Are you still hung up on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s post-State of the Union weird water flub? Well, Peter Gleick sure is. The author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water (and the underhanded liberatorof those climate-denying documents from the Heartland Institute) has been researching bottled water for years, and after Rubio’s odd moment with a bottle of Poland Spring, Gleick saw his chance to finally nail Poland Spring bottler Nestlé on where the water actually comes from.  

 

@petergleick.  About 1/3 Poland Spring comes from Poland Spring, Maine.

 

All spring sources are in Maine and meet a distinct character profile 

— News from Nestlé (@nestlemedia) February 19, 2013.  

 

A “distinct character profile” and not quite 1/3 legit? Sounds Rubio-appropriate. 

 

Mother Jones reports:  In researching the book, Gleick said he found that most of the companies that he talked to were cagey about their water sources. “They don’t like to advertise that fact, and there’s no legal requirement that they say on their label where the water comes from,” he says. As a result, despite spending $11 billion a year on bottled water, most Americans don’t know much about the origins of these beverages. 

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There are a few rules that bottled-water brands have to follow, however. In order to be called “spring water,” according to the EPA, a product has to be either “collected at the point where water flows naturally to the earth’s surface or from a borehole that taps into the underground source.” Unlike the term “spring water,” other terms like “glacier water” or “mountain water” aren’t regulated and “may not indicate that the water is necessarily from a pristine area,” according to the EPA.

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Gleick found that only about 55 percent of bottled waters are actual spring water. The other 45 percent of brands is mostly treated tap water. Aquafina, PepsiCo’s bottled water brand, and Dasani, which is Coke’s, are from municipal sources. …

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The murky facts around bottled-water sources prompted the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to survey the industry’s overall transparency and disclosure and issue a report card. Researchers found that 18 percent of bottled-water brands give zero information about where they come from. Thirty-two percent of the 173 bottled-water brands failed to disclose information about their treatment procedures or water purity on the label.

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In 2012, according to Gleick, Americans drank more bottled water than in any year before. Sure, you can make a lot of cool stuff out of all the detritus ( It typically includes the bodies or fragments of dead organisms as well as fecal material), resulting from our bottled-water culture, but let’s just stick with the Nalgene, (Nalgene is a brand of plastic products developed originally for laboratory use, that’s shatterproof and lighter than glass) OK? Oh god but please, please wash it once in a while.

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And Plastic Bottles Are Made of…….

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There is ongoing concern as to the use of plastics in consumer food packaging solutions, environmental impact of the disposal of these products, as well as concerns regarding consumer safety. Karin Michaels, Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, suggests that toxins leaching from plastics might be related to disorders such as infertility and cancer in humans.

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In the United States, plastic water bottles are regulated by the FDA which also inspects and samples bottled water plants periodically. Plastic water bottle plants hold a low priority for inspection due to a continuously good safety record.

 

In the past, the FDA maintained that there was a lack of human data showing plastics pose health problems, however in January 2010, the FDA reversed its opinion saying they now have concerns about health risks.

 

An article published on November 6, 2017 in Water Research reported on the content of microplastics in mineral waters packed in plastic or glass bottles, or beverage cartons.[13] In 2018, research conducted by Sherri Mason from the State University of New York in Fredonia revealed the presence of polypropylene, polystyrene, nylon and polyethylene terephthalate microparticles in plastic bottles. Polypropylene was hereby found to be the most common polymeric material (54%) and nylon the second most abundant (16%) polymeric material.

 

The study also mentioned that polypropylene and polyethylene are polymers that are often used to make plastic bottle caps. Also, 4% of retrieved plastic particles were found to have signatures of industrial lubricants coating the polymer. The research was reviewed by Andrew Mayes of the University of East Anglia (UEA) School of Chemistry.

 

The European Food Safety Authority suggested most microplastics are excreted by the body, however the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned that it is possible that the smallest particles (< 1.5 μm) could enter the bloodstream and organs, via the intestinal wall.

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To learn more about how safe your bottle is review articles on “how plastics are made”.

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Providers Comment:

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It has been found that glass containers or stainless steel are the best containers to use.  There are no harmful poisonous substances leaching into one's water from these types of containers.  

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However, the first thing one should consider doing is "cleaning up their drinking water" by first neutralizing the primary cleaning agent - Chlorine.

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Learn how to transform your bottle water into clean, alkaline, mineral-rich drinking water by simply adding an all natural marine mineral complex.

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Website:  www.XOOMA.com/OHW

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