Title: Britain's love affair with bottled water
Date: 11.04.2013.
Author: David Gray
Publication: Environmental News Network
The British water industry annually releases 350 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmoshpere. Professor Paul Young,
Rankine Chair of Engineering at Glasgow University, who is one of the country's leading experts on water supplies, declared that the bottled water industry is a scam. In his opinion, it is the cause of wasted millions and pollution, which is especially striking as the tap water standards is higher than in most countries worldwide.
He has voiced his concern that the British consumption of bottled water is presenting a great damage to the environment when it is not even necessary since Britain has a very high tap water standard. According to him, bottled water is only present to raise huge profits for brands and is not actually useful or needed for ordinary citizens.
Despite this, the numbers of buyers are increasing every year. For example, 2012 was the most profitable year yet for Highland Spring, the United Kingdom's largest manufacturer of sparkling water, as they reached a record in British bottled water sale.
With such a situation, Professor Young can currently do nothing but voice his concerns about "forsaking the wonderfully clean and rigorously tested upland waters that flow from our taps, in favour of water in plastic bottles."
Date: 11.04.2013.
Author: David Gray
Publication: Environmental News Network
The British water industry annually releases 350 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmoshpere. Professor Paul Young,
Rankine Chair of Engineering at Glasgow University, who is one of the country's leading experts on water supplies, declared that the bottled water industry is a scam. In his opinion, it is the cause of wasted millions and pollution, which is especially striking as the tap water standards is higher than in most countries worldwide.He has voiced his concern that the British consumption of bottled water is presenting a great damage to the environment when it is not even necessary since Britain has a very high tap water standard. According to him, bottled water is only present to raise huge profits for brands and is not actually useful or needed for ordinary citizens.
Despite this, the numbers of buyers are increasing every year. For example, 2012 was the most profitable year yet for Highland Spring, the United Kingdom's largest manufacturer of sparkling water, as they reached a record in British bottled water sale.
With such a situation, Professor Young can currently do nothing but voice his concerns about "forsaking the wonderfully clean and rigorously tested upland waters that flow from our taps, in favour of water in plastic bottles."
I completely agree, this is a very serious issue and actions must be taken to combat it. People need to start moving away from wasteful, environmentally-detrimental plastic bottles and start using reusable bottles. After all, when your buying bottled water, your essentially buying the bottle, since the water, you can get strait out of the tap for free!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Annie and Mateja. The same issue was brought up in Serbia, with a final article I read a couple of months ago stating that these companies contain God-knows-what in their products and that the best supply of water would be from the tap! I can't quite figure out why people waste so money on these waters when they can, like Annie said, get water straight from the tap for free?
ReplyDeleteKind of makes me think of cigarette consumption too. If we know its harmful and has absolutely no advantages compared to the huge list of disadvantage, why do populations continue to buy it?