Is Water A Safe Drinking Water?

In fact 22% of test water bottle brands had chemical contaminants higher than the state limit (ABC, 1). So why do Americans think bottled water is so great? Maybe it’s because of how much companies advertise the product, advertising expenses for bottled water totaled $61 million in 2012 ("International Bottled Water Association" 1). Whatever the reason may be, bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the U.S.A., and more and more bottles of water are being produced and distributed this very second.

Water covers 71% of the earth. Water is needed for every person to survive. Yet water is bottled up and sold for profit. Some water bottling companies are making more profit than others, and not putting the profits back into the water source they use. The big company that comes to mind is Fiji Water. While Fiji Water is making millions selling water in the U.S. the island of Fiji is suffering. Fiji Water has the government in their pocket, and does nothing to help the island nation. Fiji Water can keep their profits high by masking their flaws and making the product look as appealing as possible on store shelves.

Water is essential to life, scientific fact, not debatable (Tracy). More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly (Olsen). Many drink or buy bottled water simply because they believe it is of better quality, cleaner, and better tasting. On the contrary, several individuals do not know the cons of drinking bottled water. Today, there are many misconceptions and myths about bottled water. Many people are uneducated about what goes into our bottles and how it not only affects us but also our environment. In the article “The New Oil” by Jeneen Interlandi and Ryan Tracy they discuss the issues that have to do with water and the privatization of it. They believe there is a crisis and something has to be done. Due to the cost, pollution, shortage, and health issues, bottled water should be outlawed. Water should not be controlled by water bottle companies and should not be allowed to be sold in plastic bottles.

Water is all around us. This substance is of high importance to every living thing which is on planet earth. As much as we consider water to be life and the most important substance, still we don’t seem to appreciate it very much, as it is being wasted in such great amounts. Everyone believes that water will always be around but not taking into account that the majority of the water on planet earth are not for human consumption. Human beings can only survive on consuming fresh water. The percentage of

In Peter Gleick’s “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show” and Cynthia Barnett’s “Business in a Bottle”, bottled water is argued to be an excessive commodity falsely advertised as healthier and more beneficial than tap water to society and the environment. Both authors discuss that bottled water is actually equivalent in quality to tap water and in some cases even more hazardous to the human body. Public water itself is a less expensive resource that is more accessible to the masses. However, due to fraudulent companies focused on profit and the lack of effective oversight, people are deterred from realizing that there does not need to be an alternative to municipal water. Gleick

The idea of having clean, dependable water in a convenient, disposable bottle has been often the appeal of the bottled water franchise. They boast anything from being mineral infused and pure to untouched and filtered at the source. It is even believed that because of these claims, bottled water taste better than tap. It is assumed so wholeheartedly, in fact, that America is actually one of the top bottled water consumers in the world with a whopping ninety-one liters per person ("Top Bottled Water Consuming Countries, 2004."). In Tom Sandage’s article, “Bad to the Last Drop,” the

Water is without question the most valuable substance we have on Earth. Around 70% of the human body and 70% to 75% of the Earth consists of water. Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid on Earth. Water controls the Earth’s temperature. The amount of water since life began has stayed the same to this day. However only less than 1% of the World's water is drinkable. So with water being such a scarce resource is really a good idea to sell bottled water when we already have water provided to us. Everyday there is more and more bottled water being bought, causing wastage from the plastic bottles. Tap water comes from local reservoirs and wells, while bottled water is delivered long distances apart producing CO2. So this raises the

Water is a very important commodity to live. Some people say it’s a right, but others at as if it’s a privilege, and as a result, people lack it. The human body is about sixty percent water, but in what I have seen just in my twenty years of life, people do not drink merely enough of it. Instead, water has been replaced as a go-to drink by things like milk, coffee, pop, or energy drinks, but natural energy lies in water. With water we can be more energized, awake, and of course, hydrated, which all together collaborate to help us flourish, stay healthy, and live long. It’s most of the earth’s surface, too; water’s all around us, but we neglect it and deny its crucial place in our health and humanity.

Have you ever had any concerns about bottled water? Do you think that bottled water consumption should be banned? Bottled water is water packed in plastic containers and sold for human consumption (Health Canada, 2013). Currently, the amount of bottled water consumed has increased considerably since many people feel it is safer drinking bottled water than tap water (Parent and Wrong, 2014). According to The Statistics Portal, the global sale of bottled water took a leap from 161, 589 to 181, 608 liters from 2009 to 2011. Only in the United States, each American citizen consumed around 32 gallons of bottled water in 2013, thus meaning an equivalent growth of 15, 94% over 2009 (The Statistics Portal, 2014). In fact, due to good portability, bottled water has been helpful in both simple and complex situations such as daily exercises and natural disasters. Even though having those few considerable advantages, bottled water still have been less beneficial; especially due to the negative impacts in the socio-economic, health and environmental fields.

Life springs up around water sources. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest civilizations have been build need fertile bodies of water. Known life relies on water to sustain that life. So it is no surprise when a debate arose in 2013 around comments made by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck regarding privatization of water and the fundamental human right to survive from dehydration and illness from non-portal water consumption. Although the context of Brabeck’s comment was taken out of context, issues surrounding the access companies like Nestlé have been given to bottle their water when people do not have access to clean water and droughts are threatening crop production. Adding a price tag is not the answer. The market, both these companies and their consumers have a major role to play in the management of water; a role that requires a change in mindset of privilege many citizen of the United States, and other countries that do not see the direct effects that serious clean water issue have on people that do not have it.

“In the US, tap water is underfunded by $24 billion partly because people believe drinking water only comes from a bottle!” (qt. in The Story of Bottled Water). Are people even aware why this is happening? As much as everyone in the world needs water every day, do they realize where exactly does the water that big corporations are getting it from? Annie Leonard, Rick Anderson, and Adam Smith all want to show the public what these companies are doing to the environment. They don’t know what’s happening outside of their own town. Now, from the looks of the amount of people purchasing plastic bottled water, they have to mentally get into their heads now and think. Is commercially bottled water a sustainable practice?

As the worlds population grows, it is forced by circumstances that it has created to face the limitations of the worlds resources. Most people in the US have always been fortunate enough to have enough of whatever they wanted. When something they like breaks or wears out, they throw it away or buy a new one, and they often don’t even make an attempt to repair an item. They neglect basic maintenance until they damage their belongings beyond repair, and expect that they’ll always have enough. But some things are beyond their control, beyond there power or financial ability to replace or repair. The world’s drinking water supply is one of these without concern, without attention, without preventative maintenance and reclamation and

In today’s society, the idea of a limited resource is not a foreign concept. Most people understand that eventually humans will use up many of these resources, such as fossil fuels, and they will cease to exist. However, very rarely does a conversation about limited resources get started over the water. While water itself is not a limited resource, clean drinkable water is becoming scarcer as people continue to use excess water. The documentary “Last Call at the Oasis” highlights how precious water is to survival and just how much miss use of water occurs in the United States alone. Even though the United States has gone down the wrong path with its water consumption methods, it may not be too late to recover. With the proper systems and education in place, the chances of delaying a water crisis increase exponentially.

Water is a human right, not a commodity. It is the essence of life, sustaining every living being on the planet. Without it we would have no plants, no animals, no people. However, while water consumption doubles every twenty years our water sources are being depleted, polluted and exploited by multinational corporations. Water privatization has been promoted by corporations and international lending institutions as the solution to the global water crises but the only one’s who benefit from water privatization are investors and international banks. The essential dilemma of privatization is that the profit interests of private water utilities ultimately jeopardizes the safeguarding of the human right to water. Access to clean, sufficient

As most people in the people in the world are aware we are running out of fresh drinking water so much so that bottle water companies like Nestle and others owned by the World Bank are bottling and selling it like a commodity and not a necessity for living. This article “A short 2010 Newsweek story, "The New Oil: The Race to buy up the World 's Water" offers a basic primer for those with no prior familiarity with the issue. It covers both issues within the US and globally.”(Few Resources.org p.1) This type of action has become so bad that in some counties and states it’s illegal to collect rain water because there isn’t enough drinking water and that by collecting rain water the water is not entering the