Sustainability and CNR discuss bottled water industry
One third of all bottled water comes straight from the tap, a fact that sparked debate in a panel discussion Tuesday night, according to Kate Auman, marketing director for Students for Sustainability.
Not only are retail water bottles filled by tap water, but regular tap water at home is 2,000 times cheaper than bottled brands, said Brooke Evans, vice president for Diversity.
“Bottled water companies are really good at marketing,” Auman said. “One third of it comes from a tap, and people don’t realize that. Seventy percent of bottled water isn’t regulated by the FDA.”
Most water in store-bought bottled water is coming not from springs or mountain lakes pictured on the labels, but is taken from the ground. Small communities are often hurt by big-corporate bottled water retail companies, said Mark Brunson, environment and society department head.
Roslynn Brain, assistant professor of sustainable communities, said local water companies monitor water sources several times a day, sometimes several times an hour.
“If bottled water doesn’t cross state lines, they are not required to monitor the quality at all,” Brain said.
Even if the bottled water does cross state lines, the FDA treats it as a food, therefore the water still isn’t monitored as closely, she said.
A Cleveland water treatment facility tested its city’s water against many of the bottled water companies’ products and found its own water was better, Auman said. Logan City’s water, however, is naturally nutritious and better than Cleveland’s. “We got their water information and stacked it against Logan’s, and ours turned out to be a lot more nutrient rich,” she said.
If you switch to a reusable water bottle, Brain said, make sure it doesn’t contain any traces of BPA (Bisphenol A), which is a building block of polycarbonate plastics. When the plastic heats up, the BPA leaks into the water, which people then drink.
“In a study conducted with 394 American adults, 95 percent of people tested positive for BPA in their urine samples,” Brain said.
She said BPA can cause obesity, miscarriages, sterility, polycystic ovarian system cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. Because water bottle companies self-regulate, BPA often ends up in those bottles.
“Bottled water companies care about making money. Since the FDA doesn’t regulate bottled water, they can put whatever they want into their bottles,” Auman said.
She said some employees for bottled water companies felt worse after drinking the bottled water from their company after a prolonged period.
Robert Schmidt, a professor of environment and society, urged students not to trade out buying bottled water for buying bottled juices. The waste from bottled drinks can’t be stopped just from drinking less bottled water, he said.
Auman said Students for Sustainability aims to get students more involved in reducing the amount of bottled water used. It handed out water bottle stickers that read “Tap That” to promote using tap water and refillable water bottles.
“We want students to tap that,” Auman said. “We want students to use our water-filling stations. We want students to show the university what we want.”
She said she wants to help eliminate the need for bottled water, and instead encourages the alternative — self-bottled tap water — which is 2,000 times cheaper, Evans said. If students start using water stations regularly, she hopes it will become a habit for them, she said.
“Students need to realize how much power they have,” Auman said.
After watching the documentary “Tapped,” which was presented after the panel discussion, Ellen Garr, a junior studying dietetics, said it was good for raising awareness about using tap water.
“Tap water is free anyway,” she said.
Lexi Wright, a senior majoring in nutrition science, said, “We have to be more proactive. This affects people other than ourselves.”
– marissa.shields@aggiemail.usu.edu