Bottled water, brought to you by fracking?

The link between fracking and the bottled water industry is one more reason to take back the tap

The new Food & Water Watch report Take Back the Tap: The Big Business Hustle of Bottled Water details the deceit and trickery of the bottled water industry. Here’s one more angle to consider: The bottled water business is closely tied to fracking.

The report reveals that the majority of bottled water is municipal tap water, a common resource captured in plastic bottles and re-sold at an astonishing markup — as much as 2,000 times the price of tap, and even four times the price of gasoline. Besides being a rip-off, there is plenty more to loathe about the corporate water scam:

The environmental impacts from pumping groundwater (especially in drought-prone areas), the plastic junk fouling up our waterways and oceans, and the air pollution created as petrochemical plants manufacture the materials necessary for making those plastic bottles filled with overpriced tap water.

There is a growing international awareness that plastic is a serious problem. In 2016, about 4 billion pounds of plastic were used in the bottled water business, and most of those bottles are not recycled — meaning they often end up in landfills or as litter.

There’s also the matter of whether we should be putting […]

Full article: Bottled water, brought to you by fracking?

More about plastic and bottled water:

Study: People Who Only Drink Bottled Water Ingest 90,000 Microplastic Particles Per Year

What’s Best for Kids: Bottled Water or Fountains?

Microplastics found in more than 90% of bottled water, study says

Bottled water overtakes soda as America’s No. 1 drink — and you should avoid both

Drinking Tap Water Might Be Simplest Solution to Ocean Plastic Pollution

Public drinking fountains can reduce single-use plastic bottles’ use