The World's Drinking Problem

Our growing preference for bottled water is hazardous to the plant's health, says a new Earth Policy Institute report. Americans alone drank 7 billion gallons of the stuff in 2004, and worldwide consumption has more than doubled in just six years. To bottle and ship a year's worth of bottled water to the U.S., companies such as PepsiCo and Danone burn 1.5 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year. Almost 90 percent of the plastic bottles end up in landfills, where they can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. The study says that bottle water costs 10,000 more than tap water-and is often more expensive, per gallon, than gasoline.