Although bottled water gets a lot of negative press for being bad for the environment compared to what you can get out of the tap in the non-packaged variety – EcoGeek points out that Bottled soda is much worse for the environment.
I have a couple of problems with the continued villainy of bottled water. First and foremost, it’s a given. If you’re conscious of the affect your lifestyle has on the environment, there’s no reason why you should be drinking bottled water. It’s obviously stupid, it’s like buying a can of air.
I’m not sure why we need two dozen campaigns to fight against buying what already comes out of our faucets for free, but I have this nagging feeling that all of that concern and effort would be better spent elsewhere. Like, how about getting congress to pass a tax credit for renewable energy.
I’m also concerned that we’ve somehow overlooked that bottled water isn’t nearly as popular as bottled sugar water. Bottled sugar water, it turns out, is actually worse for the environment than bottled water, because you have to get the sugar. Something we enviros don’t like to talk about is the fact that soft-drink purchases have actually declined significantly since the advent of bottled water. This can’t be a bad thing, especially considering the obesity epidemic.
Still, for some reason, there’s no campaign against soda, which is responsible for about seven times more waste than bottled water.
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EcoGeek a good point. Water is just water. Soda has the high fructose corn syrup to harvest and process, all of those chemicals to refine and transport — it makes bottled water seem to pale in comparison. Yet another reason to quit drinking soda!
