Germana Carillo Scientists warn that bottled water is taking a toll on the health of the planet and humans. And the cause is always the same: plastic
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Every minute, one million water bottles are bought worldwide-the number that is sure to increase. Such a staggering figure means a huge amount of plastic that sooner or later we may end up ingesting in one form or another.
This is the main finding of a recent study published in BMJ Global Health, focusing on the long-term effects of exposure to food contamination caused by plastic packaging.
Plastic contamination in bottled water, according to the study, ranges from 10% up to as high as 78%, depending on certain specific characteristics.
The research
Its pervasive use results in a shocking volume of pollution, exposing people to a cocktail of potentially poisonous contaminants while, in the meantime, increasing the rate of greenhouse gas emissions-” said the study.
Of these, roughly two billion people use it out of necessity because they lack ready access to potable water. The rest do so for convenience, in large part due to the perception that bottled water is safer and healthier to drink than tap water. But is it safer?
This is a question often considered, but again, as some of the authors of this new study do: Bottled water often does not meet the same safety and rigorous quality standards of tap water. Indeed, bottled water may expose one to toxic chemicals due to contamination in the bottles if they are kept for some time or disposed under conditions of very high temperatures and sunlight.
While there are safety thresholds that exist for short-term exposure, the long-term effects of these contaminants remain largely unknown,” Amit Abraham, lead author and assistant professor of clinical population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar told Newsweek in an interview. He said that, as is now well established, microplastics can also enter the food chain.
Some numbers? It’s estimated that from 10% to 78% of samples taken from bottled water contain contaminants such as phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA), and microplastics, many of which are classified as hormone or endocrine disruptors.
Why tap water?
Tap water is greener, and it does less harm to the environment than bottled water. The bottles eventually end up in the ocean, where they are the second most common pollutant, making 12% of the plastic waste. Only 9% of those bottles get recycled, while others either went to landfills or were incinerated, and some were even exported to the low- and middle-income countries.
Tap water is safer and healthier than bottled water, opposed to what many people believe.
The result? Producing and consuming bottled water not only results in pollution of the environment and deterioration of ecosystems but leads to more serious health consequences compared with what we could have received from drinking tap water.
