Very Expensive Water

The next time you reach for a bottle of water instead of filling a glass out of the tap you might think a moment about this:

April 6, 2009 — $1.79 might seem like a small price to pay for a bottle of water. But it costs the Earth far more than that.

Compared to a liter of tap water, producing a liter of bottled water requires as much as 2,000 times more energy, according to the first analysis of its kind. The study also found that our nation’s bottled water habit sucked up the equivalent of 32 to 54 million barrels of oil last year.

“The bottom line is that we should understand better the implications of our choices,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, Calif. “It suggests more ways to reduce energy use than maybe we otherwise think of.”

h/t Susie