One of the casualties of Global Warming will be the sale of bottled water. Here’s the skinny:

• America drank 37 billion bottles of water in 2005. Europe is probably as bad, but I don’t have figures.
• In America tap water is not only safe, but more thoroughly regulated than bottled water.
• It takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce plastic water bottles for Americans every year. (Food & Water Watch)
• Eliminate them all and you’ll reduce the human output of carbon dioxide by half a billion pounds per annum. (Food & Water Watch)
• Manufacturing each plastic bottle requires almost five times the volume of water it will contain. (Food & Water Watch)
• 86 percent of the non-biodegrdable bottles are thrown away rather than recycled. (Food & Water Watch)
• Tap water costs at least 1000 times less than bottled water.
• Water is shipped around the world to get to a supermarket near you, or to your local restaurant, sending even more tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Nevertheless I am likely to continue to request carbonated water in restaurants, because I like it. But, to be honest, I won’t mind if it’s carbonated tap water made on-site. I can’t help as regards bottled still water, because I’d always thought it was a rip-off.

There are now activists encouraging consumers to change their ways (if you want to know more follow this link). All of this is bad news for Nestlé, CocaCola and PepsiCo who, between them dominate the bottled water market in the USA.