Bottled water is bad, mmm'kay?

We have become accustomed to being told that things are bad for us. As a kid, it was junk food. Growing up, suddenly drinking, smoking and other habits were identified as being harmful. Despite his fictional nature, Mr Mackey (of South Park fame) has opposed illicit drugs, declaring passionately and often that, "Drugs are bad, mmm'kay?" These days, we are told it's bad to use too much water or power, or to buy Nestle, Cadbury, and other products that are not Fair Trade certified. 

Now, with good reason, the Victorian Government wants to add bottled water to the list of things we must avoid. I never would have imagined such an apparently innocuous item could be considered detrimental to the environment. That was before reading this recent article from the Herald Sun, which quotes some alarming statistics, and encourages folks to switch to simply drinking plain water from the tap:

- studies showed it could take up to seven litres of water and a litre of crude oil to produce one litre of bottled water.

- discarded water bottles accounted for almost 38 per cent of general waste, with thousands of plastic bottles fished out of the Yarra River each week

- TAP water had only 1 per cent the environmental impact of bottled water.

- BOTTLED water production generated an estimated 600 times more CO2 than tap water.

- AUSTRALIANS spent more than $500 million on bottled water last year.

- ONE bottle of water had the same impact on the environment as driving a car 1km.

- MORE than 65 per cent of water bottles end as landfill.

- AUSTRALIA'S love affair with bottled water was costing the planet 314,000 barrels of oil a year

- About 76,000 tonnes of plastic bottle waste went to landfill or ended in our environment as rubbish in recent years

Through all this, Mr Mackey whispers to my conscience: "Bottled water is bad, mmm'kay?" The choice is clear for me! I will drink tap water preferentially to bottled water wherever possible, and will encourage my mates to follow suit.

Cheers - Nath