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Tap water has 1/100 impact of bottled water

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 31, 2008 at 10:50 pm

From AlterNet:

We have forgotten about our closest source of water at home – the tap. Yet one of the simplest ways to reduce our environmental impact, to save money (not a ton…yet!) and to free ourselves from shopping and storage hassle, is by saying goodbye to bottled water. A life cycle assessment commissioned by the Swiss Gas and Water Association traced the entire life cycle from water extraction to serving it up in a glass.

Their findings showed that tap water has less than one percent of the impacts of un-refrigerated bottled water. Even when the tap water is refrigerated its impact is only one quarter of that of bottled water. These astonishing figures show that tap water is hands-down the greenest and most responsible choice.

The biggest impacts for bottled water come from the refrigeration, packaging and transport. Refrigeration also substantially increased the impacts of the tap water scenarios thanks to the energy consumed to power the fridge. Returnable bottles and jugs had lesser overall impacts when the distances for their transport were short. But as the distances increase, the higher weight glass bottles resulted in an “on the whole” higher environmental impact as compared to the PET bottles.

Read more from AlterNet by clicking here.

July 31, 2008 · Filed Under Bottled water

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