Bottled water costlier than you think
For every liter of Fiji, Evian or Dasani bottled water that you buy, it takes another three to four liters of water to make the plastic container it sits in.
That unsettling research is from Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, one of the nation’s top water-conservation assessment centers. National Public Radio’s Terry Gross interviewed Gleick on Tuesday for the show Fresh Air. (Interview here.)
So how much oil does it take to support the country’s bottled-water habit?
“Not including the energy to cool the bottle in the store or to move the bottle from the bottling plant…just the energy involved in making the plastic and bottling the water we estimated was the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil a year in the United States for the 8 billion gallons of bottled water that we drink every year,” Gleick said in the interview.What’s more, most of the water bottles in the United States aren’t recycled even though they’re made with a recyclable plastic, Gleick said. This kind of consumption is especially troubling because tap water in the United States is perfectly drinkable. (That’s why some water bottling companies have been caught selling tap water.)
His summary: Bottled water “is a luxury we don’t really need.”