PET plastic has the recycle code# 1 under the bottle. Most bottled water comes in PET. There are a couple health concerns of note with PET (ranked from most serious to least):

• Bacteria – It happens when water is left stagnant. Especially when the water is dechlorinated like most bottled waters (plus the bottles are difficult to wash). Most of the health problems associated with this kind of bacteria is diarrhea, stomach upset. This is the chief reason it is not recommended to reuse the bottles.

• Antimony – A few studies have shown antimony trioxide does leach into water from PET plastic over time. The levels are below the EPA standards of antimony. Still a longer range concern.

That’s about it. Bisphenol-A is NOT present in PET. In 2003, DEHP was shown to leech into water after long term storage, but the results have not be accurately reproduced since.

At this point, PET is considered safe by many entities.

It’s time to talk taste, cuz the only thing worse than skunked water is skunked beer.

Most people cannot taste the difference in bottled waters or even high quality tap waters. I’ve conducted a number of water taste tests through the years. While individuals may have some preferences, over a large group there tends to be nothing that stands out.

The first questions…should water have a taste? I believe in this crazy thing called evolution…as humans we grew up on water that either bubbled to the surface or from a river/stream. All of those sources would naturally contain minerals from local sources (Ca, Mg, etc.). Those minerals impart taste, so yes water should taste like something.

But let’s focus on the negative, what exactly makes water taste “bad”?

Here is a rough list and some potential causes for that “bad” taste:
Note: In SF, we use chloramine instead of chlorine. I’ll go over that issue in my next post.

• Chlorine smell – smell w/o taste is an odd situation. It generally means not enough chlorine is in the water. What you are smelling is the unreacted chlorine.
• Chlorine smell and taste – this is the more typical too much chlorine in the water. Most humans can taste chlorine to about 5 ppm (some people are sensitive to 2 ppm). The EPA limit is 4 ppm. Most treatment plants shoot for a 3-4 ppm exit concentration at your tap. Certain conditions such as living close to a treatment plant or a system flush may spike the chlorine levels.
• Strong Dirt/Earth/Fish smell – Welcome to bacteria/algae country. In warmer areas, this happens seasonally when algae blooms. This is not something you should fix at home, call the water company.
• Metallic smell and taste – Most often this is corroding pipes (low ph water can be the culprit). The other potential is natural iron and manganese in the area.

Almost all of these only apply to tap water…I say that because bottled water is almost never treated with chlorine. If it is, some filtration is applied. In either case, these tend to be unlikely. If any of these conditions happened regularly with bottled water, consider it brand suicide.

Those are “bad”. The other complaints are uncomfortable tastes. This list is shorter:

• TDS (total dissolved solids) – This is a measure of inorganic and organic constituents. Mainly we’re talking about calcium, magnesium, chlorides, sodium bicarbonates, etc.). The EPA limit for TDS is 500 ppm, mainly for taste considerations. Most people notice differences around 200 ppm….at about 1000 ppm the water definitely tastes almost undrinkable.

The rest of the list includes: Chloride, Copper, Iron, Manganese , Sulfate, and Zinc. Most of these either impart a hardness or saltiness.

TDS is the main source of complaints taste wise. Bottled waters are not bound by the 500 ppm TDS limit. Often, bottled water will have higher TDS than tap (SF water ~ 100 mg/L, Fiji has a TDS of 210 mg/L). However, bottled waters are part of big brands….while their TDS may be higher, by no means do they generally have poor taste.

Takeaway:
Taste is subjective, at least up to 500 mg/L. If you’re curious about your water’s taste…check the TDS on the annual report first. It will be give you a good idea about whats going on.

Next up, a discussion on chlorine.

We’ve reached your pocketbook…how much does it cost to choose water?

In SF, tap water costs about $3 per 1000 gallons. That translates to $0.0008 per liter. Compare that to most bottled water prices (Aquafina is about $1.50/L, other premium waters run upwards of $2/L).

That’s a 2000 X as much for bottled water. 2000! I can’t think of anything I pay that kind of premium on in my life.

In 2007, Americans spent about $11 billion on bottled water, thats more than movie tickets.

Source: International Bottled Water Association

While growth is slowing, we’re nearing 10 billion gallons. If you were a private company and saw consistent 8-10% growth, wouldn’t you get into the fray?

Let’s take a closer look at the sales broken out by company ($ are in millions, parent company in parantheses)

Source: Beverage Marketing Corporation

Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Nestle own about 65% of the market. 3 companies alone!

And how much money are they making? Let’s look at a $1.50 bottle. 0.50 (33%) goes to the retail store. About 0.50 (33%) goes to the distributor including transportation , 0.15 (10%) is the cost of the bottle, cap and the water. That leaves 0.35 for the bottler (23%) as profit. For companies like Coke or Pepsi, they own the distribution channel as well…Cha-Ching! That’s well over 300 million profit for Coke (excluding distribution profits) for a product they were already making (Coke purifies their water for their soft drinks already…the process is nearly identical to the process used to make Dasani).

The water used itself costs very very little. 5% at most. It’s probably the only product in grocery stores where the non-consumed component represents only 95% of the cost.

So put yourself in the retailer’s position…here’s a product you have to do little or no work on. Has a built in market. Probably has the highest margin of any product you sell (its the highest margin product at Starbucks – outside a flavor shot). It’s a no brainer to sell bottled water.

Takeaway:
The profit margins on bottled water are too good for industry to walk away from. The industry is morphing into value-add (vitamins, flavor, etc) into water, as a marketing push to hedge bottled water backlash. Know that when you buy a bottle of water, only 5% of that cost is the water.

Resources:
FastCompany article on bottled Water
Beverage Marketing Corporation

The first fact: 30% of domestic PET production goes towards bottled water currently.

PET plastic is “down cycled”, never remade into plastic bottles because of concerns over bacteria. The PET pellets are then reused for a number of new items: plastic decking to rubber soles on shoes. Check out the quick video to see the process (how plastic would be recycled in the Matrix).

2007 Recycling Rates (courtesy Container Recycling Institute)

States that have some sort of recycling buyback or tax (CRV) tend to have recycling rates 10-15% higher…kinda an interesting twist. But note the difference in recycling rates of aluminum to PET…25% greater for aluminum. This is the crux of the problem with PET plastic…it is recycled at low rates comparatively to other materials. While the rates continue to rise year to year, we’re still at a low point currently.

The PET that is recycled is washed and then is grinded into small pellets. It is shipped off to manufacturers of shoes, decking, and non-food bottles. Guess where many of those are located? Yep…China.

So let’s sum up the lifecycle of PET plastic:
Barrel of oil -> Plastic Resin Plant -> Bottler -> Retail Store -> Consumer -> 30-50% to recycler -> 33% shipped to China -> Manufactured into product -> Shipped back to USA.

But let’s backup, there is a 50% non-recycle rate. That’s straight to the landfill or the ocean. If oil prices remain high, there is a huge opportunity to reclaim the plastic from these dumps. Virgin plastic resin costs have jumped 25-30% in the last year alone (similar to oil price rises) pushing the industry towards using some recycled content. I smell an opportunity.

Here’s the evidence of the plastic problem even here in SF:

BTW for those that ask about using glass instead, check out this GHG emission analysis.

Takeaway:
Waste is a huge factor when considering PET. 50% or more of PET bottles are not recycled. In addition the recycling lifecycle of PET plastic has a long path. Continued high oil prices may lead to greater financial value in recycling the PET as well.

As we approach next week’s conversation: Water Wars – Bottled vs. Tap, I’m blogging about how we choose our water. All week I’m examining the various factors that go into that choice. I’m focusing on the 5 biggies: Environmental, Taste, Convenience, Long Term Health, and Cost.

First up…Environmental Carbon Footprint.

Let’s start on the outside…i.e. the bottle. Most water bottles are made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate). It is easily identifiable from the #1 symbol on the bottom of the container. The two major environmental issues with this plastic is energy used in production (carbon footprint) and recycling/waste.

PET production is a 3 stage process. The first step is production of PTA (Terephthalic acid) and MEG (monoethylene glycol) which are both derived from crude oil. Both are produced at oil refineries. The two are then mixed to form PET resin, typcially performed at a plastic manufacturer. The resin is then sent to a bottling plant, where it is heated and formed into the plastic container we know and love.

Because of the multi-stage process, PET production uses a lot of energy, especially compared to some other plastics. The energy of production for a standard 1 L bottle is 3.4 MJ (Represents the feedstock energy & energy content of the delivered fuel used to produce the plastic/50 g – the typical weight of a 1 L plastic bottle). Expanding that number out to oil equivalence shows US consumption of bottled water plastic equates to about 17 million barrels of oil per year. The number is slightly misleading in that some of the feedstock are byproducts in the production of gasoline.

That energy usage accounts for 2.5 millions tons of CO2 production. Finally, about 55 billion liters of water is used in the production process of the plastic, mainly for cooling the power plants providing energy to the various manufacturing facilities (water is often used in power plants). When you add in the water used to fill the bottles, we’re talking almost 3 liters per liter sold.

Takeaway:
Because of its many stage manufacturing process, PET takes A LOT of energy to produce and account for a heck of a lot of CO2 production.

References (most numbers are circa 2006):
Pacific Institute
How PET is manufactured
Relative Energy usage for different plastics

In my next post, we’ll look at recycling rates for PET.

I’d like to pose this truth…Water is a CHOICE. When drinking water, we’re faced with a myriad of factors to balance (Environmental, Convenience, Cost, Health Concerns, Taste) when making our choice.

Over the next week, I’ll be posting about each of this factors and how it pertains to water. Up first, environmental!

In the meantime, enjoy the gullibility of the American foodie:

This past week on Science Friday, Elizabeth Royte discussed her new book
Bottlemania. The book details the rise of the bottle water industry and the subsequent decline in our public water infrastructure. In 1987, Americans drank about 5 gallons of bottled water per year, now that number has rocketed to 28 gallons. At the same time, consumption of soda and other water-like beverages has increased tenfold.

It’s an interesting dilemma…bottled water offers the lure of safety, health, convenience, and even some style (I’ve been known to buy a bottle of Dasani, owned by Coca-Cola, just because of the pleasing blue tint). Yet, how much safer is it? Is it healthier than tap? What about the environmental impact? Convenience issues can be overcome too, no?

Elizabeth tackles these questions in the most interesting part of the book, the story of Freyburg, Maine. It is home to one of the bottling plants for Poland Spring, the largest bottled water supplier in the U.S.. A town that revolted against bottled water production as it threatens local supplies of freshwater. Seeing pictures of local communities fight against bottled water, yet many see it as salvation (20-30 million in this country don’t have access to consistently safe water without treatment).

The old axiom sticks…you don’t buy water, you just rent it. It’s just a matter of how much you pay.

I was listening to an interesting piece on Mercury’s history in the San Francisco Bay this past two weeks, courtesy of our friends over at KQED QUEST.

It’s an excellent 3 part series, focusing on how the problem has evolved and what lies ahead. One of the more interesting pieces is a short conversation with Dr. Jane Hightower, a doctor in San Francisco who specializes in diagnosing mercury poisoning cases. She published a paper in 2003 that garnered a lot of attention. She gathered a group of 89 individuals who had high fish consumption diets and measured their mercury levels over the course of a year. 89% had levels higher than the EPA reference dose (their guidelines) at 0.1 micrograms/kg of body weight. This study raised quite an alarm about mercury in fish, even though it did not yet indicate the symptomatic effects of mercury.

Back to the story at hand, QUEST interviewed her about Mercury poisoning. Listen to the story.

She admits that more study is needed in the area, but there is much difficulty in getting the study done (Hg is so toxic, it’s hard to get a study of humans approved, also Hg symptoms seem to be very different in different people).

After listening the story, I googled Dr. Hightower. I found an interesting site called MercuryFacts.org. The site essentially slams Dr. Hightower’s work (among others). After some digging, I found this site was established by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit devoted to “defending the right of adults and parents to choose what they eat, drink, and how they enjoy themselves.” I personally found the site slanderous bordering on malicious. Their Hg calculator uses a toxicity figure 10 times lower than the EPA’s (they don’t use the Reference dose as the EPA does, instead they take away the built in EPA buffer for their calculator). It’s highly misleading. Here’s a short video they ran against PETA “they want us to all be vegetarians”.

I would suggest looking to Real Mercury Facts, a site run by the University of Maryland, for a little less biased view.

More Info:
Oceana Report on Hg Testing of Fish in Grocery Stores
Center for Consumer Freedom
EPA Guidelines on Hg

On May 8th, the three month discussion on Water in California concludes with a look to the future. With expected water pinches coming from population growth and climate change, the discussion is fairly pertinent. BASF is focused on creating an informed public as key ballot issues on water are pending.

The discussion will focus on the following strategies:

* Increasing surface storage through dam building.
* Desalination of sea water.
* Attempting to match water quality with usage, so that the cost to produce high quality drinking water is only incurred when it is needed.
* Prevention of water pollution, including urban runoff management, to decrease the amount of treatment needed.

The dam issue is key, as the governator is pushing for an 11.6 Billion dollar bond measure to build new dams (exactly where is unknown) and create a canal around the San Joaquin Delta (where there is all that hubbub about a little fish). The push is under great attack by environmentalists for the lack of conservation measures in the bill. And frankly the talk of desalinization as a solution is almost laughable…as discussed in part 1 of this series, the process is so energy intensive, the water produced will be incredibly expensive.

Also, how the heck are we going to pay for 11.6 billion dollar in water upgrades considering the expected $14 billion budget deficit? There are plenty of questions on this topic, I would definitely make this night.

More Info:
Chronicle Article on new dam measure
Cal Water Crisis (group funded by number of California Water Agencies)
Dan Bacher’s Critique of Governators Plan

Last month, we talked about the endocrine disruptor atrazine (it induces formation of aromatase…which plays a role in the conversion of testosterone to estrogen).

The timing was perfect, as the AP concluded a 5 month investigation into pharmaceuticals in national water supplies last month as well. They found trace amounts of pharmas in 24 major metropolitan areas, including San Francisco. In SF, the AP found the sex hormone estradiol present in trace quantities in our water. Scary stuff eh? Let’s break it down.

Let’s start at source: You take drugs. Drugs are designed to flood your system. You pee the extra out.

Pee travels down to the wastewater treatment plant. We went on a tour of a waste water plant….remember how they mentioned they don’t clean a number of organics (including cooking oils)? Well, that fun stuff often gets flushed out into the ocean or lakes unperturbed. Maybe some bacteria break it down along the way. It gets diluted through the water cycle…ends up in minute/microscopic quantities back in our water supply.

Studies have shown exposure to estrogen is part of path to certain cancers, including breast and prostate cancer.

We don’t know what long term exposure to these low levels of pharmas will do. Probably nothing on their own, but they are part of a greater picture of “stress” on our bodies.

If you’re scared, protect yourself by using a carbon filter…it effectively removes most of these pharmas even at low concentrations. And take the time to properly dispose of your drugs.

But let’s back up for a sec…how come these items go untreated at the wastewater plants? I specifically asked for the effluent data on my last visit to the wastewater treatment plant…got the runaround with no luck. And I think that’s the point…how are we “treating” our waste? Where is the transparency of data (the AP mentions how difficult it was to get this data)?

Well, I for one care about what is getting pushed out into the Pacific from my toilet. And I’m going to write my local water authority to ensure they do as well.

More Info:
AP Report on Pharma’s in Water
AP’s Test Results
SFPUC Response to AP Report
Proper Disposal of Prescription Drugs