This week on Flightless Bird, David sets out to understand America’s obsession with bottled water. Joined by Monica, he tries to figure out why tap water just won’t cut it in many US States, leading Americans to spend billions on bottled water every year. David talks to author and scientist Peter Gleick about tap water myths, and how some bottled water companies have accidentally added things like arsenic and cricket parts to their bottled creations. We discover why a new sports stadium purposefully didn’t install enough public water fountains and get to the bottom of whether carcinogenic chemicals leech from plastic bottles creating a deathtrap.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
I'm David Faria and you zealand to who wins it out accidentally marooned in america, and I want to grasp what makes this country tick know ever since I got here. I can't stop thinking about america's obsession with bottled water.
time I go to get groceries. I can guarantee I'll see someone struggling with a mess of crazy design, middle aged mother of four throwing leashes of the stuff into the back of their suv. Like that prepping for the apocalypse you get to a hotel,
I opened the fridge and there they are bottles and bottles of branded water. Since
Harry. I first arrived in the nineteen seventies. Bottled water continues to sort a new heights and american guzzles back about forty five gallons of the staff. Every year, it's the most popular american beverage and its big business. Every year the two biggest brands generate more than a billion dollars each land of the free
No, this is the land of expensive bottled water, and I want to understand why everyone is paying five dollars for something. This literally free from the tat so gathers patch lips, ready to take a great big sip of age. To all this is the bottled water at the served.
Your other countries not have a lot of bottled water. So, to be clear, I thought
The facts on the ground I do know is that, yes, obviously other countries do have bottled water here, new zealand has bottled water, but the something about america that the sole much of it it's everywhere and I think what's different- is that it's the preferred option, whereas in new zealand, tat border is really a very
but option. Here it's everything I ain't, you got a meeting and let you given a little bottled water only was fridges and this so many different kinds of bottled water, and it's just really expensive here, as well as the air. What is your drinking preference when it comes to hide rating us off? What are you doing? I love bottled water. I'm really
de hydrated right now or will the towel? Where is she did some water? Rail has never p. I don't like drinking water, especially when it's coming out of the tap is boring as well as on them is boring. It so boring, but mainly there's a mental block. This is a weird episode for me because I'm, like god, I'm this person. If there is a flat of water in my kitchen, all go through it, so quick I'll, be so hydrated that weak and sense of come here. I have started to do this as well. Sir, I've got obsessed with stupid those kinds of look
roy or whatever it is once you start drinking like a slight flavored, fizzy water you'll. Never you don't want to go back to the flat stuff, but that annoys me cause. I look in the recycling bin and I've just got cannes up to the top of the bin. Well, exactly it's really bad knock him as much.
the plastic bottle water is not great, I feel really guilty when I'm drinking
As I said, I'm here to guilt trip you this entire episode. That's fine, I feel guilty, but I do prefer it and I do drink it faster and what you're saying is for your health. You feel more hydrated, that's wrong when you have bottled water and he I do. I went and talked to a bunch of people that I met about their relationship with bottled water and a very
I've noticed people here really into bottled water,
It is cleaner and it's better- and I think, sometimes it's more accessible to some folks that may have problems in the water stream, not all bottled waters. The same
Some of them have high ph levels and such like that, and would you ever drink tap water in the
that or does it depend like where you are in america
It depends where you are, but I have a drink tap.
Since I was a kid
a lot of bottled water now I've a hydra, flask and fill it up? I think tat. What is just fine-
see the bottled water obsession. I don't fall into that category. I guess I
I, a restaurant american seem incredibly obsessed with bottled water.
I'm guessing from your accent. You haven't lived here forever, so maybe you also find that as unusual as I do actually know that's funny. Neither is your what really I come from
the alps. I come from like it on re, mixed regional- and you know this
like the french paradox of cheese and fat and and bitwise skinny
I think it's in the water. That's why I need you to work on that and I know it's day, but it's really bad. Yes, I'm against.
I was, I save water for sure, but just like a mindset, people are nervous about drinking water
tat. Even I have a hesitation like I buy a british fills, but my roommate remain a string from the tap
and I know I'm like okay she's been fine, but for me I want lead, poisoning or something I grew up on.
While water, just straight up like from underground our house was a new york boondocks through five shadow.
we had our own water.
to make sure when I wash my hair. It takes like twenty minutes. Black girl magic,
so lot of different attitudes to bottled water, some positive, some negative people and all over the place. I watch these skin care videos. Some people like will only wash their face.
God hold water, not me, I'm not there at a ball, but there is a weird stigma about the cleanliness and I guess you had the lead poisoning.
yeah, I don't know I feel like the water. He had definitely has a certain taste in it. I cited reconsidering drinking american tat border because I came over here years and years and years ago to cover this video games, exposure for new zealand, because I'm a big nerd, an ice
stayed at the cecil hotel. Now did not I
well you didn't. I you. I did because I'm looking for museums and I needed to find some way cheap, because I had a certain budget flights were most of the cost, so is trying to find a cheap hotel near the staple centre, which is nearly three one sided.
The reason I guess that you're reacting so strongly to the mention of the six hundred tell is that everyone has a say so close down now. I think it's maybe that turning into apartments, but it's the hotel, where a woman basically was singing acting very disorientated in the hotel card was in the lyft. She said it disappeared and then eventually they found her body in the big water tank on the top of the hotel
and that water was going down to all the showers and all the taps and the entire hotel. Her body was undiscovered for weeks.
so she was in there literally decomposing yeah. That's pretty much the worst thing. Anyone could. Experience is drinking water that someone has
composed they're here well about that. I checked in and I knew it wasn't. A great vibe emily
like, as this doesn't feel great, but hey
what can I do? I am shocked to my core that you are one of these people that went to that hotel where there's dead people
all in this sew tank. I didn't know about this cause. It hadn't had been a thing mrs years ago, this is before the girl was in the tank. Well
No because the issue was you were at time. Yes, sir, at that,
time I was unaware, but I checked in, and it was a pretty bad room like it wasn't great, but I did what I always do in america and I drank water from the tap because I didn't know
There was any other option and why wouldn't you answer it didn't take great, but it was clear and it was fine and then he is late. I checked the dates when I was there
This is not real. No and no forgive me, but I forget,
the woman's name who is in the tank decomposing at the time
am and yeah I drank when you drank her wow. There is a very popular documentary on netflix about the cecil hotel I watched with my parents. There is a big moment in the documentary where these people are talking about how they brush their teeth, but the water- and it's definitely surreal. It is it's the most intense moment of the whole documentary and my dad was like I only
drink bottled water like he was so proud of himself for only consuming bottled water was like the ultimate justification for anyone explain why they spend five dollars on this thing. It's ridiculous because it sounds made up, but it happened, and that is when I started to think. Maybe tap water is not great, and maybe
I should think about and at least consider bottled water when I'm in the united states did you panic.
You read that later. So I clock this. When the documentary came out on netflix
It was like wow yeah. I stayed at the cecil and yeah. That is when that thing happened, and I think
very early days because the what it did taste- ok, I'll, hang, but as always on this package, I decided to go and talk
someone that knows way more than me about this topic and attempt to learn about america's bottled water obsession.
To be very clear, beckoned easy. When we act in the dark ages, we have the internet, mobile phones and yes, we ve got bottled water, so unscrew the cap and quench your first.
New zealand, deep waters borders
artesian water.
What we have bottled water. We also have tap water tap water that we actually quite like drinking will gladly
allow bladders to the brim with the stuff when guest.
I'm over. We throw it into a picture at a slice of lemon and no one blinks an eye
Being here in america has been a bit of a shock, hundreds of tat
Any bottles of water thrust into my hand at every turn, recycling bins full of care
ends and bottles and glass, all in the name of staying hydrated.
Not all water is created equal. There are over three hundred and twenty six million trillion gallons of water on earth.
but only one billionth. The one percent is filtered naturally beneath the earth, with a distinct balance of minerals and emerges, crisp and refreshing enough to be called deer park. Deer park
hundred percent natural spring water borne better. I'm almost
into it now, but the other day it'll snap back into focus. I was at a
When thirsty man, I ventured into the lobby in search of a water, fountain,
and I realized I had more chance of finding a critically endangered black rhinoceros than a free trickle of water,
and so I went and paid about eight dollars for a bottle and my angst about bottled water all rushed back. I can't exactly say that I fully understand some of the strange things that happen in this country, but I'm happy golfer, my
that's what I'm talking to scientists Peter click he cofounded, the pacific institute in oakland, he's a brain box when it comes to water and how we use it
He was elected to the. U s national academy of sciences and four years ago was awarded. The Carl Sagan prize has about eighty thousand
follow us on twitter, so I guess he's an influencer as well,
go on and on about this man, but his main thing:
main passion its water,
So I'm an environmental scientist by training. I did a lot of the early work on the impacts of climate change on water resources. Excuse the pan, but I've been bottling
my thoughts on water coming true,
if it in here choosing not to pick fights over something as simple as water, but with Peter, I feel,
I can finally unleash my watery angst in new zealand. We just go to the tap and drink tap water pretty happily, ever since I've been in america what I've found so puzzling and strange as you go to anybody's fridge and it's just lined with different types of balls.
Water. I mean. Do you find it unusual yourself, or is that just me, being you here tremendously
although I would notice
Absolutely not universal. Most people still drink tap water, but
there is this growing, both concern about tap water and power.
El too, that a growing sense we oughta be spending
money buying bottled water to drink I drink
What I've always drunk tap water here k that makes me feel this strange tap water- I guess where I
m is unbelievably good. It's just great quality.
And I think that's true in many parts of the country, so just to interrupt
I haven't heard many people talking this way before and it's nice to hear because options
Equally drinking unfiltered tat water as much as possible. Since I got here, I've been doing it secretly. Right government is dirty cave, but according to tap safe door,
the alley department of water in power since the citys tat borders so clean its, and I quote: bottled water quality
hundred and sixty billion gallons of the stuff.
surpassing all drinking water standards for cleanliness, health and safety
It must analyse the taste of the tap water is a little bit different. Some people don't like it, but the quality,
If a water actually is very good at it, so get a filter or something, of course being in amerika. I guess you have also got other options you haven't called to have pure great tastings package, wanted to leave it to you, I'm unless feelers and I drink tat, border and people. Look at me. Strangely, when I do like it's kind of like a shock, and so my sight socially nigh, feel self conscious, but is it find that I'm drinking tat body here by that's just a very selfish primary question is fine?
so the united states, like most developed countries, has very strict standards for the quality of your tap water standards that are regulated under what we call the safe drinking water act. A law passed many years ago during the height of the environmental movement in the nineteen seventies, it's regulated by the PA and you
well, it required to test their tap water regularly and to make sure that it meets standards very good standards. That's a comfort to me
I'm aware of that, I'm not sure many people are aware of that
but in general, with exceptions and
His exceptions can be shocking, like in flint michigan, where the community
Poison for years and years, officials aware
doing absolutely nothing about it until they got cold out
former governor of Michigan is one of several people have been told they will face charges in the flint water scandal, republican rick, Snyder,
in charge when flints water supply became dangerously undrinkable. Is it stories like flint that color the rest of the country and make everybody in amerika think tat border is just too dangerous to go near? Yes, not salutes the highly publicized failures of our municipal tap water systems, there
helps a road trust in our tap water and those failures. The result of a lot of different things we have under invested in infrastructure all across the board: water, electricity, transportation, all sorts of things, but with flint michigan,
the water that the utility was putting into the pipes at the top of the system after they treated it was very high quality water. The problem was with old legacy pipes between the street and the home, basically, where some
old infrastructure in homes still had old, lead pipes and the water that was coming from
clean municipal system into the taps, got contaminated by
land and that's a problem with old legacy infrastructure. We should have got rid of lead pipes in this country years ago, but we haven't done that. Is there a simple way here? We you can test the tap water in your own home. If you are paranoid about all
eighty pipes, so yes or no there are at home test. You can do for live lettuce,
bad here, what you don't want letting in the water, but there are hundreds of different chemical
is that a regulated by law that the water utility has to meet certain standards on and testing those at home is not plausible. The trouble with stories like flint is that as well as
will being poisoned by lead and other contaminants. It creates this widespread fear
you're around tap water and that's hard to get back building trust in your tap water.
Is much harder than losing trust in your tap water system. It's easy to lose trust it's hard to build it again,
and it's that uncertainty and paranoia around champ water. That's part of the answer to the mystery I'm trying to solve looking at bottled water, wind that become a thing here. I assume it didn't happen overnight. So it happens slowly over very long period of time and then fast we ve always had borrowed
waters in the eighteen hundreds, there were famous bottled waters that were bottling water from some of these natural springs that claimed they had health benefits
perry. I am all the european spas where people would go for their health events
bottled water and sold bottled waters, but those were sort of a different thing in the united states.
really starting in the nineteen seventies. Perrier pushed very hard to sell it sparkling water.
deep below the plains of southern france in a mysterious process began millions of years ago, nature herself and survive to the icy waters of a single spring. The natural sparkle is more delicate than any made by man and therefore more quenching,
refreshing and a mix of excellence in the center of the ok so
add from nineteen, seventy nine was voiced by orson Welles yeah,
the guy who narrated the war of the worlds in nineteen thirty ice accident
and he many americans think an actual alien invasion was taking place. That guy also did one of the very first period. Commercials
The brand wasn't there to fuck around
varicella american stuff they could get for free, and then
really in the nineteen nineties and thousands coincident
growing concern about tap water and a massive advertising campaign on the part of these private companies that really started to accelerate the trend to bottled water and we sort of had an exponential curve of increase,
in the demand for bottled water he's is not exaggerating in america.
World water industry was worth eighteen point: five billion dollars in twenty seventeen americans guzzled thirteen point,
seven billion gallons of this stuff. I can't really
Anything logical to compare that number two, but
same volume is about nine million adult elephants as a story.
by journalists shown chavez, pointed out bottled water overtook, sir,
Twitter is America's favorite drink. It's enough to make you get out your pamphlet at a spring cold barrier. To me, it's an amazing scam to run because I can understand like selling people coca cola. It's like you make this product. I can't have that at home. It tastes amazing. Whatever you think coke tastes, like literally selling people, something you can get out of the tap for quite a price. At times, it's an incredible gift to me. It is it plays on people's fears, the early advertising of the bottled water companies.
Directly attack tap water said you should be afraid of your tap water back. That's my neighbour next or got a flyer in the manner which he gave to me, which said you don't know. What's in your water and had a picture of a gold fish swimming around a glass, you know like that's a problem and it is
offering bottled water of monthly delivery of bottled water. There is someone
credible examples of extreme advertising by bottled water companies, one
in Texas simply stated tap. Water is poison the present
I another bottled water company was quoted as saying when we're done,
what it will be relegated to showers and washing dishes. It's not the most subtle stuff. The big companies have backed off a little bit from that they'd been warned. They shouldn't
tap water directly and now they use the more traditional methods of this bottled. Water is gonna, make you healthier or or sexier, or more popular hi, I'm jan andersson, and I'm here to talk to you about
smartwater. I guess it's up to us. What kind of water we choose to drink which
easier said than done because sometimes
I feel like I don't really have the choice. I was out at dinner with someone I got off it. Do you want tat or sparkling or still look? I wanted tat. I'm sheet, I'm happy to have tat water because I had someone there with me. I felt so conscious about saying tat, so I win
sparkling and paid a lot for it right and I imagine a lot of people are in that position all the time yeah. So that's a thing. That's actually an important thing to. First of all, restaurants make a lot of money on beverages. So that's fine. People have preferences, but sometimes when you say I want still
they'll bring you some commercial non gashes water and there still selling you water is. They have got to say, tat, bays and embarrassed yourself in front of everyone for vagueness tat, jerry,
if I'm with somebody who I don't know what their preferences I say, but what would you like? They can say something different, that's, okay, those are preferences and those are social,
thanks, but I dont feel embarrassing. I want tap water yet thank you for having my back on that and that's not feel slightly more say. The truth is that they may be embarrassed ass for tat one or two and maybe completely relieved when you do this shame you feel shame gear. You get your so judge because I deliver their lights is big question. It is
I always say still, please I'm kidding I'm kidding, I actually. I normally go with tap the restaurant okay. This is interesting. I didn't expect this from you. Actually, I'm going to give you a line. Reading, okay, okay, so you're at dinner dinner got a really nice dinner for dinner a date you really want to impress okay and the waiter comes up and says tap still or sparkling, I'm panicking.
And we prepare my specie of it's a surprise to me, a sort of look over and then I'll be okay, hoped I'd, love the sparkling to the sparkling cause. I feel, if I choose still, then I'm annoyed, because it's just essentially as tap water, at least. If I get the sparkling as something of a,
special is like a little trait okay, but here's the thing, I'm annoyed for the rest of the time that I didn't just get.
you're not present on your date. I think you can say I'm good with tapir, let's whatever you want, but doesn't that create weird pressure for them, because you have already put down the gauntlet, I'm tapping it up and then it makes them feel bad. If a true something, I don't think so, because maybe they're also afraid to say tap and you coming to lead the way you gotta say like I,
I'm fine with tat, but I am also great with still or sparkling whatever you put wiser. Why? But americans judge me so much what I drink tat border from like a hotel, yeah
I'll never did so. That's the judge, I'm feeling from my date when I'm like tat, please at a restaurant, I'm thinking there
Looking at me and being like that, is such a disgusting man sitting across from me. I think most americans are fine with tap at restaurants. I'll do tap to, but ok, not at home. This is great to know, I think the difference between tap
at restaurants, and this is american vanity for you. They put it in a beautiful bottle. Yup they bring it out to you, put two beautiful glasses in front of you pour it. It doesn't remind you that,
they're, just just as floating the metal, far say dear. You don't even think that it almost appears to you like bottled.
Honor, you can play and that's all it is that's the sort of the main thing I took away from that little documentary was that a lot of bottled water. It is just tap water, you with some of the good stuff,
actually fills it out and removed, which is very funny to me simultaneously. I can be a worse deal than what you would get otherwise stay
june for more flight. This work will be right back after a word from mouth sponsors fight. This bird is brought you by ethnic greens. It's a product that I use, because I'm terrible, as I've said many times at having anything. How think, as I just love eating sugar so good way to get the stuff I want
need is to have a g when I was so excited the other day, because I was in two macular on a vacation and we endorse
and so I was feeling like really sluggish, and then I found a pack
two hundred and eighty one, and I just
in some water it tasted so good. I felt so recharged after it s, because it contains seventy five
I call it a vitamin minerals, whole food source, super foods, probiotics and adapting the special brain of ingredients supports your god.
Of your nervous system, european system, your energy recovery focus and aging right now, it's time to reclaim
for health and army are immune system with convenient daily nutrition. It's just one scoop and a cup of water everyday. That's it no need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health to make it easy athletic rains is gonna. Give you a free one year's supply of amused, supporting vitamin d and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens, dot com, slash flightless again, that is at least a green dot com, slash flightless, to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance me flightless bird
put it by a bit help which is here to help your mental health, which is probably one of the most important things we have bad mental health. Everything else kind of falls down around you. I have been noting that I've been having a little bit higher anxiety than normal
hmm, and I talked to my therapist about it. It's just so helpful to talk to a third party and not my friends and be like I'm feeling weird like nobody wants to hear that, but my therapist loves to hear it yeah, that's a thing! Wait until you do therapy, you don't really understand how helpful it is. Yes and new zealand. We have therapy I'm very rapidly coming round from that very old fashioned idea. I mean look: how well would you take care of your car if you had
keep the same one, your entire life. It's a bit like how a brain works, so why treat them that way? You've got to
it make sure things are running smoothly. There are plenty ways to support a healthy brain learning, a language or taking power. Naps there's also bid help online therapy. Better help is online therapy that offers video phone and even live chat only therapy session. So you don't even have to see anyone on camera
If you don't want to it's much more affordable than in person therapy and you can be matched with a therapist in under forty eight hours, our listeners get ten percent off their first month at better health dot com, slash bird, that's better h, e l, p, dot com, slash
anyway. Back
the little documentary made when we left off. I was talking to Peter about what happens when a city is found to have terrible tap water and how that lines up with responsibilities of what bottled water companies.
deal with this. Also the convenience of it all borrowed
auto, made things easy, a little thing you could grab and take with you and people
he there, because during the nineties and two thousands there was less public water available know. I grew up in new york city we'd go to central park and they're one hundred water founds in central park. Everybody drank water from the water fountains. Today those water fountains they're, not that well maintained
They were hard to find so convenience was an argument. Health safety was an argument. Those were all weaponry of private bottled water companies when a city has bad help water.
They required by law to warn the public. They do a test they test many times a day. If there's a problem, they have to tell the public, but
bottled water is regulated not by the pierre, a publication ce required to protect tap water, but by the f D, a which regulates food products, the food and drug administration, because bottled water is considered a food product. It's packaged the sta does not do monitor
of all the bottled water companies, the bottom water companies do their own testing and far less frequently, I would know then urban water agents.
His text peter, is unjust. Wildly speculating here. He investigated this because when there's a pub
water crisis like in Michigan. You hear about it and rightfully so, but when a private
the company screws up. I can very easily fly under the radar, so like a little gopher painted again, I actually fired freedom of information act of after yea to try and get some information about how often the bottled water company tests
problematic and it turns out there were recalls of bottled water that were not told to the public. I got more than one hundred of examples where
Things were found in bali work. Some of them failed on a count of arsenic particles, found bacteria found glass and plastic pieces found. My favorite was a bottled water company in Texas sent out thousands of gallons to companies, and I had a recall because somebody found cricket parts in the bottled water. It's and that's a story that we don't know about right as it doesn't have to be public kill. You reported no that's right, these recalls, or sometimes but
always posted on the FDA website, but they're almost never reported in the media now crickets and ass neck out rare and those kind of prob.
Found in the more nation, smaller brands, the coca cola this
Girls have more money and monitor things more closely, avoiding cricket body parts as much as possible. It's bad pr!
but all this talk of contamination reminded me of that. Other thing you always hear about bottled water that it gives you cancer mike when she
well crow went on. The Ellen show and claimed her. Breast cancer was caused by bottled water she'd left in a hot car. The carcinogenic chemicals from the plastic bottle leaching into the water. There are lots of different kinds of plastics, the most common kind of plastic used to sell bottled water, his p t, polyethylene, terephthalate and so far as we know, pete. He does not leach chemicals into the water or into the food products that might be stored in pt at a remarkably stable kind of plastic, but bottled water is
times bottles and other kinds of plastics and some plastics two weeks. So you have to be careful. So in general I would not leave a plastic bottle filled with water in a hot sun for a long time and then drink it. Although I don't worry about that much of course, I don't drink bottled water. Much now, pod
the reason Peter doesn't drink much bottled water is because of the plastic, but is not out of fear of bleaching or cancer it
Is it the existence of the plastic in the first place? The plastic story is an important part of the bottled water story. One of the things that really really helped push bottled water was when it didn't have to be packaged in glass, glasses, heavy, it's expensive, it is recyclable, p, t polyethylene terephthalate, it's an incredibly good plastic, it's clear! It's strong, it doesn't impart a taste, it doesn't leach into food products.
and when p d became cheap and affordable the beverage companies realised this was a way to get away from heavy expensive glass and they started bottling all beverages, soft rings for drinks, bottled water in p tee and that from a cost point, was very attractive for the companies.
It really help the industry, but the bottled water industry is a small fraction of the total plastic market, but it's an unnecessary fraction because p t is recycleable, as the bottled water industry likes to tell us one hundred per cent recycled.
But that's not the same as recycled, and a very small fraction of those plastic bottles are recycled,
Okay, a little deviation here and a bit of a,
talking shaka, but a lot of that
think you interest cycling, bins to make you feel better about using so much plastic. It's not recycles
the whole idea of recycling is pat, miss sochi by companies that put things
in plastic bottles say you feel guilt free about continuing to use all that plastic. That's right! A small fraction of the plastic bottles and bottled water are ever recycled and a small fraction of the plastics that's actually given to recycle is actually recycled. Why the fuck is that that seems crazy to me. It's because we don't require it
because we don't set up a market for it, because we don't insist that bottled water companies or beverage companies in general. You
recycled plastic in their bottles, so they all make
ass, the bottles out of what we call a virgin plastic, which comes from petroleum if we required that plastic bottles include twenty five percent or fifty percent or a hundred per cent,
I cycled plastic. Then there would be a market and there would be a system set up and we would want to collect it and the bottled water companies would help collect it. That would be a an important solution, but we've never done that. The irony in all this, as well as I imagine some of the countries that could do with bottled water that is cleaner than what's available publicly, don't have it as that affair, coal, whereas in america we have everything on tap, but we don't choose attacked. We choose the bottled water. That's a really important point. I've been talking about, the united states are developed countries in general. One of the worst aspects of what I describe as the global water crisis is that it's the twenty first century. We have failed to provide safe drinking water to everyone on the planet. There are eight hundred million people that don't have the tap water that we have in the region.
countries of the world. For them there are alternative his drinking contaminated water and getting sick, which they do by the millions or spending money that they dont have four bottled water, the long term and civic countries
out. Safe drinking water is not expensive. Bottled water that safe tap water like what largely exists here in america.
And remember a study from four years ago found private water companies get sixty four percent of the water they sell to you from tap water. That's
likely had a lot of the good stuff. Minerals like calcium and magnesium removed
So, in summary, I guess america is land of the free home of the brave and home to Jai
reservoirs of clean glistening. Free water does a lot of things to complain about this, a lot of things to fix, but I'll water supply here is kind of great. It's kind of great exceptions. Those exception should be fixed
I have been obstacles. The trumpet ministration attempted to repeal the federal, clean water role, but Peter says this good news to invite in recent infrastructure bowe that past
this is about fifty five billion dollars nationwide for water related spending. That includes fifteen
we to try and get lead out of drinking water to replace those
Is he lead pipes, that's about half of what it will cost to do the job but pay it's a good stat, of course, the bottled water industry.
Will fight kicking and screaming to stay because it's worth billions of dollars? They built a a big stadium football stadium in a big university in florida. One thing: forty five thousand fans won't see water fountains state building codes require water.
large venues, so why aren't they there for the stadium design was approved? It was up to our coasts are applicable at that time, and those courts do not call for drink, sounds at all.
Under two thousand and one code. Bottled water can take the place of drinking fountains. That's what you cf will do on saturday in the first game that they played was one hundred degrees out, and there were forty thousand people in the stadium
am and it turned out, they ran out of bottled water at the concession stands and a lot of people went to the hospital with heat stroke more than a dozen people wanted a hospital with heat related problems. But today you see I've decided, it will add water fountains, the university's new game plan,
It keep it's fans hydrated. There was a stunning example of the fact that we're taking water for granted. So what is the future?
or have bottled water here in the united states. The very first thing we have to be doing is investing in our tap water system. One hundred years ago, we built the first really great municipal water systems. We got rid of cholera, dysentery, typhoid in the united states when we learned how to provide safe water to everyone, but we haven't invested in them and we need to update them. We need to upgrade them. We need to make sure that they're really taking out all the contaminants that we know how to take out. We need
publicly expand trust and rebuild trust in that system. At the same time, we need to better regulate the bottled water industry. We need to expand testing of bottled water. We need to require recycling of a hundred per cent of plastic bottles and not raise the cost of bottled water, which deserves to be raised tall ready, a thousand times more expensive than tap water, which people don't understand, but we need to make out of water a specialty item not a day to day. Item
a luxury, not accommodate good? We are very swayed by
marketing- oh you as fish. I learn very little about like healthy and wonderful land. It makes you smarter now, water, it's called smart waters. What must make you? I wrote down some matters that come from
what I do. I quite light can't live without. It is quite good fire from pollution. Far from acid rain from industrial waste quite dramatic, I haven't I'm sick, smarter, live longer.
Pleasure within you, oh wow, that quite like that was- and I really like you lanes inside beautiful, outside cleanse inside
That's also sexual to all. My, but with a swat water thing does
have your brain go. This is going to make me smarter now, but really it's packaging. It's the label! It's the label, it's the packaging, it's the nice little spout it has at the top. It has a spout, makes it easy to drink and it
ills, clean there's just something about it, even though I know logically, that's wrong. I think we do that a lot right like we cut
prolonging were away.
I mean that's why the advertising cuts through. So I like it cuts or a logic straight away. We know about those plastics now it just goes up on the days website and light who is logging on air and looking about these little recalls that are going on. But then flan too is a national catastrophe as it is, but you know that sticks in the mind again like you set, took a while for that to come out like it took some digging for that to actually be revealed in full to actually be pushed back on, that it takes time, there's other out stories and out headlines about contaminated water sources and the fact that some of them have they call them, might forever chemicals that are in there. He had some pretty bad pollution going on, which again house about water companies with their clean, pure marketing, live
yeah. Well, I guess it's conveniences well row you can just like have this bottle with you and us with you for the day with, even when the bottles that you buy like the hydro flat and things like that they sell that as well. You can just fill your water in the morning and have it with you all day to know the first thing
that's still inconvenient in the morning. You have to pour it in and then you have klees have to clean it. Just cuz, there's water
That doesn't mean you don't have to clean up. Your mouth is on it. I think it's a great solution, but they can't say it's just as convenient his bottle. What has not been in saying that we also giving sir incredibly lazy
times as well like it is, I feel it as well as I open up my societies and like my lacroix, and all that it's like our laziness. Liberals have gotten to a hollow sign, sometimes yeah yeah. I dunno, I feel like the most dangerous water albania is. I was in kazakhstan for a show. I did and I swam in a radioactive lake, it had been generated from an atomic bomb blast and I swam in that- and I like, if I can survive that I feel like I can survive the sizzle water. I can survive tap water here
my everything will be fine of you know. Did you have this in america, where fluoride was a big discussion having fluoride, yes, conspiracy, theorists, love, diving on that, as it being like government, mind control situation. I had fluoride tablets because we didn't have fluoride added to our water, new zealand. You needed it. I had little to well. I dunno. If you do, I mean my parents like this, will make your teeth stronger, like it'll help, your bones will write like at the dentist. You would do fluoride treatments yeah and you could pick the flavor. There was always marshmallow. I would pick marshmallow
but you had to be a certain age run, get it and then you are done. Will you write down at some point, but what's the deal with it in the water they used to edit the water thing at some point
it's to make people's teeth stretchy stronger yeah. It was like a bow like a bone structure thing. Is it the government's job to prevent people from having cavities? This is a new question. I'm opening up says it's usually too low to prevent it, though
right, okay, they're, giving like a little bit of help. It's so funny, though, isn't it amazing, kids. His teeth are rotting from like she'll drinking too much sugar. He soft drink and a lot of those company.
The making of bottled water, yeah he's wow at sight, this big in the loop. The recycling thing, also surprised me as well. National geographic to the study, ninety or ninety one percent of plastic doesn't get recycled that you put out for a cycling shocking. I mean that's. The main problem is just all this past
that were just like throwing into landfills and think that Chinese to take a lot of america's past six and it's refusing now we're trying to get into other countries like a lot of it's, not even a cycled. Here, it's a real issue and it just ends up being like chucked into landfill, which is pretty bad yeah. But then I I do think the bottled water companies are just sting.
We have boxed water witches,
doing outfits to try to adjust for the plastic but still keep it can be.
and still keep the clean yeah? It's man were gullible also canned water called the liquid death and all that marketing is really great because it looks like beer cans
it's all right, so is it like you can kind of fit in at a party drinking. Your water is the idea, but it can get you into trouble because people can get pulled over if a cop sees what looks like a
all boy. I didn't realize how aggressive the police here are against having open my,
inherit your car cars in new zealand. It's pretty loose, you can be driving round drink, think not drink, not drinking, but you can have an open vessel and the car and it's not like the end of the world or his hip. He will take the incredibly serious, as I didn't realize that until recently you tried that in the car with me as a passenger yeah, I had open beer and I saw rob just be like. Why are you doing? We had it in georgia? Obviously we weren't college. It was a big deal.
women can tear. I mean it's. Obviously it's you shouldn't be drinking and driving. So I guess a slight great singer. I don't really understand the problem mon. Neither do I think the issue, that's the thing, but here in California that's a big. No, no, that's what I've learned yeah and if you're drinking
liquid death. You could get pulled over and you know if you're leaving a wine bar when you ve only had two glasses of wine, but you have the water and there is, could make your nerve s andreasen.
yeah. I can see that process happened to you if you are using them for years and experience the ok, it's been a fear once or twice so let listening to him. Have you come around like to one or the other more? I really liked what he had done,
say about the cleanliness of tap water feels like mostly it's pretty good out there, and you know what another thing we make
do we touch on this like bread, so my there's filters exactly
and I have united into fill this year, but it's all over you gotta filter. I would filter and I use it, but I don't know I don't replaced the filters enough and then I wish I had bottled water again. It's a
if you had a blind taste test of different water flavors you had
water and your deciding, which is apparently salty? What have you ever
jimmy water? I like fiji. Do you think if it was a blind and you could
a slight your favorite water out of that, or do you think it's purely
at label that you see and that makes your brain go mm yum yum this little fish? Ah god I want to say, I'm a super taster enough to be able to tell the difference, but I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. My least favorite not saying
The worst is my least favorite is dishonest. Okay, my most favorite, in my opinion, not saying it's the best one is a tie: smart, water and fiji. Do you think you could taste the difference between those two? Okay? Actually yeah?
Okay, one thing, though you said you tasted the difference for tap. What are you taste
and I live in a very old building and I wonder if I'm just tasting like old, just having feeling a bit off lately, actually actually thinking about that, the water doesn't taste like new zealand.
the tests, so I live in an old apartment in as well, and one time I was out of town, I came home. I turn
the shower on any, was all brown or got Yoko says like what, if I had a cop under a year totally that doesn't feel great. I mean really feels like a pipe issue
but still young stories. Like that that ruin it for everyone else, I mean I'd like peter to speak to the brown water coming out of the fire,
set the cecil hotel just overnight master.
exactly on. I guess I'm going to take this opportunity to give spindrift a shout out,
king, over jennifer animate, the lack of any
I ran a cynic sexy smart water and kristen
sexy spindrift, all right she's on the
Yes, she she got us all into spindrift and it's real fruit arguing
our made with real fur is labelled as lively mass yeah. It tastes different than like their competitors. Sorrow is its good. The only reason I did this episode- islam secretly,
looking to be endorsed by one of these I'm waiting for it. You know I'm waiting for those millions to convince one which one would you want. It just might bring me to sign it if the uptake and borrowed what, if that sort of two percent growth that we saw between years, keeps happening by twenty. Fifty will be twelve billion metric tons of plastic in landfills. That's a lot! That's a lot of plastic may be a better tap now and then just not at the cecil that drank from the cecil alright David. Well, we learned some stuff
Day I like to think we did, I think you got seventeen percent more american. I mean I am drinking a lot of lacroix yeah, exactly that's pretty america and I think thank you and let's see what we get into next week,
the.
Transcript generated on 2022-07-13.