Global warming fight turns to bottled water

SAN JOSE -- Drinking a bottle of water might seem innocent enough, but each bottle has a downside many people overlook -- a contribution to global warming.

That's because bottles create carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, when they are made, trucked to a store and disposed of in a landfill or recycled. Their impact can quickly add up.

"Bottled water is an energy-intensive luxury for Americans," said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, an environmental think tank in Oakland. "It's certainly much less necessary than the other things we use energy for."

Last year, Americans consumed 8.3 billion gallons of bottled water, or the equivalent of 27.6 gallons a person, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a New York-based market research firm. Just making the bottles to hold all the water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, the Pacific Institute calculates.

According to an analysis by the San Jose Mercury News, the energy required to manufacture a single plastic liter bottle, fill it with water from a spring in the Sierra Nevada, truck it to San Jose and then bury it in a landfill creates 0.23 pounds of carbon dioxide. That's about as much as an average car emits driving a quarter of a mile.

A liter bottle shipped from France and taken by rail across the United States creates more than twice as much carbon dioxide.

For the $11 billion bottled water industry, global warming has brought unwanted attention. Some cities are moving to restrict bottled water, and the industry is countering with efforts to become more environmentally friendly.

San Francisco made a widely publicized decision earlier this year to ban bottled water in city offices, and communities such as Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Ann Arbor, Mich., have taken steps to cut its use.

But bottled water is just one of thousands of bottled and canned food and beverage products that are produced and transported to supermarkets and convenience stores. Many of those other products have a greater climate impact than bottled water because they require more processing or farming.

With water, "you're choosing a bottle with the least environmental footprint," said Jane Lazgin, a spokeswoman at Nestle Waters North America, the nation's largest bottled water supplier.

Some bottled water companies have taken steps to turn their products green.

Fiji Water, which ships water from the South Pacific Island of Fiji, promised last month to offset the carbon dioxide its products generate by becoming carbon "negative." The company says starting in January it will buy carbon offsets for 120 percent of the emissions it creates. Carbon offsets allow people to mitigate their environmental impact by paying to plant trees or support renewable energy.

"This was the right time for this message," said Thomas Mooney, Fiji Water's senior vice president of sustainable growth.

Fiji isn't going to stop there. The company vows by 2010 to reduce its product packaging by 20 percent, which includes reducing the amount of plastic in each bottle. It also intends to get 50 percent of its energy for production from renewable sources.

The most obvious alternative to bottled water is tap water, though some experts recommend filtering. Most municipal water in the United States is carefully regulated and safe to drink. It's also less expensive. In San Jose, for example, tap water costs a third of a cent a gallon, compared with $6.80 a gallon for some bottled waters.

Still, municipal water often is tainted by public perceptions of being unhealthy and having a poor taste.

And it comes with its own carbon footprint. About half of San Jose's water comes from local sources, including ground wells, while the rest comes from Sierra Nevada snow melt that travels through canals, pumps, pipes and reservoirs to reach the city.

Cody Taylor, a consultant to energy adviser ICF International, estimates that tap water in Northern California generates about 0.004 pounds of carbon dioxide per liter when transportation, treatment and distribution are factored in.

A bottle of water trucked from the Sierra Nevada creates more than 50 times that amount.