Ever wonder what you’re really drinking when you pick up that bottled water? And I don’t just mean what’s in the water: where’s it come from? What’s its impact? What’s its future? These questions have been bugging me, so I set out to discover the answers. Turns out, there’s a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t buy bottled water any more. So, here’s the seven deadly sins of bottled water.

1. Bottled Water is a scam
Bottled water is often a con, and is really just purified tap water (some estimates state that around 40% of bottled water begins as tap water): in the United States, the Aquafina brand (Pepsi) was recently revealed to have come from the city of Detroit’s water system, while so is Dasani, Coca-Cola’s brand. Also, in the UK, Coca-Cola in 2004 was hit with bad publicity after it was revealed that Dasani was purified tap-water from a factory in Sid-Cup, Kent.

2. Bottled Water is not always healthier
Don’t buy into the glossy images of pristine mountains and crystal clear pools that often accompany marketing for these products. A four year study conducted by the National Resources Defence Council in the United States concluded that at least one third of 103 brands surveyed contained varying levels of contamination. In addition, shortly after Coca-Cola was revealed to be using a factory tap for its water, they had to pull the entire line of Dasani water off the shelves because it was revealed that it had been contaminated with the chemical bromate which can cause cancer. Furthermore, bottled water often has added minerals that, in high doses, may be harmful (as a result, the French Senate advises those who drink bottled water to change brands regularly).

3. Bottled Water encourages commodification of water
The bottled water industry is worth a fortune, currently about $100 billion a year. As a result, ownership of water around the globe has become a hot commodity for corporations. In the US, for example, reliance on bottled water often means that much needed money for maintaining public water systems is not available, often encouraging private management and ownership. Furthermore, the privatization of water around the world, especially in the developing world (such as in Africa and South America), has meant that that water has started becoming inaccessible to those segments of the population that need it the most: the poor. Water-rich areas often see their water packaged and shipped abroad to be sold to richer markets. This, at a time when one third of the world’s population have difficulty accessing water, is unforgivable. (Plus, it is projected that by 2025, two thirds of the world’s population will have difficulty accessing safe drinking water). Bottled water is just another sign of the fight to control the world’s water.

4. Bottled Water encourages depletion of natural resources
Many brands of bottled water take it directly from the source. The problem, of course, is that, because bottling this water is such a great commodity, the water is taken and used far too quickly for these water sources to replenish themselves. In Frayeburg, Maine (USA), for example, so much water has been removed from the local natural spring near Lovewell Pond, that the water quality of the pond is deteriorating. In India, Coca-Cola’s rapid depletion of natural water resources as a result of its manufacturing and bottling plants has led to sustained resistance against the corporation. These are just two of many examples at a time when many communities around the world face water scarcity as a result of receding glaciers and droughts as a result of global warming, as well as impacted by over-use through increases in population.

5. Bottled Water encourages waste and pollution
All that plastic packaging is made by oil, and it is estimated that America alone uses 1.5 million barrels of oil to make the containers required for bottled water. And don’t think it’s all getting recycled: over 80% of the packaging in the US ends up as garbage. Plus, all that plastic has a shelf life of around 1000 years, so the problem isn’t just going to go away.

6. Bottled Water aids global warming
Instead of drinking local tap water that uses a rather good energy efficient system in comparison, bottled water drinkers are sipping on water that could have been flown half way around the world, driven across your borders, or shipped in across the oceans, all of it adding to a massive CO2 footprint. And this is not even counting the manufacturing cost, either.

7. Bottled Water helps contribute to war
With water scarcity already an issue and increasing, reports project that by 2025 Africa will face increasing incidences of water wars between states, adding to another long list of problems faced by the continent. Even analysts for corporations such has Coca-Cola have identified bleak assessments for the future of the world’s water supply around the world. Their hopes are that technology will alleviate the problem, and scarcity will encourage better management of resources, but experience suggests that management will be based upon profits and the richest consumers. Regardless, it is clear that, just like oil has helped fuel wars and conflicts, so to will water scarcity, and bottled water contributes to this future.