With pristine images of mountain springs and tropical waterfalls, bottled water companies want you to trust that their water is pure and priceless. But in recent months that image has been tainted. From national news to popular books, investigative journalists have been looking into the truth behind bottled water and the results aren’t as clean as the companies would have you believe. Turns out bottled water is contaminated, and sometimes those companies that have convinced us of the benefits of their bottled water aren’t doing more than bottling up H2O from municipal sources — meaning it’s not a whole lot different than what comes out of your tap, and you’re paying for it.
This week’s shocking bottled water news comes from Dasani. The Coca-Cola Bottling of Oregon has announced that its planned $35 million expansion of its plant just outside of Portland in Wilsonville will include Dasani water. That means that Dasani water would essentially be filtered water from the Willamette River.
Wait, what??? Just south of Portland, and therefore quite near Wilsonville, is a Federal Superfund Site. Granted the Willamette flows south to north, but that makes me cringe a little. Drinking water is currently drawn from the Willamette — and it has consistently met federal and state standards according to Oregon’s Drinking Water Program — but Wilsonville is currently the only city in the Portland area to be consuming it. Even if contaminants aren’t an issue, Dasani would still be profiting off of a municipal water source. What is Coca-Cola Bottling’s argument? “While the source may be municipal, the (filtering) process is advanced beyond what any municipality does,” Craig Stevens, spokesman for the beverage industry organization, told The Oregonian. Even if the filtering methods are advanced, the packaging isn’t and the disposable water is still contributing to the extreme waste attributable to the industry. Solution? Drink tap.
More info here.
[Photo via: santanartist, Flickr]
Wow, that is f*&ked up!
Shame on Dasani and all others doing the same!