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Tap water is a luxury, so don’t bother with the bottled stuff

Jawn Lafratta — The Navigator
NANAIMO, B.C. (CUP) — Some
years ago | spent six months living
and working in central Africa, in
Uganda. | was pretty lucky because
my source of drinking water was
really close to my house — a spout
in my backyard. All | had to do was
open my back door and fill up my
jugs. Well, then | had to filter it. And
then | had to boil it.

That spout was also my entire
neighbourhood’s source for “clean”
drinking water, because they did
not have spouts like mine at their
homes. Compared to the chocolate
milk-coloured stream down the
road, where they would otherwise
go to get water, the water from my
spout was as good as gold.

When | came back to Canada,

the idea of just turning on a

tap and having clean, healthy
drinking water come out of it was
an incredible novelty. This was
something | had normally taken

for granted before my experience
overseas, but never would again.
Kofi Anan, the former United
Nations secretary general, once
said, “Access to safe water is a
fundamental human need and
therefore a basic human right.” We
are very fortunate to not have to
worry about having this need met.
Our public water system is easily
accessible almost everywhere to

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everyone, providing safe and clean
water. It costs less than a dollar per
thousand litres.
But when bottled, one dollar
wouldn't even buy you one litre.
This begs the question: why would
you buy bottled water? Is it really
worth it? So, you can’t find an
agreeable source of public drinking
water, and then the bastion of
thirst-quenching relief appears in
the form of a vending machine?

A great alternative to searching
about is carrying a refillable water
bottle with you. Reusable stainless-
steel water bottles are portable,
durable, hygienic and an ideal

way to minimize the use of plastic
bottles and reduce the amount

of waste that is dumped into our
landfills each year. By comparison,
a plastic water bottle can leech
unhealthy chemicals into nearby
water and is only meant to be used
once, then disposed of.

Plastic bottles are recyclable, but
more than 50 per cent of them

still end up in landfills. Even if a
bottle is recycled, there are a lot

of kilometres and energy used
between your first and second
bottles of water. It also takes more
water to produce a bottle of water
than the quantity of water the bottle
holds. When you add it all up, that’s
a lot of unnecessary waste for a
product that you can already get

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out of any tap, practically withc _.
any environmental costs.

But bottled water is healthier than
tap water, right? As it turns out,
most public water supplies have
regulations and testing procedures
that are carried out multiple times
a day, while it’s been found that
the average private water bottling
plant is inspected once every three
years.

And while most bottled water is
safe, some has been found to
violate standards of bacterial
contamination or have harmful
levels of arsenic. The results of
these findings call attention to the
woefully inadequate regulations
for ensuring the safety of bottled
water products. According to the
Polaris Institute, since 2000, there
have been 29 recalls of 49 bottled
water products in Canada. fs
Lastly, despite the public —.
perception of purity, driven by
advertisements and packaging
labels featuring pristine glaciers
and crystal-clear mountain springs,
the Polaris Institute has found that
more than a quarter of bottled
water actually comes from the
same municipal water supplies that
so many bottled-water drinkers
avoid so diligently. It’s just a lot
more expensive than turning on
the tap.