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| Stossel on bottled water | | Date Created: Jun 01, 2006, 09:47 PM |
The following is from ppgs. 143 -145 of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel.
"MYTH: Bottle water is better than tap.
TRUTH: Most of you are being conned.
It started when a French company called Perrier put a few ounces of water in an elegant bottle, and convinced Americans it was cool to pay a lot of money for it. We've been getting soaked ever since.
Today, Evian has surpassed Perrier in sales; it's now the chic French water of choice. It costs more than gasoline -- about five dollars a gallon -- and if you'd rather wear it than drink it, you can pay ten dollars for a five-ounce aerosol can (ingredients: 'aqua' and nitrogen).
Then there are Aquafina, Dasani, and the dozens of new brands of bottled water than have jumped into this billion-dollar business, including bizarre ones like Venus, 'the Water for Women,' and Trump Ice, with the Donald scowling on the label. I'd have to be pretty thirsty to buy that.
Water comes out of public fountains for free. It comes out of your tap for pennies. Why buy it in bottles?
'Because it tastes better,' people told us. So ABC News ran a taste test. We put two imported waters, Evian and Iceland Spring, up against Aquafina (America's best seller), American Fare (Kmart's discount brand), Poland Spring (which is bottled in America, not Poland), and some water from a public drinking fountain in the middle of New York City.
We asked people to rate the waters. Only one water got 'bad' ratings. Which one? Why, monsieur, that would be Evian, the most expensive; it came in last in our test. The water our testers liked most came from Kmart, which costs a third of what Evian costs. (Maybe that's why 'Evian,' spelled backwards, is 'naive.') Aquafina ranked second. Poland Spring came in fifth.
Tied for third were the fancy import from Iceland and... drum roll... New York City tap water. In other words, reservoir water -- squeezed through the antique pipes of New York City before emerging from a water fountain in Harlem -- tastes as good as expensive imports. Even people who told us that they didn't like tap water did like it, when they didn't know it was tap water.
Satirists Penn and Teller got a trendy California restaurant to let them fool customers with a 'water steward.' Like a wine steward, he had lots of fancy bottles, and most diners said they loved their elegant waters. 'Oh, yeah, definitely better than tap water!' said one. But tap water is just what it was -- the 'water steward' filled the fancy bottles using the hose on the restaurant's patio.
If taste doesn't justify the price of bottled water, maybe 'purity' does. Many people believe that bottled water is cleaner. So we sent bottled and tap water samples to microbiologist Aaron Margolin, of the University of New Hampshire, to test for the bacteria, like E. coli, that can make you sick. 'No difference,' he said.
Some people worry more about traces of chemicals in water, like chlorine, lead, chromium, copper, and iron. It's possible that you will ingest more of these from some tap waters than bottled, but trace amounts of chemicals are not only harmless, they may even be helpful; that's why iron, copper, and chromium are in vitamin pills.
More scientific tests than ours have also found that tap water is as good for you as bottled waters that cost 500 times more. Even the Bottled Water Association doesn't deny it. I asked the man they recommended we interview, Dr. Stephen Edberg, of Yale University's School of Medicine, 'Is bottled water healthier than tap?' He gave me a sparkling gem: 'I wouldn't say, uh, it's healthier than tap water. I mean, uh, it's both, they both provide, uh, water.'
That's right: All those companies that charge you an arm and a leg are selling you, uh, water. I can't argue with that. They certainly are selling you water.
In a few parts of the country, your local tap water may not be as safe or tasty, but in most of America, if someone tells you to buy bottled water, get out your shovel." |
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