Stop the oil crisis, drink tap water

Guest Blog courtesy of Eddy De Clercq, Leave No Trace Member.

"I’ve seen somebody drinking O2 water the other day. Not only it had artificial kiwi and apple flavour but also extra oxygen added. According the ‘manufacturer’, it uses patented technology from Life Technologies, Inc. to put extra oxygen into ordinary water. The resulting beverage has 10 times more oxygen (72mg) as ordinary water and provides an extra boost of energy by increasing the amount of oxygen in your blood. What a load of crap! Who needs this kind of water anyway? Nobody compos mentis does. Therefore one creates the need and tries to sell it with commercials like this:

"Call me a nag stuck in the middle ages, but where is the world is going? Which felon is inventing something like this? The answer is simple. Bottling water seems to be a big business these days. The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) - yes, such kind of associations do exist apparently - calculated that in the US alone, one consumed 8.8 billion gallons (33.3 billion) litres of bottled water which is worth 11.7 billion of wholesale dollar sales (7.3 billion Euro). That result doesn’t seem to be enough so one ‘invents’ rubbish like the above. Yes, I call it rubbish indeed. Several studies from consumers organisations revealed that bottled water isn’t healthier at all. In the contrary, some are even dangerous if you drink more than one glass of it. Flavoured waters contain preservatives like sorbates, benzoates and sugars/sweeteners. Why should you drink this? For the artificial glimpse of fruit? If you want to taste of fruit, you should EAT fruit which is much healthier.

"Then we come to ‘normal’ bottled water. Many people are reluctant versus tap water. They prefer mineral water, pushed by big media campaigns emphasizing that only water of volcanic origin or purified x number of years through the mountains can be really healthy. These people are therefore willing to fork out 150 to 600 times more money than for tap water. Prices can get up to 50 Euro per bottle! There are even restaurants with water sommeliers these days.

"Speaking of bottles. I’ve read an article saying that one needs at least 100 million barrels of crude oil and use an extra 500 million litre of water to make and fill (plastic) bottles with water. And than I didn’t mention the environmental burden caused by transporting all these bottles.

"Therefore it’s more than a wise idea to drink tap water instead. Sure, films like ‘Erin Brockovich’ and other scandals aren’t the best promotion for tap water. But keep in mind that tap water is one of the best regulated beverages you can think of. At least that’s a fact in Belgium where tap water needs to meet 61 criteria (taste, looks, composition, etc.). And indeed, there are some factors like pesticides, nitrites and nitrates (where experts say that the norm should be more strict than the current norm) do influence tap water, but I didn’t see any report that it doesn’t apply for bottled water too.

"The message you should remember is that you keep the use of bottled water to a minimum. Buy a decent, refillable bottle like the one you get from Leave No Trace when you become a member and fill it with tap water. Furthermore, be thrifty with potable water. Remember that only 1% of the water available on earth is potable. You’ve surely seen the images from people in Africa walking tens of kilometres to fill their jerrycan where we only need to open the tap and dissipate it. In Belgium we use up to 120 litres of tap water a day, which is below the European average. Only 3 to 5 litre of that amount is really used for food and beverage purposes. All the rest is used for washing-up, washing, cleaning, gardening, etc.. Please use rain water where applicable. Your car will be even better washed with rain water since you don’t have any calcification."