Bottled Water

The Ecologist

1st February, 2003

Twice as expensive as petrol, three times the price of milk, and 10,000 times more expensive than tap water. Is it worth it, and what impact is it having on our environment?

Bottling out

In November 2002, a grassroots group in Grey Highlands, a village 40 kilometres southwest of Collingwood, Ontario, Canada, won an important court decision that could place restrictions on Ontario's water bottling industry.

Three judges of the Divisional Court ruled that commercial water-taking is considered land use under Ontario's Planning Act and comes under the control of municipalities' official plans and zoning bylaws. That means municipalities may no longer be powerless when a commercial water-taking operation begins pumping millions of litres of water out of the ground.

Commercial operators currently hold 50 permits that allow them to drain up to 11 billion litres a year from the province's aquifers, making bottled water big business there.

MYTH 1 ‘Bottled water is safer than tap water’

A 1997 United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) report cites a study comparing popular brands of bottled water which showed that they were in no way superior to New York tap water.

MYTH 2 ‘Bottled water is more healthy than tap water’

In 1997, a FAO...

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