In fact, as long as it does not contain a lot of harmful pollutants, all water is healthy, and tap water does not contain a lot of harmful pollutants. In May, 2005, ABC news program "20/20" sent five different brands of bottled water and a tap water sample from new york automatic drinking fountains to microbiologists for testing. Microbiologists tested whether the water contained pathogenic pollutants, such as Escherichia coli. The results show that there is no difference between bottled water and tap water in terms of pollutants that are harmful to health. This may be a misunderstanding of people's ideas. The essence of the problem is the purity of water, not the health problem: some bottled water does have less dissolved solids than tap water, but most scientists think that the dissolved solids content in tap water is harmless to human health. Speaking of dissolved solids, in some cases, some people think that the higher the water content, the better. Some people may drink mineral water because they think it contains more minerals, which is very good for their health. For mineral water, it may be because of this that it is healthier than tap water.
On the other hand, it is interesting that if the fluoride content in water does not reach the content recommended by the American Dental Association (0.7 to 1.2 ppm) at first, many cities will add fluoride to the water supply to help keep people's teeth healthy. Therefore, people who don't drink tap water may consume less fluoride than those who drink tap water. Dentists warn that if people only drink bottled water with no fluoride or insufficient fluoride content, it may eventually lead to more dental problems (some bottled water retains fluoride in water or adds it as a beneficial mineral after treatment). Of course, whether fluoride-rich water is healthy has always been controversial, so "health" is a qualitative issue in the final analysis, which requires people to make a certain degree of subjective judgment. On the other hand, the purity can be quantified.
If people value purity, pure water may be the ideal choice. Because the industry standard stipulates that the total amount of dissolved solids should be less than 10 ppm, pure water is very close to pure water. On the other hand, if someone thinks that "purity" means "safety", then let's go back to the health problem discussed earlier. Usually, the water source of bottled water is tested for harmful pollutants at most once a week. Municipal water supply is tested hundreds of times a month. Tap water may not be absolutely clean, and it may have a slight chlorine aftertaste, but the Minnesota Health Bureau said that these are just sensory quality problems, which does not mean that water is unsafe. Bottled water and even pure water do not need to completely eliminate pollutants. Some pollutants contained in these waters only need to be below the levels allowed by the FDA and/or the state.
Now it's just the smell. Many bottled water drinkers say that the main reason why they prefer bottled water is that it tastes good. In fact, they just think bottled water tastes better than tap water, that's all. In some cases, this is entirely possible. Because many cities will add chlorine to disinfect tap water when treating it, tap water often has a aftertaste. Although tap water in some cities is absolutely safe, it tastes really bad because of the high content of some minerals.
However, some unscientific taste tests (which the subjects didn't know beforehand) found that if tap water and bottled water were put in the same container, most people (more precisely, most people in new york) could not actually distinguish the two kinds of water. In a continuous bottled water and tap water test from "20/20", randomly selected people were asked to taste six different kinds of water (five of which were bottled water of famous brands and one was tap water from new york), and they were rated as "poor", "average" or "good" respectively. As a result, tap water in new york tied for third place with another bottled water, surpassing two of them. ABC's "Good Morning America" program conducted a similar test on its listeners, and the results were roughly the same. Through these tests, perhaps the most scientific conclusion can be drawn is that new york has obviously done a very good job in tap water. Taste tests conducted nationwide may produce different results.
In the United States, one of the most serious debates about bottled water is related to federal regulations, or the lack of such regulations. Some people think that bottled water specially produced for human consumption should be subject to exactly the same regulations as urban water consumed by human beings, regardless of whether the FDA regards it as a dangerous product. Another major regulatory issue is that FDA regulations only apply to bottled water transported between States. If a company produces and sells its bottled water in a certain state, which belongs to the ten states that do not control bottled water, its products will not be subject to any supervision unless it consciously follows the rules formulated by the WTO, but this is only spontaneous.
In addition to the different safety regulations and the general misunderstanding of consumers (which may or may not be caused by the marketing activities of bottled water manufacturers), another major accusation against this industry can be summarized in four words: environmental disaster. In 2004, the global total sales volume of bottled water reached15565438+85 million liters. Consuming1551850,000 liters of water will produce a lot of plastic waste, most of which are containers with 226.8 or 340.2 grams.
In just one year, global manufacturers used about 2.7 million tons of plastic to produce bottled water. Most of these bottles are made of a plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is made of crude oil. In the United States alone, it takes 654.38+0.5 billion barrels of oil to produce bottles every year to meet the demand for bottled water. According to the data of the American Earth Policy Institute, so much oil can power 65,438+000,000 cars for one year.
In addition, nearly 90% bottled water is finally thrown into the trash can or the ground, instead of being put into the recycling bin. They may take 65,438+0,000 years to degrade. In the process of degradation, harmful chemicals may penetrate into the soil, thus polluting the groundwater. Ironically, this will lead to a new round of pollution. In the long run, the United States may really drink bottled water. BIOTA Bottled Water Company in Colorado is one of the companies that unite to reduce the impact on the environment. BIOTA uses biodegradable grains to make plastic bottles, which can be degraded in compost piles in less than three months.
But the problem is not just insufficient recycling of bottles. The recycled bottles account for about 10% of the total, which does not play much role in offsetting the energy consumption and pollution in the original production and transportation. Because of the variety of plastics, it is extremely difficult to classify containers, so the recycling cost is also high. As a result, many recycling companies in the United States are reluctant to recycle. Most plastic bottles are recycled overseas (especially in China), so billions of bottles must be transported to these places, which means that this transportation will consume more energy. Once these bottles are decomposed and reused, manufacturers often can't just use recycled plastics to make bottles, because "recycled" plastic bottles use far more new plastics than recycled plastics.
Of course, in some parts of the world, drinking water is scarce. Although bottled water will bring some environmental problems, it is still an ideal choice. People have to drink water. However, if drinking water is extracted from high-quality water sources, bottled and labeled, and then transported to places where drinking tap water is abundant and easy to get water, people will think that it is consuming natural resources in the name of commerce. Residents in some towns and villages said that their own wells dried up within a few months after bottled water companies set up factories in their neighborhood and took water from underground water sources. However, because hydrogeology is not a precise science, it is usually difficult to prove that the actual water source of bottled water companies is the same as that of residents' wells, so claims made outside environmentalist groups usually have no result.
It remains to be seen whether we will eventually run out of public water. Meanwhile, if you walk into a fashionable restaurant that you are familiar with and ask the bartender what water can go with the salad, and she tells you it's Evian, then ask her if there is tap water in new york. Because Evian came last in the tasting test.