Ban bottled water?

Banning bottled water should only be the start of a complete overhaul of how we view and manage our water supplies.

Photo: Bottled water being given out in Whiteshill earlier in week

The mountains of plastic created here in Gloucestershire as a result of water supply failures have really brought home to many the environmental costs of bottled water. Indeed it is perhaps ironic to pick on this topic for a blog when we have been relying on bottled water here - but this has to only be a temporary measure - bottled water is seriously unsustainable.

New figures from the Drinking Water Inspectorate show that tap water has improved and now meets stringent quality standards in 99.98% of cases. Infact a campaign is urging Londoners to make a stand for the environment by rejecting the social pressure which leads to them ordering bottled water rather than asking for perfectly good tap water. City officials in New York have also launched a campaign to persuade people to abandon bottled water.

Londoners apparently drink bottled water equivalent of just over one Olympic-sized swimming pool per week, of which 25% is imported. Bottled water is now the world’s fastest-growing drinks sector worth £1.2bn a year and research shows that it is now outselling coca-cola in London. Jenny Jones, Green Party member of the London Assembly, commented: “Selling water in bottles and burning massive quantities of fossil fuels for its transportation does not make economic or environmental sense. Most containers for bottled water are made from non-degradable plastics, which take a 450 years to break down when disposed of in landfill sites. Even glass bottles of water still take a lot of energy to crush and recycle, whereas all we do with a restaurant glass of water is wash it up afterwards.”

Even recycling them as we do in this District has considerable environmental costs but just one bottle recycled can still save enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for 6 hours. Some bottled waters are exactly the same standard as tap water, without being as energy efficient - and many sell for up to 1000 times the price of tap water. We are banning the plastic bag in Stroud what about also banning the plastic water bottle?

But it isn't just bottled water we need to think about - a much deeper analysis is needed. It is clear that in urban settings, the “flush and forget” system of one-time water use to disperse human and industrial wastes will increasingly become an outmoded practice, made obsolete by new technologies and water shortages. Water comes into a town or city, becomes contaminated with human and industrial wastes, and leaves the city dangerously polluted. Toxic industrial wastes discharged into rivers and lakes or into wells also permeate aquifers, making water - both surface and underground - unsafe for drinking.

Water-based sewage systems take nutrients originating in the soil and typically dump them into rivers, lakes, or the sea. Not only are the nutrients lost from agriculture, but the nutrient overload has led to the death of many rivers and to the formation of some 200 dead zones in ocean coastal regions. Sewer systems that dump untreated sewage into rivers and streams are also a major source of disease and death.

Water is already becoming more scarce. The time has come to manage waste without discharging it into the local environment, allowing water to be recycled indefinitely and reducing both urban and industrial demand dramatically.

Compost toilet to the rescue

Where reed bed treatment systems are not viable a low-cost alternative is the composting toilet: a simple, waterless, odorless toilet linked to a small compost facility. Table waste can also be incorporated into the composter. The dry composting converts human fecal material into a soil-like humus, which is essentially odorless and is scarcely 10 percent of the original volume. These compost facilities need to be emptied every year or so, depending on design and size. Vendors periodically collect the humus and can market it as a soil supplement, thus ensuring that the nutrients and organic matter return to the soil, reducing the need for fertilizer. All this reduces water use, cuts water bills, lowers energy needed to pump water and sewage and even cuts garbage collection if it includes table waste.

Pioneered in Sweden, these toilets work well under the widely varying conditions where they are now used, including Swedish apartment buildings, U.S. private residences, and Chinese villages. Indeed I've used several in my time and none of them smelt which is the usual fear expressed. At the household level, water can be saved in many obvious ways by using showerheads, meters, more water-efficient appliances etc.

Some cities already faced with shrinking water supplies and rising water costs are beginning to recycle their water. Singapore, for example, which buys its water from Malaysia, is beginning to recycle water, reducing the amount it imports. For some cities, the continuous recycling of water may become a condition of their survival. Industries are also moving to save water in lots of new and innovative ways.

Clearly managing our water supplies using Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems as outlined in previous blogs is crucial - and much more like reforestation. The world’s demand for water has tripled over the last half-century as Lester Brown writes - water is running out in many places - water tables are continuing to fall, rivers are running dry, and more lakes and wetlands are disappearing. These should be wake up calls for action. Let us hope enough of us are listening.

Meanwhile the horrendous floods in Asia where over a thousand have already died and some 2 million effected must surely bring home the need for action?