The scandalous business of bottled water

• By  Edmundo Fayanas Escuer , www.nuevatribuna.es
• See original

Bottled water is one of the most lucrative businesses for companies in Spain. 

About 1,000 million liters of bottled water were sold in the year 1970 in the world. 

In 2004, they were 154,000 million. It is estimated that in 2017 there will be around 250,000 million liters of bottled water.

Spain is the third largest consumer of bottled water in Europe. 

It has a consumption of 116 liters per person / year, but before the crisis it reached 137 liters and is already recovering consumption again. We are only behind Italy and Germany in bottled water consumption . Worldwide we are the sixth consumers of bottled water.

The cost of bottled water in the world was 80,000 million dollars in 2015, according to the UN and simply with 20,000 million dollars a year we would get that some 550 million people in the world had water supply and sewerage systems. 

Currently, there are 1.1 billion people who lack it.

As Andrea Gambas says  "With water is happening as it happened with wine, there is much interest in knowing waters with very unique characteristics ". 

In the most luxurious restaurants in the world we are presented with water cards such as: Rainwater collected in Tasmania (Cloud Juice Brand). Water obtained from a spring under a Japanese volcano (Fine brand). Filtered water from Canadian glaciers (Berg brand). We have the Bling brand water bottle, decorated with Swarovki crystals with prices of around one hundred dollars per unit.

Why bottled water is a big business?

What the Spaniards pay for the cubic meter of water from our faucets is 1.65 euros, that is, we pay the liter of water at 0.00165, while we are paying the liter of bottled water at an average of 0.50. euros the liter. 

Only with this data we can realize the business that is for bottled water companies.

They will understand how the number of bottling companies has multiplied in the heat of the bottled water business. 

The big food multinationals such as Danone, Nestlé, Coca Cola are present in the sector. 

For example, Coca Cola, which already has more money from the sale of bottled water than Coca Cola itself.

The cost of tap water in Spain is very cheap compared to other European countries such as the Netherlands at 4.4 euros per m3 or Germany at 4 euros. 

Today we pay in Spain the same price, regardless of consumption, which leads to waste. 

This is a mistake. 

We must consider a somewhat lower price for the first one hundred liters of consumption per person / day and we should pay 1.30 euros, while everything that exceeds this consumption would be charged at the price that Holland has, that is, 4.40 the m3. 

This would lead to a rationalization and efficiency in water consumption and the additional money obtained could be allocated to improve water distribution networks.

In Spain, all the water that comes out of our tap is drinkable, but it depends on which areas, it is difficult to drink because of its bad taste and that is where bottling companies sell more water.

Does that bad taste of tap water have a solution in certain regions?

Obviously, the problem is that there are no investments made in transport infrastructure and water purification since the eighties. 

Both PP / PSOE have been more interested in the processes of privatization of municipal water, than in providing a good water service. These privatizations being one of the sources of corruption of our political system.

Is tap water as good as bottled water?

Evidently yes. 

Some bottled waters pass a purifying treatment so that they are at the tap water level. 

Some of these prepared drinking waters were captured in springs that did not meet the conditions for human consumption. These waters must specify what is their origin and the treatment received.

Coca Cola recognized in the years 2003/2004, that the water of its Dassain brand was ordinary tap water from London, having to withdraw hundreds of thousands of bottles from the market 

Do you now understand the bottled water business better?

The British newspaper The Guardian summarized the process of bottled water in this way: 

"Take water from the tap of London, submit it to a purification process, calling it" pure water "add a little calcium chloride containing bromide to flavor it, then pump ozone, oxidizing the bromide, which is not a problem, turning it into bromate that is. I sent these bottles of water to the store, containing twice the legal limit of bromate and the business is round. "

The difference between bottled and tap water is that bottled water uses reverse osmosis filtering, while tap water uses chlorine. 

The more deteriorated the system of supply networks, the more chlorine is added and makes its flavor worse.

Water specialist Michael Blandin says: 

"There are several techniques used by companies, and they are trumpeted as patented techniques that go through seven different stages of filtration and everything else. 

And if the matter is analyzed, it is nothing more than inverted osmosis, basically it is simply passing the water through a membrane to eliminate contaminants, which is actually very similar to the type of process that can be found in domestic water filters. , simply the type that is placed on the tap. So the matter is not as sophisticated as you could pretend it is. "

The waters that remain long time bottled at ambient temperatures also release a metal released by the plastic, called antimony, which although at low levels is not dangerous is not recommended. 

In addition, it releases another compound called bisphene A. 

In 2014, the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada found several contaminating substances, which can mimic the behavior of certain hormones.

We must be clear, that bottled water is not the solution to the water problem in the world, but serves to increase it. 

Ecologically there is no color between tap water and bottled water.

Bottled water uses mostly petroleum-based plastics that imply a high cost in recycling. We have all seen industrial quantities of plastic bottles abandoned in our fields, which end up contaminating everything through the release over time of heavy metals, which reach our aquifers contaminating them. 

Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate which is a plastic derived from petroleum.

To all this, we have to add the energy consumption for its extraction, to which it is necessary to join the energy expenditure in the reverse osmosis and later the distant transport to its points of sale.

Given the problem of bottled water, North American cities such as Boston, or New York, among others, are campaigning to favor the consumption of tap water. 

Even cities like Chicago have put a tax surcharge of 10 cents to each bottle of bottled water.

The former head of the Department of Environmental Protection in New York, Emily Lloyd said:  "Bottled water uses much more energy than the tap in both production and transport and tap water is used for more than just showering or washing hands".

Here in Spain, the City of Donosti no longer uses bottles of bottled water but jars of tap water and has managed to get more than seventy locals to join the campaign to replace bottled water on the table with tap water claws in the menus. Obviously, restaurants resist because they use bottled water to do business.

Former San Sebastian councilor Victoria Iglesias said :

"  We want to make citizens aware of the importance of responsible consumption. It is a more economical solution, more respectful with the environment ... here the water in the network is of the highest quality. Our goal is to reduce waste production at source. "

I invite you to use much more tap water, because in this way we are participating in keeping our planet in better condition. 

We must also have proof and defend water as a public good, that is not treated as a commodity, when water is a human right that we all have.