Making, packaging and shipping a liter of bottled h20 requires between 1,100 and 2,000 times additional energy on average than treating and delivering the same load of tap water, according to a peer-reviewed energy analysis conducted by the Pacific Instituea nonprofit research organization based in Oakland, California.

Bottled h20 has become the refreshment of choice for many citizens around the world, and sales have elevated over the past couple years. In 2007, for example, added than 200 billion liters of bottled water were sold worldwide. Americans alone purchased more than 33 billion liters for an annual average of 110 liters (nearly 30 gallons) per person-a seventy percent increase since 2001.
Bottled h20 has become so familiar that it now outsells both milk and beer in theu.s.. Carbonated soft drinks are the only bottled beverage that United states consumers buy in larger quantities than bottled water, and per-capita sales of bottled water are increasing while per-capita sales of milk and soft refreshments are going down. The irony here, of course, is that a lot of bottled h20 is little added than tap water which costs very little and is much better regulated and additional rigorously tested than bottled h20.

For the energy analysis, environmental scientists Peter Gleick and Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute measured the energy used during each stage of bottled water production. They added up the energy it requires to make a plastic bottle; process the h20; label, fill and close the bottle of water; transport bottled water for sale; and cool the bottled water before it ends up in your gym bag or your car’s cup holder.
The 2 scientists gauge that just making the plastic bottles for bottled-h20 consumption worldwide uses fifty million barrels of oil annually-enough to furnish total united states. oil demand for 2.5 days.
Transportation energy use is harder to compute, because some water is bottled locally and travels short distances to arrive at consumers while other brands of bottled h20 are brought in from another place from distant nations, which increases the amount of energy necessary to transfer them. According to the account, imported bottled water uses about two-and-a-half to four times more energy than bottled water produced locally.
Overall, the two scientists gauge that meeting United states. demand for bottled-water-assuming the 2007 consumption rate of 33 billion liters-requires energy equivalent to between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil. The energy needed to satisfy the global thirst for bottled water is about three times that quantity.

If you imagine that every bottle of water you libation is about three-quarters h20 and one-quarter oil, you’ll have a pretty accurate picture of how much energy it takes to put that bottle of water in your hand.

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