A Restaurant Owner’s Take Back the Tap Guide to Serving Tap Water

A Restaurant Owner’s Take Back the Tap Guide to Serving Tap Water

Why Consumers Across The Country Are Breaking The Bottled Water Habit

In 2007, U.S. consumers wasted $12 billion on nearly 9 billion gallons of bottled water, in large part because advertising spin has led them to believe that water in a bottle is safer or better than tap water. It is not.

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Key Facts

• Most tap water is just as clean and safe as bottled water.
• The idea that all bottled water is pure is a marketing myth.
• Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into the water.
• About 86 percent of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States land in the garbage instead of being recycled.
  
  

Bottled Water Is Not Safer Than Tap Water

Truth is, tap water in the United States is just as safe as bottled water, and in many cases more so. The federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing and monitoring of municipal drinking water than bottled water. The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates tap water, requires that utility companies test municipal water hundreds of times per month, while the Food & Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water, requires only one water test per week by bottling companies.

Meanwhile, independent testing has found arsenic, microbes, toxic chemicals and other pollutants in various brands of bottled water. Many researchers believe that phthalates, which are chemicals used to soften plastic, can leach from plastic bottles into the water they contain. Phthalates and other substances used to make plastic have been linked to birth defects, cancer and developmental problems in humans.

Bottled Water Is Far More Expensive Than Tap Water

Although bottled water is not superior to tap water, it is far more expensive. On a per gallon basis, tap water costs about $0.002, while bottled water costs $0.89 to $8.26. Since as much as 40 percent of bottled water comes straight from the same water supplies as water from the tap, this amounts to paying up to 4,000 times more for the exact same product.

Bottled Water Causes Social And Environmental Problems That Tap Water Does Not

Bottled water causes many equity and environmental problems. Already, public water systems in the United States are facing challenges providing affordable water for their citizens. When beverage companies take water from municipal or underground sources and charge exorbitant prices for it, they are making profits off of water that local people need.

Meanwhile, the production and transportation of plastics takes a significant toll on the environment. U.S. plastic bottle production requires more than 17 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel 100,000 cars. The industrial processes emit toxic chemicals, while the transport adds more pollution and carbon emissions that contribute to global climate change. In the end, the 86 percent of the empty plastic bottles in the United States that are not recycled end up as mountains of plastic trash that will be sitting in landfills for years to come.

 Taking Back The Tap In Restaurants Across The Nation

Many restaurant owners have decided that selling bottled water just isn’t worth the extra profit.

Larry Mindel, whose restaurant Poggio in California serves only filtered tap water, shared his thoughts with the Associated Press:

“Even though he could charge diners double or triple what he pays for water, he said it gives him a ‘stab’ to pay so much–or charge others–for something that falls from the sky.”

And according to Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse in California, in the same news article: "We just decided this was something we had to do. It just makes sense to us to not have to use all the energy and resources to bottle water in Italy and then truck it to our restaurant and then after that deal with the recycling of it."

Restaurants in California aren’t the only ones laying off the bottled water. Fine dining establishments in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin; Boulder, Colorado; Memphis, Tennessee; Omaha, Nebraska; and Durango, Colorado are pledging not to serve bottled water as well.