Bottled Up

"It took approximately 17 million barrels of oil equivalent to produce plastic for bottled water consumed by Americans in 2006 — enough energy to fuel more than 1 million American cars and light trucks for a year." - The Pacific Institute, Dec 2007

Yikes. I don't know when or how this bottled water craze started, but I definitely rode that wave with everyone else for a little while.

Then as evidence mounted over the environmental impacts -- like how much energy goes into the whole bottling process and the spike in consumer waste, not to mention those reports about some brands getting their water from the tap (tsk, tsk, Dasani and Aquafina) -- folks started waging campaigns against the bottled water industry and for the virtues of tap water. The word on the street then was to reuse more durable water bottles instead, like Nalgene or Camelbak. (I never leave home without it!)

Now there's concern over those bottles leaching Bisphenol A (BPA), which more and more studies are linking to scary health problems like prostate and breast cancer, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, immune suppression, etc.

So I check whether my favorite bottle contains BPA by looking underneath for a #7 recycling logo and the letters "PC", for polycarbonate... Darn it, now what?