REASONS NOT TO BUY BOTTLED WATER
I promise, this is a short one. But you need to read it. And yes, there is a picture of my dog at the end.
Okay, here goes!
Why you should never never NEVER buy a plastic bottle containing water.
- It takes beween TWICE and THREE TIMES the amount of water contained in the bottle to make the bottle in the first place.
- Most of us in the Western world have potable – i.e. drinkable – tapwater. What in God’s name might possess you to buy more?
- See those bottles of “vitamin enriched” water? You want extra vitamins? Eat more fruit and vegetables. Protein water? Eat some walnuts. Fruity waters? Mmm mm mm, love those chemicals!
Comparisons are odious
If you live near a discount supermarket, you can unfortunately bulk buy the evil stuff pretty cheaply. On mysupermarket.co, a bottle of Evian Natural Still Water (500ml) will set you back 60p. So it costs £1.20 per litre for a single bottle. Compare that with the average price of petrol (and I’m taking the low average here) which is about £1.20 per litre. Really? You’re willing to pay the same for water as you do for petrol?
If you buy your water from a kiosk or a fast food shop, you’re paying even MORE than that.
Paying double?
Yes, you pay twice. You get water in your taps because you pay for it through council tax or rates, and then you pay again because you buy it in plastic bottles.
Profit before people
The bottling companies take water from springs and aquifers, or underground layers of permeable rock saturated with fresh, or slightly salinated water. Water extraction on a grand scale is storing up all sorts of problems around the world. Just google “Nestlé water scandal” and you will find pages and pages of information. But just for a couple of examples, they’ve been taking the water from the land belonging to a First Nation community near Toronto, so much so that some homes have no water at all and must buy water in for cooking, washing and the toilet. Nestlé also continued to take water from the San Bernardino National Forest in California all through the seven-year drought. So the big question is – how good do you feel about dehydrating the land so you can sip water during meetings and lectures?
More pollution
We drink many English waters, French, Italian, American… think of the travel miles and the consequent pollution!
“But I recycle my bottles!”
Just because you carefully dispose of your empty bottle in the right bin doesn’t mean it isn’t going straight to landfill. Actually, it’s highly unlikely to be recyled. 91% of plastic isn’t recycled, according to the National Geographic.
Even if your plastic bottle does get recycled, it can only be recycled a limited number of times as the polymer degrades a little every time. Bottle caps can be recycled just the once before they’re recycled again into fabric. Then when you’ve finished with that piece of fabric, it goes to landfill. For ever.
“I’m dangerously thirsty!”
Dehydration? Oh, give me strength. You’re only likely to be dehydrated if (a) you’ve been drinking Mezcal slammers since last Tuesday, (b) you’re engaged in vigorous sporting activities. (c) it’s very hot or (d) you just floated in on the Raft of the Medusa. You do NOT need to rehydrate on the bus or halfway through a movie. You will live without constant slurpings of water. There’s an awful lot of nonsense talked about hydration, indeed there’s a total absence of scientific studies proving you need eight glasses of water a day. In rare cases, too much water can be extremely bad for you causing hyponatremia, or water intoxication which is very dangerous.
Enriching the bastards…
Every time you buy a bottle of water which you could get free out of your tap, you are spending unnecessary money making Nestlé and other companies like them even richer and more capable of raping the planet.
You know what? Give up bottled water and after a week, you won’t miss it. It’s not nicotine, you know.
And if I haven’t convinced you yet, how about this…
Or this?
Or this… spot the bottletops in the gullet of this dead albatross.
Almost there…
If you’ve enjoyed this post, scroll on down as there are quite a few more. And do please share with your friends and foes alike. Even better, follow – just click the follow button and enter your email address. You only get an email when I publish a new piece which is not very frequent at the moment as I am busy writing a new show for (and with) Fascinating Aïda. And I don’t share my mailing list with anyone.
So please do try and get this information out there. It’s so important that we start taking responsibility for what we do. It’s simply not good enough to wait for bloody Government to take action.
And here is the Queen Of My Heart…
Shit You Don't Need 
Re; the re-hydration thing – I had to force myself to keep silent when I was at a funeral service and the person next me refreshed herself from her water bottle 3 times during the service. And we were in the front row.
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Dear God… do you have her email address… you could forward the blog piece to her, hahaha!
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Never buy bottled water but do carry a metal bottle full of tap water for long walks and to swig if I get a coughing fit in the cinema or theatre.
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Sounds perfectly sensible to me!
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Oh …a post after my own heart! I get so fed up seeing all these folk wandering around with water bottles in their hands all the time. It certainly is not necessary to slurp water all day long. And I recently found out that anything other than clear plastic bottles (ie not green or blue tinged ones) are not recycled. Keep up the good work Dillie 🙂
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Good point, I didn’t know that about the coloured plastic…thanks.
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Here in Umbertide, Italy, our tap water is not perfect. So the town has two locations where you can get water for €0.05 for 1.5 liters. I have 8 1.5 lt plastic bottles that I just use over-and-over.
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That sounds reasonable, especially re-using the bottles. Is it ok if you boil vegetables in your tap water?
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OMG, this is one of my hobby horses. Did you know that the standards for tap water are **way** higher than the standards for “mineral” water? So not only are you buying stuff you’ve already paid for, but it’s more likely to make you ill. It tastes better! I hear you cry. A few years ago we did a blind tasting of water as a game at a family reunion. Various mineral waters, posh and otherwise, and tap water. *No one* could reliably identify them.
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I’ve often discussed with friends that if someone had told me in the 1970s that we would be buying bottled water within a decade, I would have laughed in their face! When as you say Dillie, it come endlessly out of every tap in the UK!
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I hope that by 2025 it will be illegal for companies to transport water from overseas, stopping Shipping, delivery, and bottling costs and only allow emergency supplies of British water to be distributed in cases of floods or burst pipes etc.
Restaurants should have to use tap water or carbonate it themselves.
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Quite. I like it when I go to a restaurant and I can see that they’ve invested in nice glass bottles which they keep in the fridge. I’m absolutely happy with tap, and if restaurants want to present it with a bit more style, that’s fine by me.
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Buying designer water!! Absolute bloody nonsense and it gives me the (hormonal) rage when I see people buying fancy pants bottles of designer water. £2.49!!! FOR WATER!! Are they quite mad? (there’s that rage I mentioned…)
I bought a reusable water bottle. I fill it from this wonderful thing called a tap. I put the bottle in the fridge and I drink from it throughout the day. Its really quite simple. You do not need to buy something that is quite literally free on tap.
You may as well flush fivers down the loo.
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£2.49 is quite reasonable compared with some designer water. How about this at £23.49?
https://www.aqua-amore.com/shop/voss-still-glass-24x375ml/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwrfvsBRD7ARIsAKuDvMPFY8pEwfglRWATLheylEsJ4VDaJpKLQFg8Utr6J04fC9chm0nQQWwaAsrjEALw_wcB …?
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I got talking to a guy from a local water company a few years back. They take water from a borehole and the pipe splits two ways – most of the water goes into the mains and the remaining, identical, water goes to a bottling plant (with a wonderful markup). So definitely no difference
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Good heavens… thanks, that’s the kind of comment people need to read.
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Greetings from California. This arrived on Yom Kippur, a day when there is water everywhere (the drought is officially over) but you can’t have a drop to drink… (though I did). The most refreshing thing about being here is not hearing about Brexit every 5 seconds 🙂
>
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Enjoy the lovely Californian sunshine. It’s very autumnal here. xx
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It’s a bit unfair to those of us whose water appears to have an excess of chlorine. As to rehydration, surely it’s better to encourage the younger generation to drink water, not fruit drinks, colas and other soft drinks full of sugar and adatives…
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I don’t know where you live, Anthony, so I can’t comment on your tap water. However, if you live in the UK and can taste an excess of chlorine, you should contact DEFRA. Too much chlorine is NOT good for health. We are supposed to have pretty low levels of chlorine in the UK. Here’s the link http://dwi.defra.gov.uk/consumers/advice-leaflets/chlorine.pdf that will inform you of the recommended course of action. There is probably a Facebook page for your area too – why not join a local Facebook group and see whether you get a reaction when you post about your water. I think it would be better to campaign for decent water rather than just accept the status quo and keep drinking bottled water. As to your second point, I entirely agree. Tap water is much better than fruit drinks and the other sugary pop you mention, and you can get all sorts of attractive bottles now for bringing water round with you.
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Anthony just fill a jug and leave it in your fridge, the chlorine will dissipate in a few hours leaving you with nice safe cheap water.
Cheers
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Thanks for the tip. I had no idea.
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Thanks for the advice….I’ve used a filter, but will try the fridge system!
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Well done Dillie on putting together such an informative blog. I never buy bottled water in the UK now, but after reading this, I feel even more strongly about it. It’s not just that we don’t need it – it’s so harmful in lots of ways I was unaware of. Thank you for caring enough to write it – and get on with the new material for FA. Can’t wait! Nett x
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Thanks Annette!
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