Half the cost of bottled water would be enough to provide the whole world with drinking water: UN

Although it seems that drink bottled water is a common and harmless act, the truth is that this industry has succeeded affect the environment and even global access to drinking water.

According to a new report from the United Nations University, the rapid growth of the bottled water industry this could undermine progress towards the key sustainable development goal of clean water for all.

Based on an analysis of the literature and data from 109 countries, the report states that in just five decades, bottled water has become a “large and essentially autonomous sector of the economy” experiencing 73% growth between 2010 and 2020. Sales are expected to almost double by 2030. from $270,000 million to $500,000 million.

Posted a few days before World Water Day (March 22), the report “The Global Bottled Water Industry: An Overview of Impacts and Trends” prepared by the Canadian Institute for Water, Environment and Health at the United Nations University (UNU-INWEH), highlights the damage done to the industry.

The post concludes that rampant expansion of bottled water production is “strategically inconsistent with the goal of universal access to safe drinking water”. Or at least slow down global progress in this regard, diverting the efforts of developers and redirecting attention to an option that is less reliable and accessible to many, but at the same time very profitable for manufacturers.

He notes that when the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2015, other experts estimated that an annual investment of US$114 billion would be required between 2015 and 2030 to achieve the key goal: universal drinking water. According to the report, Supplying drinking water to the nearly 2 billion people who need it would require an annual investment of less than half of the US$270 billion. now spent every year on bottled water.

“This points to a global case of extreme social injustice, whereby billions of people around the world do not have access to reliable water services while others enjoy the luxury of water, says Kaveh Madani, UNU-INWEH’s new director.

Ideas about bottled and tap water

The study cites surveys showing that bottled water is often perceived as a healthier product in the Global North and tastier than tap water, a luxury rather than a necessity. In the Global South, sales are driven by the lack or absence of a reliable public water supply and limited water supply infrastructure due to rapid urbanization.

In low- and middle-income countries bottled water consumption is linked to poor tap water quality and the unreliability of public water supply systems, problems often caused by corruption and a chronic lack of investment in piped infrastructure.

Beverage companies are adept at promoting bottled water as a safer alternative to tap water by drawing attention to individual faults in public water systems, says Zeyneb Buhlel, UNU-INWEH researcher and lead author, and adds that “even if in some countries tap water is or may be of good quality, it is likely that restoring public confidence in piped water will require significant marketing and promotional efforts.”.

Pollution

With regard to plastic pollution, the researchers give estimates according to which the industry produced about 600 billion plastic bottles and containers in 2021which becomes approximately 25 million tons of PET waste, most of which is unrecycled and destined for landfill, a mass of plastic equivalent to the weight of 625,000 40-ton trucks, enough to form a strip from New York to Bangkok.

According to the report, the bottled water sector used 35% of the PET bottles produced in the world. in 2019; 85% ends up in landfills or unregulated waste.