The Water Crisis – The Freshwater Irony, Water as a Commodity, Bottled Water shouldn’t be an option in North America!
Earth is made up of 97% Saltwater and 3% Freshwater. This limited supply of freshwater is what is left of the glaciers, atmosphere, lakes, rivers, streams, groundwater, aquifers aka “sweet”water as opposed to salt. Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of freshwater on Earth, other than the Canadian Great Lakes and Lake Baikal in Russia.
Between 2002 and 2007, world consumption of bottled water jumped by 7.6 per cent per year, from 130.95 billion litres to 188.8 billion litres. The United States consumes the most bottled water on the planet (33.4 billion litres) while residents of the United Arab Emirates consume the most bottled water per capita (259.7 litres per person per year).
In Canada, bottled water consumption was estimated at 24.4 litres per person in 1999. By 2005, that had increased to about 60 litres per person, with sales worth $652.7 million.
The irony behind such bottled water brands as Fiji is that the marketing material and labels advertise artisan water taken straight from the mountains of Fiji. However, the truth behind it is that the locals and inhabitants of Fiji themselves do not have access to clean and freshwater for their own daily use or consumption. Meanwhile Fiji water that is purchased in the US is bottled at $4-$6 for a litre of the branded bottled water. This excessive amount of bottled water consumption by US and Canada have grave consequences for the environment when it comes to the production and then discarding of the billions of plastic water bottles, not to mention the health consequences of synthetic substances and chemicals used in the plastic that could be detrimental to one’s health over the accumulation of time.
The biggest irony of all is that US and Canada are two such nations that do not need to rely on bottled water for their daily use, consumption and access to clean drinking water, since they have “local”and regional access to the Canadian Great Lakes, 3 major oceans that surround the continent and the numerous glaciers from the Rockies. The infrastructure of irrigation, water filtration systems, reservoirs and more are in place that are necessary to sustain the entire Americas continent. That said, US are the biggest consumers of bottled water – meanwhile on the other side of the “pond”are the European cousins, namely the Western European countries on the main continent that are forced to have bottled water since there is a lack of or no easy access to regional filtration or drinking systems for the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.
If you want to get involved and do your part for the planet, please visit the RBC Blue Water Project to get in the loop on freshwater preservation initiatives in your area. Visit http://bluewater.rbc.com