Bottled water consumes 3500 times more natural resources than tap water.
This is supported by research conducted by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).
According to the research, if the entire population of the Catalan city drank bottled water, this would have an impact on the extraction of natural resources 3,500 times higher than if the entire population drank tap water.
The resources consumed would amount to 83.9 million dollars per year.
The production of bottled water requires materials and energy for extraction, the production of plastic bottles and cellophane to wrap them, bottling, packaging in baskets, transport to points of sale and then home, disposal of empty bottles.
All these resources consumed for bottled water, according to Catalan scholars are 3,500 times greater than those consumed to drink tap water.
The research, conducted in collaboration with the University of Catalonia and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, made an assessment of the product's life cycle and its impact on human health and ecosystems.
The consumption of energy and materials to bottle water, and then to dispose of empty bottles, produces polluting gases, fine dust and greenhouse gases from power plants and means of transport. Not to mention that many used bottles end up in the seas and on land, polluting them for decades, if not for centuries. All this has an economic cost, and consequences on the lives of people, flora and fauna.
ISGlobal scholars also argue that if the entire population of Barcelona drank bottled water, this would impact ecosystems 1,400 times more than if all citizens drank tap water.
Catalan researchers went so far as to say that the consumption of bottled water by all the inhabitants of Barcelona would lead to the disappearance of more than one living species per year, to be precise 1.43 on average.
"Our results - comments Cathryn Tonne, one of the ISGlobal researchers - show that, considering both the environmental and health effects, tap water is a better choice than bottled water, because bottled water has a greater impact ".
