Purified Water To Go ...Bottled water ... purity and environment

This web page has been summarized from a thought proving and excellent piece of work by Christine Ferrier in April 2001 after being commissioned by the WWF. I make no claim to the contents of her 26 page report whatsoever except in terms of the summary made therefrom.

Bottled water, or purified water to go .... like any other industries, is not exempt of environmental impacts, either positive or negative. Natural mineral water and other bottled waters, as well as regular drinking water, must meet strict quality requirements. However, this doesn't necessarily imply an improvement in general water quality: natural mineral water springs are indeed protected against pollution hazards, but this has an impact on a limited area; purified bottled water doesn't need extremely good quality water prior to being treated, although this could reduce treatment loads and costs.

Protection areas are often established around water abstraction points, locally protecting the environment. The choice of purified water to go packaging material is increasingly done taking into account environmental considerations. PET is increasingly chosen instead of PVC because of its properties: it is light, easy to work on and very transparent. It can be re-manufactured into many different products, such as fibres for the clothing industry.

When PET is burnt, it doesn't release chlorine into the atmosphere, contrary to PVC, whatever type of incinerator is used. Negative environmental impacts, in particular energy consumption, are reduced if PET, aluminium and glass packages are washed and re-filled rather than re-manufactured. Emerging and developing countries may not have the necessary infrastructure to incinerate or recycle the bottles.

Trading and transporting purified water to go all over the world also has an important environmental impact, in particular on atmospheric pollution and climate change because of fuel combustion. Considering current market trends, transport of bottled water should keep growing; nevertheless, 75% of the world bottled water is produced and distributed on a regional scale, thus limiting transports.

Bottled water quality is generally good, although it can suffer from the same contamination hazards as tap water. To improve bottled water quality, companies should release their quality tests on a day-to-day basis and make them available to a wide number of people, for instance through the internet.

Many purified water to go brands base their publicity on the supposed purity of their product.

However, the only truly pure water is distilled water, which is not suitable for human consumption.

Water, whether available in bottles or from the tap, always contains a certain amount of minerals and trace elements, collected throughout their geological course. The mineral composition of each water depends on the geological layers water crosses and on the time spent in the ground.

For instance, sulphates are important for digestion; calcium is essential to the making of teeth and bones; phosphorous is necessary to the assimilation of calcium and contributes to brain activity and teeth protection. Trace elements are metals and metalloids constantly present in very small amounts in the human body and participating in most of its biochemical reactions. Iron, fluorine, selenium, silicon and vanadium are the main trace elements found in waters, but some waters can also contain iodine, zinc, copper or silver.

Natural mineral water can often be highly concentrated in minerals, much above the limits generally admitted for tap water. Excessive drinking of such waters could, in the long run, be harmful to human health.

Spring water is underground water, protected against pollution hazards, microbiologically safe, suitable for human consumption without any additional treatment, except those authorised such as aeration (Evian, 2000).

In Europe, spring water is different from natural mineral water as it must stick to the same standards applicable to drinking water. It doesn't need to have a constant mineral composition. The consumption of this type of water is increasing, as it is generally cheaper than natural mineral water.

In United Sates, the IBWA understands spring water as water derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface of the earth. Spring water must be collected only at the spring or through a bore hole tapping the underground formation finding the spring. Spring water collected with the use of an external force must be from the same underground stratum as the spring and must have all the physical properties, before treatment, and be of the same composition and quality as the water that flows naturally to the surface of the earth (IBWA, 2000).

Purified water or drinking water is water taken from rivers, lakes or underground springs that has undergone some form of treatment. It can be produced by distillation, deionisation, reverse osmosis or other suitable processes (IBWA, 2000). It can be chemically treated in order to have some components disappear.

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Purified Water To Go. Bottled water purity environment aspects