Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections. ~St. Francis de Sales
MindfulEats is delighted to welcome George Dodwell in his first post. George has been a vegetarian for years and is very mindful of his impact on the environment. He hails from the UK, which is why you'll notice the references to the metric system.
The human body is anywhere between 55% and 78% water, depending on body size. To function properly, the body requires between 1 and 7 liters of water a day. How do you get yours?
Hopefully not from bottles. The Container Recycling Institute estimates that Americans buy 34 billion – yes, that's billion – single serving plastic water bottles each year. The total estimated energy needed to make, transport and dispose of one bottle of water is equivalent to filling that same bottle one-quarter full of oil. On top of that, it takes three liters of water to produce a one-liter bottle of water.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation in 2002 the average American consumed 20.1 gallons of bottled water. By 2007 that figure had risen to 29.3 gallons, an increase of almost 46 percent. The US is not alone in its thirst for packaged drinks - US is ninth in the world in per capita consumption, after the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Italy, Belgium-Luxembourg (the report combines the two countries), France, Germany, Spain, and Lebanon. Of these countries only France has seen a decline in consumption since 2002. (Ah the pesky French, with their cigarettes, croissants, butter, steaks and their immaculate health.) Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles.
It's not even cheap. Fiji water, shipped all the way from, yes, Fiji, costs about $1.50 per half-liter bottle. That equates to about $11 per gallon, or $7 more than a gallon of regular petrol. The Pacific Institute estimates that bottled water costs a thousand times more than tap water – a figure that makes the consumption figures even more astounding.
Most water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), 80% of which end up in landfills or incinerators. That's an estimated 845 bottles per second. Recycling rates are up on previous years, but that's still a lot of bottles that aren't being recycled.
Most bottled water isn't even spring water. Dasani and Aquafina, the two leading brands by market share, contain tap water. Meticulously treated tap water, but tap water all the same. Pepsi, the owner of the Aquafina brand, now labels its water as coming from a “Public Water Source”. Dasani was forced to pull out of the UK entirely after the British public created an outcry over the source of the water and suspected bromate poisoning.
There is some good news. After years of steady growth, the US market for bottled water appears to be cooling off, the Worldwatch Institute reported last year; an Australian town became the first to ban bottled water entirely last year and the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution in 2008 Monday to phase out city spending on bottled water. The contract isn't binding, but 60 Mayors promptly cancelled their city's bottled water contracts.
So, Mindful Eater, what can you do?
Drink tap water. Buy a water filter and use it. Carry your own water – it's cheaper, fresher and more environmentally sound. You can be a Mindful Drinker too.
What I ate: 1 bowl Alpen; 2 bananas; 2 cheese + lettuce + branston pickle sarnies; few handfuls of mixed nuts + raisins; 2 apples; 4 cups tea; 4 pints water; leek pie + broccoli; a smattering of Cadbury's dairy milk chocolate.
