Over the past few years the water wars have been heating up, the anti-bottled-water crowd, pitted against the vast majority of people who see the debate as a red herring as far as sound arguments go. After all the water “foot print” of water is much less than a cup of coffee. The World Wildlife Fund created a two-minute video recently that explains how a single latte requires 53 gallons (or 848 cups) of water to grow the beans and feed the cows that produce the milk to make the drink. Slightly different numbers according to the Water Footprint Network:
- glass of beer = 19.8 gallons
- glass of wine = 31.7 gallons
- cup of coffee = 37 gallons
- hamburger = 634 gallons
- cotton T-shirt = 713 gallons
- sheet of paper = 2.6 gallons
Obviously no one likes plastic, but it’s cherry picking to argue that bottling water is unethical.
On the other hand The City of Minneapolis, can’t buy bikes for cops but they can spend nearly $200,000 to promote city water. I especially love the quote “I think the tap water in Minneapolis is just fine.” Fine? Thanks, I was looking for some more of ” just fine”. Eating at Micky D’s is just fine when your hungry, but for $200,000–WTF is up downtown?
June 24th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Does that data include the transpiration of moisture back into the atmosphere from the leaves of the plants?
June 25th, 2009 at 7:49 am
[...] at Shefzilla, Chef Woodman sides with “the vast majority of people” and defends bottled water from naysayers with the clever argument that other stuff is even more environmentally [...]
June 25th, 2009 at 8:40 am
They love you at heavy table shef, they are hanging on your every word.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Norton certainly comes across as very snarky, what’s up with that? Sure makes you wonder what insecurities the guy is dealing with.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Red herring for what?
Packaging water in single-use plastic containers is simply unnecessary. It’s a waste of resources for nothing. We have public water systems in place already. If you are unhappy with them, you should work with people to make them better, rather than wasting money on packaged water.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:06 am
What you call unnecessary, or wasteful is that way to you, in your opinion. I find a latte unessential, and wasteful which indecently uses much more water to produce, cause I don’t drink coffee. On the other hand I am not preaching to ban coffee.
Who said anything about supporting the use of single-use plastic bottles by the way? What I said was; “Obviously no one likes plastic, but it’s cherry picking to argue that bottling water is unethical.”
June 25th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Wisco, It seems disingenuous to call single use water bottles ’simply unnecessary’ because it overlooks the sensible need to keep 3 days worth of potable water available in one’s house for disasters, as per FEMA’s suggestion here (http://www.fema.gov/plan/prepare/water.shtm).
This is the only reason we have bottled water in the house. If we are drinking bottled water in the house it is because the expiration dates are coming up on the disaster water and we need to go through it. Otherwise we just use the Britta to resolve any taste issues and is cheaper than bottled water. Cost is the real reason why I’ve never gotten into bottled water in this country. However, there are any number of other countries where I would totally use bottled water over tap.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Wow! Finally a blogger who beats down these environmentalists who cherry-pick bottled water. The plastics of bottled water are such a fraction of the issue as a whole. Let’s look at EVERYTHING; not just one little product…a drop in the bucket, so to speak.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
after a couple beers (19.8 x 2 gallons) I remembered this clip and I couldn’t resist.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:44 am
ribchick, we love your comments, just can’t post that word, don’t be insulted, like I said we love ya.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:19 am
absolutely not insulted at all! i am a big fan of the delirious, red leather wearing comic and quite a few of his words are to say the least, provocative.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Most Americans need to drink more water, be it from a bottle or a tap. It is not in the public interest to discourage the consumption of water because its health benefits are beyond debate. Many people select bottled water over other packaged beverages containing sugar, caffeine, colorings, calories, fat and other “extras.” Sometimes when we’re on the go, we just want a refreshing bottle of water, which wise and mindful consumers will always recycle. It’s hard to understand why the simple combination of freedom and responsibility in beverage choices is a problem for some of your readers.