Water: A Precious Resource

During the floods of 2007, many of us in Gloucestershire turned on our taps and no water flowed. Instead we had to leave our homes to collect water, an activity which was regarded as a huge inconvenience. In Africa, women walk many miles to collect water - sometimes in stifling heat. In some water-stressed areas, they have to walk further and further as water-tables are exhausted, due to drought and demand for agriculture to grow crops for Western countries. This daily drudgery accounts for 40 billions hours work every year - this is equivalent to the total productive time of the UK workforce. The floods of 2007 are an opportunity to make us more aware of how we need to treat water as a precious resource that is a valuable part of our fragile planet.

Bottled vs Tap Water

The global bottled water industry generates £22 billion at a huge environmental and economic cost, with commercial companies convincing the public that bottled water is safer, more convenient and more fashionable than tap water. Here, we explore the facts and figures behind this industry, the environmental cost and ways in which you can reduce your water miles and enjoy water efficiently. 
 
Tap or Bottle: The facts

 The global bottled water industry generates £22 billion at a huge environmental and economic cost, with commercial companies convincing the public that bottled water is safer, more convenient and more fashionable than tap water. Here, we explore the facts and figures behind this industry, the environmental cost and ways in which you can reduce your water miles and enjoy water efficiently.

 The average Briton consumes 37.6 litres of bottled water each year and 25% of Britain's bottled water is imported.

 Approximately 3-5 litres of water are used to produce 1 litre of bottled water, and up to 7 litres for imported brands.

 Tap water costs just 0.22p per litre, whereas bottled water can cost up to 500 times more.

 Thanks to ongoing infrastructure improvements tap water in the UK is amongst the safest in the world – the Drinking Water Inspectorate reported a 99.96% compliance by UK water companies in 2006.

A mountain of waste at a supermarket distribution point for bottled water in Cheltenham during the summer floods of 2007, when many parts of Gloucestershire no longer had water when they turned their taps on.

The production of plastic contributes to peak oil. In 2006, 1.5million barrels of oil were used to make the 26 billion litres of bottled water sold in the US. Enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year! (EPI, 2006)

Only 1 in 3 plastic bottles are recycled, according to WRAP in 2007.

The Container Recycling Institute state that 90 percent of PET bottles end up in landfills, at a rate of 30 million a day, where they take 450 years to break down.

Transporting bottled water around the world that has been pumped, piped and purified leads to significantly higher carbon emissions than the use of efficient underground piping and plumbing procedures, like those we have in the UK. 

Bottled water has 500-2000 times the CO2 emissions per gallon compared to tap water, the higher figure being for some imported brands. Whilst there are still emissions involved with producing tap water, it makes little sense to use oil and produce greater emissions and spend more perhaps because it is fashionable to buy bottled water. However we do not want to give the impression that not buying bottled water will make a large contribution to your carbon footprint. Obviously it makes sense to use tap water, but for getting serious on reducing CO2 please see our links page.

The most unpleasant issue regarding this complete waste of natural resources is waste and specifically marine waste. Discarded plastic bottles join other household flotsam and jetsam in our oceans. This moras of waste is drawn together by rotational currents to form the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Estimates vary to its size, but it could be twice the size of the Continental United States and stretches from Hawaii to Japan. 

A project called the Plastiki will sail across the Pacific, drawing attention, not only to this mind-boggling rubbish dump, but also a number of other issues including: rising sea levels, coral bleaching and ocean acidification, which are all caused by man-made global warming; marine biodiversity, which is being lost due to over-fishing and pollution and marine dead zones. The latter are caused by nitrate and phosphorous run-off from artificial fertilizers. As the name suggests very little can survive in these areas and the problem will be exacerbated by global warming. A study in 2008 counted 404 dead zones in our oceans, the largest covered 70,000 km2. The Plastiki is a 60’ catamaran made from re-used plastic bottles!

http://www.theplastiki.com/selector.php  

What you can do:

Water to drink

For every day use fill a bottle with tap water.

Dealing with bottles

To recycle plastic bottles, take them to your nearest recycling bank. Always clean and crush them for maximum packing, keeping lids on.

Reuse bottles around the home or garden. Use the top half of bottles to make small cloches for seedlings in the spring. This is good for slug protection!

Some of the 40 million bottles of drinking water being distributed in Gloucester in 2007, when following the floods, the loss of Mythe water treatment works left 350,000 people without mains water supply for up to 17 days. The mammoth task of giving us this alternative to tap water was undertaken by everyone from Council workers and the Rotary club to  the army and police.

For more information go to http://www.wateraid.org/uk/

For more information on water from Vision 21 please see:

Aman Iman - Water is Life

Water 21