Bottled Water

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I resent its very canary-in-the-coalmine existence. I don't know why the CBC is just noticing it abroad just now. I remember that's all I saw people drinking in Asia and elsewhere a decade and a half ago.

World's poor turn to bottled water

Best scam I remember was how the kids would collect all the empties in the garbage piles behind guesthouses, refill them with tap-water, and then sell them back to the tourists.

The pressure to privatise water, though, is rising, which may explain the earnestness of the story.

[Groove Fetish]

I read this article a while back annd was a biit alarmed and worried as to exactly what will transpire in regards to policies/reallities in this arena in the next few years.

America is thirsty

[mattm]

When I was over in south east asia everyone drank bottled water of some sort.

The tourists bought it from the stores (the pepsi, etc kind) and the locals/expats got it from the water guy that would drive around or the little phone booth looking contraptions that filtered the water so you could refill.

I know I sure as hell wasn't going to use tap water to drink. I also wasn't going to pay a store tonnes (relatively nothing actually in comparison to what it is here but too much for the average price range of things there) for their water when I could get clean water elsewhere.

This is one of the reasons I don't completely approve of capitalism. It's constantly taking from the poor and giving to the rich (robin hood would be devistated)

[phorbesie]

i brought a bacteria-killing solution for water with me to asia. i got sick plenty though, so i don't know if it worked too well!

[jayr]

I read this article a while back annd was a biit alarmed and worried as to exactly what will transpire in regards to policies/reallities in this arena in the next few years.

America is thirsty

Good article. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. I think if we hold out too long the States will use force, or blackmail to tap our water supply.

[timouse]

from saturday's Toronto Star :

Bottled water questions

Mar. 18, 2006. 01:00 AM

CAMERON SMITH

I don't know of anyone who will tell you that bottled water is unsafe to drink. But professor William Shotyk won't tell you that it's safe, either. He says a lot more research is needed before anyone can say for sure whether it's safe or unsafe.

Shotyk is director of the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry at Heidelberg University in Germany, and has just published research establishing that the plastic containers commonly used for bottling water leach antimony into the water.

The leaching is at levels well below what's recommended as safe for drinking water. The troubling aspect, however, is that antimony is very much like lead and, says Shotyk in one of his research papers, "has no known biological function, has a similar toxicity (to lead), and is a cumulative poison."

Discovery of leaching came about because Shotyk was testing "pristine" groundwater at Elmvale, north of Barrie, where he spent his summers as a boy at his parents' country retreat. It was part of an ongoing investigation into increasing levels of antimony in the environment. "Antimony has been off the radar screen until now," he says.

He found such a disparity between the amount of antimony in the groundwater and in water bottled from the same area, that he became suspicious antimony might be leaching from the plastic of the bottles.

So, he tested 15 different brands of bottled water sold in Canada, and 48 brands in Europe. He found significant leaching from bottles made with polyethylene terephthalate (PET). These are the bottles used for water and soft drinks almost exclusively.

(He also found there was a negligible amount of leaching from polypropylene bottles. However, very few bottles are made from polypropylene, which is used primarily for containers that need to withstand wide temperature changes.)

According to Shotyk, 90 per cent of PET containers use antimony trioxide as a catalyst. It's a suspected carcinogen, he adds.

In PET water bottles, he found up to 375 parts per trillion (ppt) of antimony. In bottles stored an additional three months, it had increased to 625 ppt, indicating, Shotyk says, that there was "profound" and continuing leaching in the bottles.

Ontario, federal, and U.S. guidelines all set a limit of 6 parts per billion for drinking water, well above what was found in the bottles. But, with such a fast rate of leaching, and the expectation that antimony accumulates in the body like lead, can the bottles be considered safe for water?

David Coggan, an epidemiologist with the environmental epidemiology unit of the Medical Research Council at Southampton, England, says it's too early for the question. Little is known about the toxicity of antimony, he says, and more research is needed before health implications can be addressed.

Shotyk agrees, especially since rates of antimony pollution are rising. He and a team of researchers recently found that 50 per cent more antimony is being deposited in the Canadian Arctic than occurred 30 years ago. "Having recognized the scale of contamination, we now need to know if antimony really is as toxic as we think it could be," Shotyk says.

His research papers are published in the Journal of Environmental Publishing. To read them, go to the website of the Royal Society of Chemistry at http://www.rsc.org/jem.

They raise a classic issue of the precautionary principle: Should people abstain from water and pop bottled in PET containers until it's established there's no risk to health?

Shotyk has decided to abstain. I think I will, too.

[Birdy]

Thank Gawd for the relatively clean Great Lakes!

I think I'll continue down my current water intake path where i mix it up, half tap, half bottle.

There's a large number of pig farmers in this area who have been busted dumping large, and i mean LARGE amounts of sewage into the lakes/bays, etc. that surround us. The way I figure it, if I stick half to tap, at least I am getting some natural bacterias (hoping they still exist), whereas full bottle intake would leave me without. Full bottle intake makes me think i'm more susceptible to carcinogens (like those listed above), so i reason that i'm reducing my possibilities by mixing it up with tap.

All in all, if the tap is in front of me and i'm thirsty, i pour myself a drink. If the bottle is in front of me, i twist the cap off.

I'd say worrying about these things can take more years off of your life than the actual water components can.

[TomFoolery]

Anyone read any Fritjof Capra (sp?)?

He writes about system dynamics and evolution.

I've got this somewhat dark theory that the entire point of humanity to to push the earth into another round of evolutionary mutation.

Fucking up the earth may just bring about the next big round of life on earth (simultaneously causing our own extinction, of course)...

Looks like we're doing good work.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Sounds about right.

Hey, J, where are you guys at now?

[Calamity Jane]

Anyone read any Fritjof Capra (sp?)?

He writes about system dynamics and evolution.

I've got this somewhat dark theory that the entire point of humanity to to push the earth into another round of evolutionary mutation.

Fucking up the earth may just bring about the next big round of life on earth (simultaneously causing our own extinction, of course)...

Looks like we're doing good work.

yeah...we're right on track with that one. Ronald Wrights's "A Short Histroy of Progress" has pretty much convinced me of that. Our ancestors began this "fucking things up to the point of no return" and we modern apes have just about perfected it!

side note: Dave and I saw Fritjof Capra speak...in Kyoto, Japan, a decade ago, of all places!!!

further side note: we MISS you guys SOOOOOO much!!!