By Don Smith
(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As a reporter who spent many years writing about environmental issues for a daily newspaper in the Niagara region, I have often wondered to what extent stories produced by reporters like me about the dumping of hazardous substances in our rivers and lakes contributed to the growth and prosperity of the bottled water industry.
The madness of buying water in plastic bottles has got to end. Rediscover your kitchen tap.
I had people as far back as 20 to 30 years ago calling me up, having read my stories and others like them, and telling me that they had switched to bottled water because they no longer trust the water coming from their tap. These calls always disturbed me for the following reasons:
- I got the impression from many of the callers that they now felt ‘safe enough’ in their personal lives. They had found security for themselves in a bottle and therefore no longer had to worry or bother governments over the pollution being dumped in our rivers and lakes.
- There was little or no recognition among these callers that even if bottled water were the answer, not everyone in the community can afford to buy enough of it to satisfy their domestic needs.
- There was also little or no recognition of the possibility that the water in that plastic bottle is not necessarily any cleaner, according to comparison tests published by the Toronto Public Health Department and other agencies, and reported by this writer and others, than the water pouring from a home tap after it has been filtered through a municipal treatment plant.
- Finally, there seemed to be little or no concern over the fact that all of those plastic bottles had to be recycled or, worse yet, ended up buried in a landfill site.
So when I received the following piece from Don Smith, a resident in the Niagara, Ontario community of Pelham, which he had tried sending about a month ago as a letter to the editor to the Sun Media dailies, I felt it was well worth posting – if only to get more people thinking about how little they may be getting for the astronomical amount of money they are paying for the same amount of water they can pour from a tap in their kitchen.
Thanks to Don Smith for sharing this would-be letter to the editor with Niagara At Large.)
Almost every week at least one or two chain grocery stores have a sale on bottled water in cases of 24 500 ml. bottles with prices as low as $ 1.97 per case.
When I see the stores’ patrons leaving their establishments, pushing buggies piled high with cases of bottled water, I have to wonder how many of these patrons realize they are more than likely drinking tap water?
It is estimated that somewhere between 25 to 40 per cent of bottled water companies use municipal water. Yes, believe it or not, even when the label on the bottle states “Purified,” chances are that the water came from a municipal water supply.
Take a close look at the label on the bottle and if you see the words Natural Water it is only allowed if the water is derived from springs or wells. Those who are using municipal water must indicate on the label that it is tap water.
It should be noted both Coca Cola and Pepsi have admitted using processed municipal water with added minerals in their lines of bottled water. This same water that is being used by the bottlers is sold to them for $3.71 per one million litres by the Province of Ontario.
I would like you to look at some figures and then you be the judge if you are spending your money wisely.
Coca Cola and Pepsi’s cost per litre of municipal water is $.00000371 cents .
The price of water in Welland is $1.6362 per cubic meter which is 1,000 litres, bringing the cost of one litre down to $00162 cents.
Now let’s look at the cost of a case of 24 bottles of water with each bottle containing 500 mls equivalent to 12 litres.. The cost of one bottle of this water would be $.08 cents for 500 ml’s or $.16 cents for one litre.
The figures speak for themselves.
As a short afterword from NAL, one wonders how many people who don’t give a second thought of purchasing bottled water at a cost many hundreds of times more than the cost of the water coming out of their tap turn around and complain when they get their municipal water bill?
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your comments on this post, remembering that we only post comments from individuals who also share their first and last names.)
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Nice Doug, but you forgot to note as a 5th point, that much of our plastic waste ends up suspended in the Pacific Ocean’s water column, ground into tiny bits where it is eaten by the fish we eat (I’m not sure it’s true that they eat it, but it makes sense, eh! How can they avoid eating it?).
Furthermore, I’ve often wondered why the press never discuss whether there is a similar problem in the Atlantic Ocean – maybe that’s “too close to home”….?
Finally, how Are plastic water bottles recycled? What Is made from those that we properly put into our blue boxes?
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The Unitarian Congregation on Church Street in St. Catharines, where I’ve hosted a number of vegan potlucks, have a strict ban on bottled water. More places should do this. I’ve approached my current place of employment to do the same thing, as we already have the large “water coolers” that enable us to fill our own water receptacles, but they are reluctant, as the profits of the bottled water they sell to staff goes to some charity. Doing harm to do good, as I see it.
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People should also note that most bottled water is filtered beforebeing bottled . I have been told that the usual run before the filter is changed is around a month. One can only hope your purchase of plastic bottles of water come from the beginning of the filtering process as opposed at towards the end when the filter is loaded with all the filth and who knows what .
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