. So I buy bottled water and re-fill the disposable bottles until they get lost. The article wholey ignores the costs of production for non-disposable water bottles. They absolutely take more resources to produce and you thus need to refill any given water bottle a certain number of times before you break even with disposable bottled water. For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  >> For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment. Society doesn't and IMO shouldn't optimize for the absent-minded. Do you also loose your keys, wallet and phone on a regular basis? Maybe it's not a memory thing but more of a value thing.
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    I agree it's definitely value based. I've own a hydroflask which is a fairly expensive water bottle and I got it for free, so I value it pretty highly. I think I'm more likely to lose my wallet of plastic/replaceable credit cards than I am my water bottle. Plus it's just a big object, so it actually takes up (virtual?imaginary?) space in my mind.

haltingproblem 5y ago

This bizarre thing is from a health perspective bottled water is toxic for you. Plastic, especially new plastic, actually leaches compounds into water. As plastic gets old, its leaching capacity goes down. Old plastic is safer than newer plastic. However, most plastic bottles, including BPA-free are estrogenic. They are bad for men and women causing a variety of problems which are still poorly understood. The worse use-case is plastic filled bottles, like water, that have sat or have been transported in hot environments which is to say all of them. Ditto for hot takeout food served in plastic containers - soups, curries, etc. People who buy bottled water are literally paying money to get poisoned for a teeny bit of convenience. I know most water fountains are not cleaned properly but that water is safer (by orders of magnitudes, but I have no data to cite) than bottled water. A lot of this is problematic for the evidence driven folks. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but please use the precautionary principle.

Jiro 5y ago

Suppose that for some reason tap water was actually completely neutral for the environment. It produced zero change in either direction. They could have headlines reading "bottled water is over 3000 million billion trillion googol times worse for the environment than tap water". They could then follow up with the same statement about cars, straws, recyclable straws, spinach, or anything with any non-zero effect at all. "How many times worse" is a nonsense comparison meant for sensationalism.

booleandilemma 5y ago

I live in a hundred-year-old apartment building that is not the best maintained. I have no idea about the condition of the pipes and I don’t know where my water is coming from. I can get a filter, but I feel like it’s similar to running my own email server. Sure, I could do it, but I’d rather put the burden of filtering (and quality control in general) on a 3rd party. Hence I buy bottled water.

ghaff 5y ago
You could get your water tested if you're concerned. ADDED: I don't mean this facetiously. Even if I drank bottled water rather than tap water (which I don't in general), I definitely would want to know if I suspected my tap water wasn't potable for some reason.
- reacharavindh 5y ago
  It’s not as easy or straightforward to test drinking water. I tried and failed at Amsterdam, NL just last week. There is no easy reliable test for drinking water quality( one that tests for common bacteria, heavy metals, minerals and soluble pollutants). The only tests I could find were all lead tests, but that is just of my many concerns.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In the US, if you can't access a pre-existing report, there is a list of EPA-certified labs: https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-to-test-your-tap-water/ https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-to-test-yo... As that article notes, home tests are probably problematic. I'm a bit surprised there wouldn't be equivalent resources in Western Europe.
sunshineforever 5y ago
Really old pipes will be carrying your water in a calcified layer
- 5y ago

xnx 5y ago

You get roughly the same number if you compare the cost of tap water and bottled water per gallon. Monetary cost is a pretty good rule-of-thumb when estimating environmental impact. https://slate.com/business/2013/07/cost-of-bottled-water-vs-tap-water-the-difference-will-shock-you.html https://slate.com/business/2013/07/cost-of-bottled-water-vs-...

kitkat_new 5y ago
actually it is not - that's, for instance, why scientists suggest various carbon pricing models

sova 5y ago

Considering the devastation invoked when filling up newly minted plastic vessels with rich, inland aquifers, believe this factor is not 3500 but actually much higher. >They used something called a “life cycle assessment” which estimates the environmental impact of an item over its entire lifespan. That includes the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, distribution, use and disposal. Would like to point out that extraction does get more costly over time. Think of oil wells or any other resource, the low-hanging, easy-to-grab fruits are taken first, then the tech to extract must be advanced, then more precarious pursuits in search of resource are undertaken and the ecological devastation is quite a bit more each successive time.

reacharavindh 5y ago

Boy, talk about timing. I just used up about 16 liters of bottled water in about 4 days because we started to doubt that our tap water got us all(family) sick at the same time. When I tried to test the water, I found no easy way to do so; all test kits on Amazon turns up with comically bad reviews. Local water testing lab only tests for specific pollutants with legal precedence like Lead, Cadmium, Mercury etc. There was not a single trustworthy test I could find to say here is a decent test profile we ran on your sample, and here is the water quality score. Context: I moved 2 weeks ago to Amsterdam, NL from Denmark where we had been drinking tap water without any thought and trouble. A scientifically dumb test to get off tap water while we were all sick(sore throat, bad stomach, and mild fever - yes, COVID negative) worked and we are not sick now. I don’t know whether to stop using bottled water and go back to tap water or to continue this environmentally bad choice of bottled water in fear of health. I used to believe that tap water is a good natural choice as it packs minerals and useful natural solubles that would have been filtered out in bottled water. But, if it could get me sick, I don’t know what to do. Hopefully we don’t get the same sickness again now that we are drinking tap water, and I could build up my trust again on tap water.

gruez 5y ago
>Local water testing lab only tests for specific pollutants with legal precedence like Lead, Cadmium, Mercury etc. Does the pollutant list only contain chemicals, or do they include microbial pollutants as well? The EPA for instance has standards for microbial pollutants in addition to chemical pollutants.
- reacharavindh 5y ago
  I believe the city water department tests for a more detailed set of factors(I could not get proper information because I moved here recently, and I don’t yet speak Dutch). However, the tests I could buy/order from commercial labs around here only tests for specific ones (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Nickel, Coliform bacteria). I’m guessing that is because those were the common culprits.
  - 5y ago

lmilcin 5y ago

I drink bottled water because if I did not the next choice would be stuffing myself with soft drinks and other crap. I can only drink so much coffee and tea per day. Tap water just doesn't taste well on its own. I would be first to switch to drinking tap water if I could somehow make it taste well.

nvllsvm 5y ago
Have you considered a reverse osmosis system? It made my tap water palletable.
semi-extrinsic 5y ago
Did you try just putting it in open jugs in the fridge for a few hours? It's surprising how much chlorine, dissolved gas etc. you get rid of with this. It's my go-to when travelling to places with safe-but-off-tasting water.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > safe-but-off-tasting water How do you actually tell if the water is safe? There have been so many news reports about unsafe tap water across the US.
  - semi-extrinsic 5y ago
    Sorry, I was assuming you live in a country where you can trust the public water authorities.
    - deleted 5y ago
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  - deleted 5y ago
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  - bserge 5y ago
    Why would you assume bottled water is safer?

BurningFrog 5y ago

Just reading the headline: How bad is tap water for the environment? AFAIK, not bad at all. And 3,500 times 0 is 0.

zachrip 5y ago
Okay...?
rtkwe 5y ago
Nothing has zero environmental impact, at the very least there's energy and chemicals used to pump and treat tap water.
BurningFrog 5y ago
My point, which in hindsight I made badly, is that saying something is 3500 times worse that something very small says very little about if that is something to be concerned about. It could be a huge problem, and it could be completely negligible. I think that phrasing is there to sensationalize and as clickbait.

dataflow 5y ago

Maybe 60 million Americans avoid tap water because they have reasons not to trust their own water, especially post-Flint. [1] Some quick Googling turns these pages up: - Consumer Reports founds PFAS in 117 of the 120 water samples they tested from across the US [2] - When [chlorine] mixes with other organic compounds it can create a few harmful byproducts, including trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids [3] - Lead poisoning is apparently also a problem in Detroit, Pittsburgh, DC [4] - Arsenic has seeped into the water supply in California, Arizona, and New Mexico [4] I honestly don't know if any of these are incorrect misinformation or if people are acting in a misguided fashion, but as far as I can see, there certainly doesn't seem to be a consensus on that being the case. [1] https://theconversation.com/nearly-60-million-americans-dont-drink-their-tap-water-research-suggests-heres-why-thats-a-public-health-problem-158483 https://theconversation.com/nearly-60-million-americans-dont... [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-safe-is-our-drinking-water-a0101771201/ https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/how-safe-is-ou... [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-tap-water-contaminated-unsafe-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-tap-water-contaminated... [4] https://www.businessinsider.com/toxic-chemicals-tap-drinking-water-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/toxic-chemicals-tap-drinking...

snypher 5y ago
The most popular bottled water at my store says right there: bottled from a municipal source. Is PFAS testing part of bottled water QC?
- matwood 5y ago
  Municipal source, then likely purified and minerals added back (pure water does not taste very good).
  - nwallin 5y ago
    > Municipal source, then likely purified and minerals added back (pure water does not taste very good). If the water claims a purification method (RO, distilled) then it is purified via that method. If it does not claim a purification method then it is almost certainly not purified.

pyk 5y ago

One note that these articles and comparisons miss almost every single time - including the linked article. Bottled water is better for your health vs. the alternatives it sits next to in-store - sugar filled drinks, soda and/or diet soda - all of which are just as bad for the environment or worse. When that health comparison is made, it becomes difficult to understand how banning or restricting bottled water makes sense when the alternative is not really tap water.

ghaff 5y ago
I haven't been in an office regularly for years but, at one point, a company I worked for stopped stocking bottled water and gave everyone reusable water bottles. But in part because people often wanted something to drink when they were in a meeting on another floor people wanted to grab something else from the fridge on that floor. They usually grabbed a seltzer, the usage of which pretty much shot up to equal the previous bottled water consumption.
- noir_lord 5y ago
  Last time I worked in an office they solved that problem by putting a water cooler in the corner of every meeting room.

Kubuxu 5y ago

I personally buy and drink bottled water for two reasons: 1. It tastes better as I enjoy highly mineralized water 2. It satiates thirst better. Water I usually buy has 100ppm magnesium ions, 340ppm calcium ions and 14ppm potassium ions and it actually tastes good in comparison to tap water. I would buy it in 20L bulk reusable bottles if it was available but it isn't.

dataflow 5y ago
> It satiates thirst better. I definitely have seen this effect. Do you know why this is? Is there a scientific reason why?
- matwood 5y ago
  If I had to guess, added minerals and sodium. When someone sweats they are losing more than just water.
- OnlyMortal 5y ago
  It’s chilled. People like chilled water. You can save a huge amount of money (and plastic bottles) by having a Brita jug in the fridge.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    Sadly no, that's not it. It definitely helps in lots of cases, but I've had perfectly cold tap water that doesn't really satiate like bottled water does.
    - OnlyMortal 5y ago
      Tap water isn’t chilled. Try stick tap water in a jug in your fridge for an hour.
      - dataflow 5y ago
        > Tap water isn’t chilled. Clearly your winters don't get particularly cold? Being totally honest, it's practically insulting that you think the comprehension of cold water is somehow beyond the people you're talking to.

GrumpyNl 5y ago

I never carry a water bottle and im never hydrated.

hamburgerwah 5y ago

For perspective water bottles consume five hundreths of 1% (0.05%) of the annual US petroleum consumption. Worry about things that actually matter.

Ajedi32 5y ago

FWIW, bottled water is also ~1000 times more expensive than tap water. I find that the energy needed to produce any particular product tends to correlate pretty strongly (though not perfectly) with its price, so the headline is hardly surprising. [1]: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Purified-Drinking-Water-16-9-Fl-Oz-40-Count/992524020 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Purified-Drinking-Wat... [2]: https://www.move.org/utility-bills-101/ https://www.move.org/utility-bills-101/ [3]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%243.98+%2F+%2840*16.9+fl+oz+%29%29+%2F+%28%2470.93+%2F+%28365%2F12+*+3000+Gallons%29%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%243.98+%2F+%2840*1...