Office of Environmental Sustainability
Why Advisory on The Use of Bottled Water
Environmental Impacts
Environmental pollution and ecological damage are the two major environmental impacts arising from the production of bottled water. Often times, bottled water manufacturers purchase rights from local governments to pump water from their rivers and streams. This results in arid land that can no longer support farming and cause irreversible damage to the ecology. In undeveloped countries, the poor who live off these precious water resources are even refused the right to access the clean water for their very own survival.
Producing bottled water also creates more waste. Properly disposed bottles end up in incinerators and landfills, resulting in air pollution and land wastage. Used bottles also end up littering roads, parks, rivers and oceans, where they exacerbate the environmental damage by endangering marine life.
Another international concern about producing bottled water is its associated carbon content as tremendous amounts of resources are used to extract, manufacture and transport bottled water. In an article written by Professor Tommy Koh, Chairman of the Governing Council of the Asia Pacific Water Forum and chairman of the 2008 and 2009 Water Leaders Summits in Singapore, and Leong Chin, PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, it was found that American bottled water consumption alone used more than 1.5 million barrels of oil.
Health Hazards
The Natural Resources Defense Council, an American environmental action organisation, found one-third of the bottled waters to be unsafe in the USA. They also found that some bottled water companies do not treat the water properly, placing consumers’ health in danger. In Singapore, tap water is as safe as bottled water. There is no difference between drinking tap water and bottled water.
Even if the water complies with safety and health standards, we increase our risks of consuming cancer-toxins (Bisphenol A, BPA), which may leak from the plastic bottle into the water.
Why Three (3) Taps
We encourage the use of 3 taps because many users who want lukewarm end up mixing the cold and hot water. This means that energy that has gone into heating or chilling the water is simply
WASTED.
This is something that can be easily avoided and yet most purchasers are not concerned about this. Water coolers with 2 taps are usually cheaper to purchase because they have one less moving part. The lesson to bring away from this is that while saving the environment really needs sacrifices from all of us, at the moment there are really lots of unnecessary wastages that we can cut without compromising our standard of living.
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