The Boston Globe has declared an end to the bottled water craze.

In an opinion piece Aug. 25, Derrick Z. Jackson  reported a 5 percent drop in
Nestle bottled water sales in North America and Western Europe. Suppliers Pepsi and Coke reported drops in sales too. These drops come from a variety of brands: Nestle’s Poland Spring, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, and Deer Park; Pepsi’s Aquafina; and Coke’s Dasani.

Jackson finds that the sad part of this news is that “ending the bottled-water fad took a recession, when common sense should have kicked in long ago.”

Most bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water, water that is packaged and transported at great cost.  The Earth Policy Institute has estimated that it costs $10 per  gallon for bottled water to reach the consumer.  It’s more than the cost of the many plastic bottles; it’s also the cost of transporting this heavy load from its source to your supermarket.  This distribution system is terribly inefficient–that $10
per gallon cost compares to the retail price of gasoline at $2.50 per gallon or so, about 1/4 as much.

In fact, the Government Accountability Office reported that delivery costs of bottled water to Los Angeles were 1,100 to 2,000 times more than the delivery cost of tap water.

Consumers report a belief that bottled water is safer than tap water. Yet bottled water IS tap water, says Jackson. (Most brands are derived from tap water; the others come from more exotic locations.)  The GAO also concluded that the EPA safety rules for tap water are generally stronger than the FDA’s safety rules for bottled water.

And the bottles? Three-quarters wind up in landfills. They leach harmful chemicals. We don’t need them.

Let’s join those who are going back to tap water. But let’s make sure it’s safe by using Multi-Pure home water purification systems, installed easily at your kitchen sink. Multi-Pure’s filters are the top of the line. I like mine. You will like yours. Just click here for more information.

Read the article here: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/25/bottled_water_scam_finally_feels_squeeze/
or here:
http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/boston-globe-bottled-water-scam-finally-feels-squeeze