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Regional - Bottled or tap, it’s the same
Commentary by Theresa Seraphim
for Smoky River Express
The never-ending (so it seems) debate over tap vs. bottled water has come to the forefront again, thanks to two recent developments.
Earlier this month, residents of Bundanoon, a town in Australia, voted to put the kibosh on bottled water. According to a BBC story, residents voted for the ban – which may be the world’s first such initiative – because of concerns about the large amount of resources needed to extract, process and transport the water. They were also miffed that a drinks company planned to extract the water in Bundanoon, bottle it in Sydney and then bring it back to the town to sell it.
“It made people look at the environmental impact of bottled water and the community has been quite vocal about it,” campaigner John Dee is quoted as saying in the article.
In June, the price of water and milk went up in Alberta as a new deposit charge, approved by the province, was levied – again, for the environment. Consumers will now pay an additional 10 cents for a bottle/jug of one litre or less, and 25 cents for a container larger than one litre. They get that money back if they do the conscientious thing and take the container to their local bottle depot.
But it’s not just the environmental impact movement that worries the anti-bottled water folks. Concerns have been expressed about the contents of bottled water, as well as the containers in which it is sold.
According to Health Canada, in this country, bottled water is regulated as food, and the responsibility for its regulation rests jointly with Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The CFIA can therefore inspect bottled water products, labels and establishments (conveyances, equipment, etc.) involved in the sale, manufacture or distribution of bottled water. Also, all bottled water sold in this country has to comply with the Food and Drugs Act and its regulation.
This is different than, say, in the United States, where no such regulation exists and consumers are at the mercy of whatever the manufacturers allow into the bottles. Two recent reports, one by Congress and the other by the Environmental Working Group, said studies of several brands of bottled water in the United States revealed higher-than-allowed levels of various pollutants. Recommendations included keeping a much closer eye on how bottled water is handled.
As for the containers themselves, we’ve all heard the concerns about chemicals in the plastic leeching into the water and creating a carcinogenic situation. However, according to Snopes, those widespread claims are false.
So, the upshot seems to be that in Canada, when it comes to choosing between tap water and bottled water, it’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Therefore, it’s the environmental and financial factors that can determine which one a consumer will drink.
The conclusion would be, then, that tap water is definitely the better choice from a financial as well as environmental, standpoint. Consumers – in Alberta, anyway – can save a few shekels and not have to take bottles to the depot to get them back. They also don’t have to worry about polluting the earth with the bottles.
It’s easy to fill a travel mug with tap water before setting out on a journey. It’s also easy to install a reverse-osmosis filter in a kitchen sink. These are but two ways a person concerned about water, can help ensure quality – as well as saving money and the Earth.
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