The True Cost of Bottled Water...

Since world consumption of bottled water has increased by 70% since 2001 to 200 billion litres in 2007, some people have become concerned about the environmental, economical, and social impacts of bottled water. Combining all the energy input totals, producing bottled water requires between 5.6 and 10.2 million joules of energy per litre, depending on transportation factors (a typical personal-sized water bottle is about 0.5 litres). That’s up to 2,000 times the energy required to produce tap water, which costs about 0.005 million joules per litre for treatment and distribution. 
 
In 2007, US consumers purchased more than 33 billion litres of bottled water per person. The total energy required to produce 33 billion litres is equivalent to 32-54 million barrels of oil. Energy to produce bottled water accounts for about one-third of one percent of total US energy consumption.

Besides the extravagant amount of oil used to make the bottles and large volumes of water used in the bottling process, there are of course, several other considerations. Firstly, there are the transport costs - by the time you transport every bottle by rail or truck and keep it cool, you may as well have filled it one-fourth of the way with oil. Also let’s not forget the operating costs of the factories themselves and the profit the bottled water companies have to make for their shareholders. Therefore, purely from an economic standpoint, if you only drink bottled water, you’re an environment killer.

Further more, there is also an environmental impact from production. This in fact, is quite simple to calculate: every tonne of PET plastic for the bottles produces 3 tonnes of carbon--adding 2.5 Million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions to the 17 million barrels of oil.

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