What's New

2008 Jun 26

Drinking Water may Boost Health of Elderly

Since residents at a Suffolk care home were encouraged to increase their intake when a water club was set up last summer, they have felt their overall wellbeing improve, according to the report from Medical News Today.

2008 Jun 26

Access To Safe Drinking Water Should Be Recognised As A Human Right

Access to safe drinking water and to sustainable sanitation should be recognised as a human right, according to a statement at the closing of the water leaders' summit here Thursday.

2008 Jun 26

County Scrambling to Find Source of Water Contamination

Greenville residents and businesses scrambled for information just after noon Wednesday after utilities officials announced a bacterial contamination had been discovered in the city water system during routine water testing.

2008 Jun 25

IEPA Releases 2007 Water Quality Report

ast year's water was quite good, says the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The 2007 water quality report indicates that almost 94 percent of Illinois' public water supplies met all federal requirements.

IEPA spokeswoman Maggie Carson says of the nearly 6,000 public water supplies in the state, 783 of them had violations. She says a nearly 94 percent compliance rate is good.

2008 Jun 25

Mayors Say No To Bottled Water

The nation's mayors have voted against spending taxpayer money to buy bottled water, a blow to the beverage industry that has enjoyed growing profit from water sales in recent years.

A majority of about 250 mayors at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Miami voted to phase out government use of bottled water. That means attendees of city council meetings around the country could more often see pitchers of water instead of clear plastic bottles on the tables of local legislators.

2008 Jun 25

Some Nestle-brand Purified Water Recalled

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the recall of some 1-gallon jugs of Nestle-brand purified drinking water due to possible contamination. The "Nestle Pure Life Purified Drinking Water" was sold in Shop-Rite stores in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

2008 Jun 17

Tapped Out, Americans Return To Tap Water

With a day's worth of bottled water - the recommended 64 ounces - costing hundreds to thousands of dollars a year depending on the brand, more people are opting to slurp water that comes straight from the sink.

The lousy economy may be accomplishing what environmentalists have been trying to do for years - wean people off the disposable plastic bottles of water that were sold as stylish, portable, healthier and safer than water from the tap.

2008 Apr 16

Some Businesses Boot Bottled Water

It's a hot summer day, the sun beaming in a cloudless sky. Desert winds send dust devils spinning across a bleached highway. Heat waves blur the landscape until a single object is able to cut through the distortion -- a cold, crystalline bottle of water.

2007 Dec 07 - Earth Policy Institute

Bottled Water Boycotts, Back-to-the-Tap Movement Gains Momentum

From San Francisco to New York to Paris, city governments, high-class restaurants, schools, and religious groups are ditching bottled water in favor of what comes out of the faucet. With people no longer content to pay 1,000 times as much for bottled water, a product no better than water from the tap, a backlash against bottled water is growing.

2007 Aug 31 - Pacific Institute

17 million barrels of oil…

What is the environmental cost of bottling water for U.S. consumption? The New York Times editorial page recently tackled this question, citing a source that found the energy used in bottling alone could power 100,000 cars for a year. Unfortunately, that figure underestimates the energy use by a factor of ten. 

2007 Aug 13 - Business Week

How ‘Green’ is That Water

Bottled water is under fire. Environmental groups recently have pointed out that a flourishing industry that sells its product with "green" images of snowcapped mountains and pristine spring lakes in fact contributes substantially to global warming.

2007 Aug 01 - New York Times

In Praise of Tap Water

On the streets of New York or Denver or San Mateo this summer, it seems the telltale cap of a water bottle is sticking out of every other satchel. Americans are increasingly thirsty for what is billed as the healthiest, and often most expensive, water on the grocery shelf. But this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world.

2006 Feb 02 - Earth Policy Institute

BOTTLED WATER: Pouring Resources Down the Drain

The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more. At as much as $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline.