Scam of the century

It’s so darn hot that I bet you’re drinking a cold one right now. No, not a beer (although it sounds good), I mean a refreshing bottle of water. You know, the water that claims it’s pure and from a mountain spring.

Americans in general, and Arizonans in particular (especially during the summer months), are never far from their bottled water. We won’t leave the house without one, and most of us have very little use for water that’s coming out of the tap. When we reach for our next “spring” water, there might be a message in the bottle that reads, “Bottled water is the scam of the century, sucker.”

Does an industry that rakes in over $35 billion worldwide a year need a little regulation? Just because we pay 100 to 1000 times more for bottled water than we do for the ordinary water that comes out of the tap doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re all stupid. Well, I guess according to new reports flooding the media, our beloved bottled water contains nothing more than a bunch of promises and lies. Our tap water adheres to stricter purity standards.

If you don’t believe me, just get on the computer and search for “bottled water fraud.” You will be shocked at what you’re about to discover. From scientific investigations to the EPA reports, bottled water is nothing more than a gimmick. Over half of all bottled water starts out as ordinary tap water. Mountain spring water may be coming from wells underneath industrial facilities. The only thing that the FDA does is make sure that the bottling procedures are sanitary. Yikes, what the heck have we been drinking?

Americans spend about ten billion bucks a year on bottled water. We like the convenience of grabbing a little bottle and having eight ounces of “cold, refreshing purity.” The EPA tests show that sometimes bottled water is not even treated as much as city water, and we’d be surprised to find out exactly what it is we’re drinking. One researcher posted on his Web site, “Spell Evian backwards and what do you get?” 

One woman in New River says she has been drinking her well water for twenty years until she did an arsenic test and found out there are some heavy metals in her water. She immediately switched to bottled water. Go back to the well, Dear Reader, because a little bit of arsenic is probably safer than some of the enhancements that are put into our little bottles of water. Those little “minerals that boost flavor” might be about as pure as Madonna dancing around in a white wedding gown.

One man in California plans on opening a bottled air company. He will sell eight‑ounce plastic bottles of “pure air” so that when you open the cap, the pure air mingles with your polluted air, causing the air around you to become clean. Of course, there is not one shred of science to back this up, nor does he disclose where his “pure oxygen” is coming from, but he will probably get rich on this brilliant scheme.

The problem with bottled water goes beyond the questionable product claims. Ninety‑five percent of all those little plastic bottles end up in landfills. They are simply not getting recycled. Americans throw away enough plastic bottles to hold six billion gallons of water a year. This environmental nightmare is going to leave one big mess for our kids to deal with. Unless we want a landfill coming to our neighborhood soon, we have to change our ways.

Thirsty? Take a sip from the good old faucet, try a drink from the well, get out the reusable sport bottle, and beware of anything that claims to be pure. If we don’t wake up, we may soon be paying dearly for little empty bottles. Oops, I meant to say, plastic bottles of “clean air.” Better yet, a cold beer on a hot day never sounded so good. Drink up!