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Thanks to "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (here and here), we have pretty much eliminated high fructose corn syrup from the food we bring into our home. [If you've done the same, pat yourself on the back. That's no small achievement. If you haven't, start by reading Michael Pollan's great book --- and buying Heinz Organic Ketchup for your family.] Thanks to Nina Planck, we now drink milk --- whole milk, from cows that spend their lives grazing on pasture grass. And, because it's no chore at all, we make our own yogurt every week. Next? Water. Despite the fact that New York City has terrific water --- at restaurants, my mother sometimes jokingly orders a “Croton Highball” --- my wife and I didn't intend to rethink our use of bottled water. Each week, we buy a half dozen 3-liter bottles of Poland Spring (at the shockingly low price of $1.49 a bottle) and feel quite virtuous about not paying more for a much smaller bottle of gourmet water. Though, of course, when I'm out and my thoughts turn to hydration, I'm as trendy as the next fool. But I recently read an article --- Message in a Bottle, by Charles Fishman (Fast Company; July, 2007) --- that brought me up short. A little more research turned up more surprising facts. And once you know the truth about bottled water, it's hard to go on plunking down a fortune you could easily save --- or spend elsewhere. Did you know... ....the two most popular bottled waters in the United States --- Aquafina from Pepsi-Cola and Dasani from Coke --- aren't mineral water at all? They're reprocessed municipal water. That is, treated tap water. ....why bottled water tends to have an expiration date printed on the label? It's not because the purity of the water degrades. It's because the plastic container may contain chemicals (phthalates or Bisphenol) that could leak into the water. ....how few bottles used for water are recycled? Just 10%. Ninety percent of water bottles are simply....thrown away. That's a lot of bottles: Water is a $16 billion a year business in this country. Last year, Americans each drank 28.3 gallons of bottled water. That's about 50 billion plastic water bottles. Or --- to make it personal --- you pitched 167 bottles. Maybe 17 got recycled. ...how much energy it takes to make plastic bottles? A good estimate of a year's consumption in the United States: about 1.5 million barrels of oil. You could fuel 100,000 cars for a year on that. [It also takes water to make bottles for water. Don't ask.] And then there's the ecological piece. How's this for weird? At the Fiji Water factory, they ship a million bottles a day. The bottles are another story. They're not made in Fiji. They're shipped there, filled and transported back --- at greater cost than it takes to bottle the water in the first place. The water company is a boon to Fiji's economy; the business provides jobs and, in emergencies, water. Water? Well, half the population of Fiji has no potable water. In fact, while Americans are quaffing a billion bottles a week, one out of six people in the world lacks safe drinking water. Three thousand children die each a day because they contract diseases from contaminated water. And we're asking ourselves: Poland Spring or Pellegrino? My wife and I decided to stop asking that question. Instead, we decided to take our perfectly decent tap water and filter it at home. And then put it in Dasani or Aquafina bottles and sell it --- no, just kidding. But which one? The gifted Reiki master Pamela Miles urged us to buy the Multipure. I've looked at the CBVOCSC Countertop Water Filter. It seems to be a quality device. And easy to maintain --- you need to change the filter just once a year. But it is a device, and $320. Of the containers that you store in your refrigerator, the most popular brand is Brita. My research shows PUR is a better choice. Not only does the PUR filter out more impurities, it's cheaper --- 20 cents a gallon of water to 25 cents with a Brita. Yes, the PUR filters cost three times as the Brita; they also last three times as long. How will you carry small amounts of water? Maybe it's best not to recycle Fiji bottles, or, if you're in the athletic mode, Poland Spring sports bottles. Purists may want the Klean Kanteen 12 oz Sippy, made of “non-leaching polypropylene plastic”. To super-size, there's a stainless steel Klean Kanteen 18 oz container. We chose the PUR 2-stage dispenser, largely for its 2-gallon capacity. It's early days, but so far it's no more trouble than hauling out to the store for Poland Spring, getting it home and, in a New York apartment where every square foot needs to justify its existence, store it somewhere. The water tastes every bit as good as the spring waters we used to cherish. And the taste of virtue? Even better. --- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com (with thanks to Marshall Cohen) To buy the PUR 2-Stage Dispenser from Amazon.com, click here. To buy a 3-pack of PUR Water Pitcher Filters from Amazon.com, click here. To buy the Multipure CBVOCSC Countertop Water Filter from Amazon.com, click here. Copyright 2007 by Head Butler Inc. |
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