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See what researchers found when they tested a bottle of Fiji Water against a glass of tap water.

Is bottled water REALLY all that bad?

via Free Stock Photos

A young woman drinking bottled water outdoors before exercising.



The Story of Bottled Waterwww.youtube.com

Here are six facts from the video above by The Story of Stuff Project that I'll definitely remember next time I'm tempted to buy bottled water.

1. Bottled water is more expensive than tap water (and not just a little).

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube


A Business Insider column noted that two-thirds of the bottled water sold in the United States is in individual 16.9-ounce bottles, which comes out to roughly $7.50 per gallon. That's about 2,000 times higher than the cost of a gallon of tap water.

And in an article in 20 Something Finance, G.E. Miller investigated the cost of bottled versus tap water for himself. He found that he could fill 4,787 20-ounce bottles with tap water for only $2.10! So if he paid $1 for a bottled water, he'd be paying 2,279 times the cost of tap.

2. Bottled water could potentially be of lower quality than tap water.

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

Fiji Water ran an ad campaign that was pretty disparaging about the city of Cleveland. Not a wise move. The city ordered a test of the snooty brand's water and found that Fiji Water contained levels of arsenic that weren't seen in the city's water supply.

How was that possible? Sarah Goodman of the New York Times explains:

" Bottled water manufacturers are not required to disclose as much information as municipal water utilities because of gaps in federal oversight authority. Bottom line: The Food and Drug Administration oversees bottled water, and U.S. EPA is in charge of tap water. FDA lacks the regulatory authority of EPA."

3. The amount of bottled water we buy every week in the U.S. alone could circle the globe five times!

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

That sounded like it just had to be impossible, so we looked into it. Here's what our fact-checkers found:

"According to the video, ' People in the U.S. buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week.' National Geographic says for 2011, bottled water sales hit 9.1 billion gallons (roughly 34 billion liters).

A 'typical' water bottle is a half-liter, so that's about 68 billion bottles per year. Divided by 52 weeks would be a little over 1 billion bottles of water sold per week in the U.S. Because that's based on a smaller 'typical' bottle size, it seems reasonable that a half billion bottles a week could be accurate.

The Earth is about 131.5 million feet around, so yep, half a billion bottles of varying sizes strung end-to-end could circle the Earth five times."

4. Paying for bottled water makes us chumps.

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

Beverage companies have turned bottled water into a multibillion-dollar industry through a concept known as manufactured demand. Bottled water advertisements used a combination of scare tactics (Tap water bad!) and seduction (From the purest mountain streams EVER!) to reel us in.

Well, we now know their claims about the superior quality of bottled water are mostly bogus. And research shows that anywhere from a quarter to 45% of all bottled water comes from the exact same place as your tap water (which, to reiterate, is so cheap it's almost free).

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

5. Bottled water is FILTHY.

It takes oil — lots of it — to make plastic bottles. According to the video, the energy in the amount of oil it takes to make the plastic water bottles sold in the U.S. in one year could fuel a million cars. That's not even counting the oil it takes to ship bottled water around the world.

And once we've guzzled our bottled water, up to 80% of the empty bottles end up in landfills or noxious-gas-producing incinerators. The rest is either recycled or shipped to countries like India where poor people without environmental and labor protections have to deal with it.

On top of all that, the process of manufacturing plastic bottles is polluting public water supplies, which makes it easier for bottled water companies to sell us their expensive product.

6. There are 750 million people around the world who don't have access to clean water.

Photo by H2O for Life.

A child dies every minute from a waterborne disease. And for me, that's the core of what makes bottled water so evil.

The video wraps by comparing buying bottled water to smoking while pregnant. That may sound extreme, but after learning everything I just did about the bottled water industry, I can't disagree.

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

If you're properly disgusted, here are a few ways you can help destroy the bottled water industry:

  1. Don't buy bottled water. Get a reusable water bottle. The savings will add up.
  2. Rally your schools, workplaces, and communities to ban bottled water.
  3. Demand that your city, state, and federal governments invest in better water infrastructure.

This article originally appeared nine years ago.

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Science

eXXpedition sailing crews set out to tackle ocean plastic. Here's how we can all get on board.

The all-women crews of eXXpedition strive to problem-solve the issue of plastic pollution in our oceans. But because the problem starts on land, we all have an important role to play—and the tools to make an impact.

Photos courtesy of Sophie Dingwall and Emily Penn/eXXpedition

eXXpedition is on a mission to fight ocean plastic pollution.

What do sailing and STEM fields have in common? For one, both have traditionally been—and largely still are—the domain of men. Sailing is a male-dominated sport, with women making up 16% of all competitors and only 5% of professional competitors in regattas last year. And though women have made big strides in STEM, progress has been uneven and women are still underrepresented in certain fields, including environmental science.

Such underrepresentation is one reason the founders of eXXpedition gather all-female sailing crews with diverse areas of expertise to research ocean plastic pollution. Since 2014, the nonprofit organization has been on a mission to “make the unseen, seen”—the unseen being women in sailing and science, the plastics and toxins polluting our oceans, and the diverse solutions to the problem.

Emily Penn founded eXXpedition after seeing ocean plastic pollution up close while working on a biofuel boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Emily Penn founded eXXpedition to bring women in sailing and ocean plastic pollution into full view.Courtesty of Emily Penn/eXXpedition

“I’d jump into the water to wash and be surrounded by plastic, nearly 1,000 miles from the nearest land,” Penn told National Geographic. “We would then stop at these small islands, and see how they were struggling so much with waste management, especially plastic. And then we'd land on beaches of uninhabited islands that had more plastic on them. After those moments of seeing it first-hand, I just couldn’t really look back.”

During her first all-woman sailing expedition, Penn was amazed by the positive, supportive atmosphere aboard the ship. Having an all-women crew was a “magic” dynamic—surprisingly different from the mixed crews she’d always been part of—and thus eXXpedition was born.

Sea voyages are vital for environmental research, but they aren’t particularly visible to those of us on land. The eXXpedition team has utilized Facebook and Instagram to bring people aboard virtually and connect its community around the globe. With more than 18,000 Facebook groups dedicated to celebrating and protecting our planet, and environmental protection being one of the top three causes people donate to on Instagram, these platforms have been critical to driving support for the organization’s mission and sharing the results of its voyages.

In October 2019, eXXpedition launched a bold, two-year mission to circumnavigate the globe called Round the World. Multidisciplinary crews of women—scientists, journalists, activists and more—set sail to conduct research over 38,000 nautical miles, traveling through four of the five oceanic gyres where pollution accumulates in dense pockets. The crews sailed across the Atlantic, throughout the Caribbean, to Galapagos and Easter Island, and across the South Pacific Gyre to Tahiti, studying the issue and collecting valuable data.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Pandemic shutdowns brought the world to a screeching halt, and sadly, the remaining Round the World legs had to be canceled. But that didn’t mean the eXXpedition mission stopped; it merely shifted.

While eXXpedition voyages provide valuable research, the problem of ocean pollution starts on land, which means all of us need to be involved in this work. However, many people simply don’t know which actions to take.

So when COVID shut things down, Penn created SHiFT, an online platform to help people hone their own environmental actions even as they navigated the unfamiliar waters of the pandemic.

“Our research has shown us that the sources of plastic pollution are endless,” Penn tells Upworthy. “This means the solutions are too. There is no silver bullet. We need to tackle the problem from every angle.

“For many people, this message can feel overwhelming,” she adds. ”Should I switch my packaging to biodegradable plastic, glass or paper, or do I need to redesign my product completely? Should I put a filter on my washing machine, or make clothes from bamboo or rethink the way we sell clothing all together? We know we need all these solutions, but many of us need help to work out which one to use and when.”

SHiFT helps individuals and businesses whittle down those overwhelming options to a manageable one or two by guiding them to discover their unique strengths or “superpowers.”

“We need experts in every field,” says Penn. “It’s not about everyone becoming a marine biologist or everyone dedicating their lives to this, but it’s about saying, ‘Great, you’re an engineer, let’s look at ways we can do better waste management. You’re a chemist, let’s look at ways we can reinvent plastic or a biodegradable material. You’re a teacher, then talk about it. You’re a policy maker, then let’s legislate it.’”

More than 5,000 people a month from 133 countries use SHiFT to explore hundreds of impactful solutions and narrow them down to what’s most doable for them. Penn says the global community eXXpedition has created is where the real power of the organization lies.

“The many nationalities, skill sets, sectors and approaches to solving the plastics issue together is our greatest strength since we started our sailing missions in 2014,” says Penn. “Digital tools have helped us overcome the ultimate challenge we have, which is that with everyone spread around the world it can be a challenge to bring the community together. Now we have an opportunity to bring them together virtually to connect and collaborate and go on to really drive change on land.”

In addition to SHiFT, eXXpedition utilizes Facebook and Instagram to keep that community engaged and informed. The hope is to inspire people to action by sharing ambassador stories from women who have participated in voyages, debunking myths about plastics and pollution, making research accessible and understandable for everyone, and hosting virtual events.

The eXXpedition team is encouraged by the attention that plastics and ocean pollution has been getting and by how many people are interested in helping find solutions. On World Oceans Day on June 8, the SHiFT site will be adding even more tools to help people find their role and use their superpowers to tackle ocean plastic pollution.

“We don’t need everyone to do everything,” says Penn, “but we need everyone to do something.”

If you want to do something but aren’t sure where to start, visit the SHiFT platform. You can also follow them on Facebook and Instagram, join an eXXpedition voyage, help bring ocean pollution education and action to schools, donate to support eXXpedition’s mission or join the mailing list to learn about upcoming events and opportunities.

Follow eXXpedition research and explore solutions on social media:

eXXpedition—Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

SHiFT—Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

From Your Site Articles
Planet

Scientists just created an enzyme that rapidly breaks down plastic pollution

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Last year, we shared the sad impact that plastic pollution has had on some of our planet's most beautiful places. With recycling not turning out to be the savior it was made out to be, solutions to our growing plastic problem can seem distant and complex.

We have seen some glimmers of hope from both human innovation and nature itself, however. In 2016, a bacteria that evolved with the ability to break down plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste site. Two years later, scientists managed to engineer the mutant plastic-eating enzyme they called PETase—named for polyethylene terephthalate, the most common plastic found in bottles and food packaging—in a lab.

Here's an explainer of how those enzymes work:

Ending Plastic Pollution with Designer Bacteriayoutu.be

Now researchers have revealed another game-changer in the plastic-eater—asuper-enzyme that can break down plastic six times faster than PETase alone.

The super-enzyme is a bit of a frankenzyme, created by linking different enzymes together. "When we linked the enzymes, rather unexpectedly, we got a dramatic increase in activity," Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, told The Guardian. "This is a trajectory towards trying to make faster enzymes that are more industrially relevant. But it's also one of those stories about learning from nature, and then bringing it into the lab."

This new research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Combining enzymes could be the key to making various kinds of plastics and combined materials fully recyclable. "There's huge potential," said McGeehan. "We've got several hundred in the lab that we're currently sticking together."

For example, combining the plastic-eating enzymes with existing enzymes that break down natural fibers could allow fabrics made of mixed materials to be recycled, McGeehan told The Guardian. "Mixed fabrics [of polyester and cotton] are really tricky to recycle. We've been speaking to some of the big fashion companies that produce these textiles, because they're really struggling at the moment."

This newest research isn't the first to improve upon the plastic-eating bacteria discovery. In April, a French chemistry company called Carbios shared their own mutant enzyme that can degrade 90% of plastic bottles within 10 hours. However, that enzyme, which originally discovered in a pile of composting leaves, requires heating above 70 degrees Celsius (nearly 160 degrees Fahrenheit), whereas this new super-enzyme works at room temperature.

Not that it's a cutthroat competition. We are talking about helping out the entire planet and saving life as we know it, after all. McGeehan suggested that the researchers work together with the private sector to get the enzymes working out in the real world. "If we can make better, faster enzymes by linking them together and provide them to companies like Carbios, and work in partnership, we could start doing this within the next year or two," McGeehan told The Guardian.

McGeehan did emphasize to CNN that the super-enzyme is "still way too slow" to be commercially viable at this point, but it is a huge step in the process. "We were actually quite surprised it worked so well," he told CNN.

Here's to science coming up with solutions to the problems human scientific advances have created, and here's to learning to live in better balance with nature in the process.

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Planet

Coca-Cola won't give up plastic bottles because people want them. And that's the problem.

Photo by maria mendiola on Unsplash

Coca-Cola was recently named the world's largest plastic waste producer in a global plastic audit, and it appears that won't be changing any time soon. The drink giant produces about three million tons of plastic packaging each year, or the equivalent of 200,000 bottles per minute, according to the BBC.

Global studies show that 9 out of 10 plastic bottles don't get recycled. We know that a huge percentage of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean, filling up the bellies of whales and breaking down into harmful microplastics. And with changes in how and where recycling gets processed, recycling itself has proven to be a non-solution to the planet's plastic pollution problem.

In light of this information, pumping out more and more single-use plastic bottles seems like a ridiculously irresponsible move. And yet, Coca-Cola recently announced that it will be sticking with single-use plastic bottles. Their reasoning? Because people like them.

Like any business, Coca-Cola's top priority is its bottom line. Though the company has pledged to use at least 50% recycled material in its packaging by 2030 and to partner with NGOs to improve waste collection, they are beholden to the demands of its customers. As Bea Perez, Coca-Cola's head of sustainability said at the World Economic Forum, "Business won't be in business if we don't accommodate consumers."

RELATED: A dead whale just washed ashore with 88 pounds of plastic waste in its stomach. This needs to stop.

The problem is, she's right. And that, kids, is one reason why "free market environmentalism"—the idea that capitalism will eventually lead to environmental responsibility because consumers will demand it—simply doesn't work. The free market is great for a lot of things, but protecting the planet isn't one of them. Humans are creatures of habit. We like what we are familiar with and we tend to resist change, even when we know it's ideal or even necessary. If we're used to drinking soda from a lightweight, resealable plastic bottle, that's what we're going to want. Since companies are in the business of giving (or rather, selling) people what they want, the free market equation will never add up to truly sustainable change.

Companies like Coca-Cola find themselves in a position of having to appease the social movement toward sustainability while also appeasing customers who don't want to make the changes necessary to support that movement. Perez makes it sound like Coca-Cola is trying to gently nudge consumers in a more environmentally responsible direction. "As we change our bottling infrastructure, move into recycling and innovate, we also have to show the consumer what the opportunities are," she says. "They will change with us."

Is that enough, though? Not according to people on the front line of the plastic crisis. "Recent commitments by corporations like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo to address the crisis unfortunately continue to rely on false solutions like replacing plastic with paper or bioplastics and relying more heavily on a broken global recycling system," Abigail Aguilar, Greenpeace Southeast Asia plastic campaign coordinator, said in a press release in October. "These strategies largely protect the outdated throwaway business model that caused the plastic pollution crisis, and will do nothing to prevent these brands from being named the top polluters again in the future."

RELATED: We haven't just paved paradise—we've plastered it in plastic

Of course, the question of what would replace plastic bottles and whether or not the alternatives are sustainable remains. Perez claims that switching to glass and aluminum may actually increase the company's carbon footprint—a related but separate issue from the plastic pollution problem.

But ultimately, the question we all need to ask ourselves is, "Whose problem is this and who needs to solve it?" Some people don't want the government to implement regulations forcing companies to adopt sustainable practices. Some put faith in individuals and industry to figure out how to get what we all want while not destroying the earth in the process. But we have plenty of evidence that consumerism (i.e., capitalism) is what got us here, and also evidence that laws and regulations can effect real change. Remember the ozone layer crisis? The Montreal Protocol of 1987, which required countries to phase out ozone-depleting substances like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), proved successful at mitigating a clear environmental challenge. Would companies have voluntarily eliminated CFCs and found alternatives if they weren't obligated to by law? In the 1980s? When Aqua Net hair spray was at its prime? Not likely.

That being said, regulations are only effective if they are actually implemented, and the current method of making international agreements that aren't really binding can only go so far. As climate change activist Greta Thunberg keeps pointing out, the politics and processes needed to truly address our environmental crises do not currently exist. It's vital that we consult about how to actually solve problems like plastic pollution, but one thing is clear—relying on the free market isn't going to get us there.

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