Just Say No to... Bottled Water

Bottled water is huge business, and terrible for the environment. But where did this all start? Listen in and learn.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is stuff
you should know. Unscrew the caps and glug it down. Addition, Uh,

(00:23):
that's right. And you know what I think we should
say the outset here. Uh, now, no, we have to do.
You know what I'm gonna say, Um that we are
using a well it's from Julia Layton, actually, one of
our writers, but it's from an old how Stuff Works article. Uh.

(00:45):
And when I say old, I mean that it's from
two thousand five or six or so old unbottled water. Um,
so it is old, but I mean I think that
most of the stuff in here is still true from
skucking in and researching further. But what it did do
was provide an interesting look at statistics, because you know,

(01:08):
we had to get updated statistics on how much bottled
water we use and how big the industry's And it's
really amazing though, just to have sort of a before
after picture from two thousand six to now two thousand
I mean I saw stats from like twenty and twenty one. Yeah,
there's been a tad bit of growth since two thousand
six in that industry. Yeah, I think like one statue

(01:30):
she cites, and we're gonna go through all this. But
just as an example, is seven billion gallons of bottled
water we're consumed by Americans in two thousand five, and
I got from twenty nineteen that is I'm sorry, that
is now fifteen billion gallons. That is a tremendous increase

(01:51):
in bottled water gallons per American, per year, per American,
includes dumb babies. It's a lot of water. I mean,
I guess it's better then if we were if we
had decided to all start drinking like that much high
fruit toast corn syrup every year. But there's a lot
of there's a lot of problems with bottled water, as

(02:13):
you can imagine, and maybe some you can't quite imagine yet.
But we're gonna go over all that. We're gonna give
you the ins and out to bottled water. Okay, so
please forgive us. This is kind of an old article.
I I that what perked my ears up, Chuck, is
that she referred to bottled waters new fangled. At one point,
I said, people who who drink bottled water just think
they're so fancy, and I was like, this seems old.

(02:34):
This seems like an old way of looking at well.
It's it is interesting because I think that was true
for a while, and then I think we're to point
now ino where there's a large portion of America that
doesn't want to get bottled water at all anymore and

(02:55):
refuses to use like single plastic, single use plastics like this. Uh.
But there are also still a lot of people that
you know, you go and you see him, like loading
up by the caseful to stock their house. I can
see an emergency stash of something maybe, but I'm just
talking like, let me give you an example. I have

(03:18):
to tread carefully, uh, because this is a person in
our lives. Not your life, but our lives, mine and
Emily's lives. But we have a human in our life
that came to see us and I bought a bunch
of you know, and when we did like, hey, I'm
going to the grocery store for the week. Uh, And
they went with us and they bought they wanted to buy,
like a case of bottle of water. We're like, oh no, no, no, please,

(03:42):
don't trying to tread carefully though, you know, we're like,
we got really good filtration, good water. It's good, good good. Uh.
And they said that they're on a thing where they
have to drink so much water. I was like, oh,
that's great, uh, and we have a good filtration system here. Um.
But they were like, well, it really helps me keep
up with how much I'm drink king if I do
it per bottle. And Emily just looked at me like

(04:04):
she's just like, just shut up, you know. She gave
me that look, and I did. But it was really
frustrating to know that it's not any easier to keep
up than drinking a glass of water. Yeah, I wonder
how much. I wonder how much. Also though that person
like really just felt like bottled water was healthier or
pure or whatever, and it wasn't. It was more than

(04:26):
just that. Who knows. I don't know. The reason they
gave though, was keeping up with it, Like they lined
the bottles up at the end of every day and
like shot them with a six shooter that's right right
into the ocean. They drove him out to that. But anyway,
it's a personal frustration and I'm trying. I'm going to
try not to like just live on my soapbox in
this episode. But suffice it to say, I I really

(04:49):
don't like bottled water, and I try to. I've seen
the light, and I will only get bottled water if
I'm in a real, real pinch and have to. If
somebody's pinching you and they're like, I'm not going to
up until you buy bottled water, you do it. No.
I mean sometimes when you got a kid, you're stuck
somewhere and you're like, you know, you have to hydrate
your child. You're like, oh God, I gotta get this
bottled water, and I hate it. You're out of high

(05:10):
freak toast corn, sir, right uh, And and then try to,
you know, at least like, at least let me get
like spring water or something. But when the only option
is and we'll get to all this is just like
purified bottled tap water. I just wanna crawl under the rug. Yeah, well,
come out from under the rug, Chuckley. We got to
talk about bottled water, so I just wanted to level set.

(05:34):
So um, Okay, I think you did that pretty well.
Let's talk a little a little history about bottled water. Um.
And this comes to us from our friends over at
Serious Eats this part's interesting. I thought so too. So um,
bottled water has been around I saw somewhere since the
eighteenth century in America. Certainly in the mid nineteenth century
there were people bottling water and selling them and usually

(05:56):
it was like as a remedy. It was a healthy thing,
and you would buy them at like spas or something.
But that's definitely the origin of bottle water. Yeah, and
perry A. You know, I'm I'm sure you remember when
we were kids that before like bottle water was as
we know, it was such a big thing. Perry A
was something you started seeing ads for on TV and

(06:17):
in magazines. That was just I think they were smart
enough to brand it early on, or not early on
in there. I mean they've been around since the mid
eighteen hundreds, but early on in the seventies and eighties
in America of like, you know, a fancy schmancy thing
to do. Yeah, the Patrick Bateman types really slurped it
down right. Yeah, But that was that was because of

(06:37):
a rebranding that they did a hundred and twenty years
after they started selling this stuff here in America. They
hired Orson Wells, They got People magazine to write about it.
Just became like a thing, and it really dovetailed with
that kind of health consciousness that was starting to kind
of blossom among baby boomers, who were again all Patrick
Bateman type still are, and so Harry became like the

(07:01):
first bottled water that America kind of became obsessed with.
But it was like aspirational, it was expensive, um, and
it was a status symbol, plain and simple. It wasn't
until Coke and Pepsi really got into the game that
it became like the thing that it is now. Yeah,
And I think Pepsi got in first in ninety four

(07:23):
with their aquafine a brand, and I think Coke for
a while, and I think Coke for a while it's like, no, no, no,
we're in the soda game and we don't want this
water thing cutting into our soda business because I think
they were scared by Perry because they were also marketing
it as an alternative soda, like a healthy alternative. And

(07:44):
then Pepsi started crushing it, and then Coke was like, well,
we can't have that. No, so they launched a sani,
which apparently means it means nothing. It's just supposed to
evoke like um, a kind of like a refreshing, pure
since they ation I guess, I guess um or sorry,
a clean, fresh taste that a Coke spokesperson back in

(08:06):
the late nineties early two thousand's um. And then that
also set off a huge consolidation rush where there I mean,
some of the brands that you know today a bottled
water like Arrowhead and Poland Springs and Deer Park, they've
been around since the mid nineteenth century. They got snatched
up by all these larger brands are consolidated. Um. When

(08:27):
people started to say, yeah, we'll drink bottle of water,
and I remember very clearly in the late nineties early
two thousands, there was a big cultural um discussion, I guess,
but also kind of chiding of people who drank bottle
of water because people like to point out, like a
lot of that stuff is coming out of the tap somewhere.
It's just purified. And after all that, after the whole

(08:49):
discussion was done, America said, you know what we want,
bottle water. That's what we're going to drink. And in
two thousand seventeen it became the most consumed beverage in
the entire United State. Eats bottled water. Yeah, Wow, how
about more than more than coffee. And I've been doing
my part to keep coffee up there statistically speaking, and
it still beats coffee, still beats coke, beats everything else.

(09:12):
Bottled water beer beats beer. Yeah, yeah, bottled beer or
canned beer. Crazy. Uh yeah, it's hard to believe, um,
but that's kind of what's happened here. Um. Julia points
out that there are a few reasons, and you mentioned
them a little bit with my mystery guests that some
of the other reasons people might drink bottle water is

(09:33):
they think it might be healthier or more pure, or
they might just think it tastes better than tap water,
which actually could be the case. There's uh, certainly some
funky tasting tapwater in America, depending on where you live,
you know, definitely, and there's a lot of people who, um,
who like kind of take the opposite tack there, Like

(09:54):
America has some of the best, cleanest, safest drinking water
in the world, and in some parts of America it's
just straight up amazing. Like remember our episode on the
New York City's water delivery system and just how amazingly
good New York City tap water is. Like in some
places there are like the local tap water is what
they sell as spring water basically. Um, so some people

(10:18):
have it better than others, but in general, people who
drink tap water kind of they just take a certain
tact towards bottle water, like you're dummy for drinking that,
it doesn't make any sense, whereas people with bottle waters, say,
you're drinking poison right out of your kitchen sink. I
can't believe you would do that to yourself in your family.
So there's kind of like a disconnect there between those

(10:40):
two groups. Yeah, and to be sure, we are not
talking about I mean there are some My my friend,
uh Dave Barnhardt is a documentary filmmaker who um has
made a documentary on the water in Flint, Michigan. And
we're not talking about places where the tapwaters like legit
dangerous and it's aimful that that kind of thing goes

(11:02):
on in this country these days. So we're not talking
about that. We're talking about garden variety tap water that's
generally pretty safe. Um, Florida's got some funky water to
my friend, egg water. Yeah, well I went to uh
my Disney World trip, I got some pretty funky egg
water there. Yes, it can be funky. And it's not
just funky to drink, it's funky to bathe in. It's

(11:24):
funny to be like in the same city as it's
just it's funky stuff. For those of you have never
experienced egg water, it's called that because it smells a
lot like rotten eggs. It's got a lot of sulfur
content in it. Totally safe, nothing's wrong with it. Uh,
it may even bestow some health benefits compared to water
that has a lower sulfur content. Interesting. The upshot of

(11:46):
it is it's funky, and it smells bad, and it
tastes bad, and you don't really want that. But unfortunately
there are some parts of Florida that do have that
as their tap water. Now, can you get a filtration
system that actually gets rid of that taste? If you
do have that coming here for sure? If you want
to get rid of everything, you just get a reverse
osmosis system, so simple as that. The problem is it

(12:07):
takes out everything, So there's beneficial stuff and water you
don't really want to take out magnesium, potassium, um, calcium,
and probably a bunch of other little micro nutrients and
minerals too. That we don't even know about yet. Reverse
osmosis takes everything out, which we talked about. We did
some sort of water purification episode not too long ago. Yeah,
I think that was our water treatment. That was a

(12:28):
good one. Okay, so in reverse I think we also
do one specifically on reverse osmosis too, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
So it takes everything out. So if you want to
get everything out, just get a reverse osmosis system and
you're fine. You should be the spokesperson. That's pretty tight. Well,
I don't personally believe in reverse osmosis systems. I think
it takes too much out and you just have pure water,

(12:50):
and I think the water that we drink is supposed
to have a little more in there. This would make
a terrible ad for reverse osmosis. The second part way
for sure, Uh, Julia, And is again from two thousand five,
so this is when this was around. But it is
pretty interesting to look back at. You know, Bottle labeling
is a big thing and you can put a I
mean you can't lie on a water bottle out right,

(13:12):
but you can get really generous with how far you
stretch things. Uh. And there was a company. It's not
around anymore called Alaska Water at one point that said
Alaska Premium Glacier drinking water, pure glacier water from the
last unpolluted frontier, and it came literally from Juneo, Alaska

(13:32):
tap water. Yeah, the municipal supply. Yeah, which I guess
is uh, you know, if you trace it back, it
might come originally from the last unpolluted frontier. Sure. Yeah, No,
there's certainly a certain there's a bit of legitimacy to that,
but it's it's dishonest still. Yeah, there's there was also

(13:53):
one called Glacier clear Water UM that until two thousand
two was owned by the Dairy Farmers of America in
Kansas City, Missouri. That was sourced in Greenville, Tennessee. So
it had nothing to do with glaciers. Like there may
have been glacial activity at the last Ice Age around
that part of Tennessee maybe, but the water in Tennessee

(14:14):
was not coming from any glacial activity um. And so
stuff like that that really made the rounds in the
early two thousands and made people who were into bottle
water look like idiots. Um. But again, even through that
kind of gauntlet that bottled water drinkers that Americans in
general had to go through on the other side, Like,

(14:34):
the propensity for for bottled water was not beaten out
of us, it was, it just got even more homed.
I guess it's it's strange that that happened, that there
was a pushback on the whole thing, and then that
pushback just got totally overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um.
I think before we break, maybe we should at least

(14:54):
go over the kinds of bottled water that the f
d A like the terms the FDA regulates. Yes, at
least Okay, Uh, we should start with artesian It's a
great sounding word. It sounds very fancy, and that means
it comes from an artesian well, which means it comes
from a confined aquifer, which is a porous rocket's underground

(15:18):
and it comes from porous rock or sand formations. That. Uh,
it's under a lot of pressure from these layers of
rock or clay and it forces that water up. I
think we might have talked about artesian water, but maybe not.
There's no way in the last fourteen years we've never
mentioned artesian water, you know. I think so there's also

(15:39):
mineral water, mineral water, Yeah, I do too. A lot.
Mineral water is just water that has a higher um
higher content of total dissolved solids, which sounds gross, and
it can be gross, for sure, but it's more talking
about things like I mentioned earlier, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium,
stuff that gives water taste, distinctive taste, and in particular,

(16:01):
mineral water taste. UM. So, I think the standard because
you said the FDA regulate system. We'll talk more about
that in a little bit, but the FDA standards that
to be mineral water has to be spring water that
has at least two parts per million of total dissolved solids.
Regular old spring water, non mineral water has fifty. It's
a big difference that your tongue can pick up on. Uh.

(16:24):
Then you got your naturally sparkling, sparkling water. Uh. And
this is yes, folks, there is water that comes from
a spring or an artesian well that is naturally carbonated.
And even if they take that carbonation out and then
put it back in, according to the FDA, you have
to recarbonate it to the levels that it once was

(16:44):
naturally to qualify for that language. Yeah, And I went
and looked, and I was sad to see that my
favorite Sam Pellegrino water. It uh, it is artificially carbonated
after the fact, and that's sad because I was looking
into this and apparently um natural carbonation, which like volcano
is heating the rock that the that holds the aquifer

(17:07):
and it turns the carbon into a gas, and so
it's naturally carbonated. Apparently it's much softer, less harsh on
the throat and the stomach. Um. But it's really really
hard to keep water carbonated and then get it to market.
So they take the water out and then recarbonated and
then sell it. So it's really hard to find naturally

(17:27):
carbonated water. And I think it's very expensive too. I
like that Tobo Chico. I don't believe that that is
naturally carbonated. I I'm sure it's probably not because it
is good, though I agree it makes me sneeze every
time I drink it. But that comes to a glass bottle.
It tickles your nose, it does, and we don't buy
cases in cases of it. It's a treat, yeah, and
it does come in a glass bottle. But Chuck, I've

(17:48):
seen you. You You have a ritual where every time you
finish off a bottle of smash it on the ground
and shout say yahoo. Yeah. And sometimes I'll smash it
against like something hard it and then hold the broken
bottleneck in my hand and you can't tempt anyone to
come at me. Yeah, you'll say, any takers. Uh, never
had any takers either, he knows you never have. It's

(18:10):
very menacing. What else we got. We got the purified
water I was talking about. And this is when you're
talking about the dissanis and the aquafinas. Is when they
take public tap water uh and they purify it. It
comes from in other words, of municipal water source. Uh.
And that's pretty much the long and short of that.
And I mean, if you're talking about pure water, this

(18:32):
is like the most artificial water. It's the most heavily
treated water, because yeah, you're taking tap water and then
you're bottling it and selling it. And the FDA says, Okay,
there's some things you have to do if you're selling
purified water. It has to be if you're selling it
from like a municipal source. Um. You you have to
either filter it, you have to distill it. You have

(18:53):
to run it through that old reverse osmosis. You have
to take some oxygen and subjected to electricity and create
ozone and then infuse the water with that. So it
goes and reacts with all the stuff in there and
and UM purifies it, or you could run it through
UV light treatment or some combination of that. But that's
what purified water is. And as a matter of fact,

(19:13):
it didn't realize this chuck. But you can buy and
I could not find what labels this was, but you
can buy water that was originally nonpotable water, meaning like
you should not be drinking this is not for human consumption.
UM that can be treated through these these ways and
it becomes it can be bottled and sold as purified
water because the end result is the same. It's almost

(19:34):
devoid of anything but water molecules. Yeah, and I think,
and we'll get into the different f d A versus
e p A standards, because e p A s who
regulates your tap water. But I believe that e p
A standard or the FDA standard for bottled water allows
more poop in your water than the e p A

(19:55):
does in your tap water. Right, Yeah, The e p
A says you can have zero poop in your water,
and the FDA says, hey, hey, this relax a little bit.
Let's let's take our hang ups off of the American public.
Oh man, what's wrong with a little poop in your water? Right? Uh,
you've got spring water, which I love. Uh. There's nothing
better than if you can drink directly from a spring

(20:16):
when you're hiking in the woods, cupped in your hand,
like Daniel Boone did. Just the best thing in the world.
It comes from a protected underwater spring and it flows
to the surface on its own. It just bubbles right
up there. It's a really a wonderful sight to behold
if you've never seen a natural spring. I love it.
I love it. And then it's collected there at the

(20:37):
surface in the case of bottling, or maybe they may
drill down if they can't get, you know, to the surface,
but it's like a sanitary, protected area that it's drilled
down to where what's feeding the spring. Like they might
just go to an area that's more accessible, I guess, uh.
And then but if they do that, though, they have

(20:58):
to have it has to be the same composition as
as it does from the source. Yes, Hey, I'm gonna
put three words together, and you try to convince me
that they don't evoke an image of a future medical kink, sanitary,
protected whole and that awful and then an awful collection
of words. Uh yeah, it's uh yeah, that could be

(21:22):
the album new album title for Diarrhea Planet. I guess so,
but it's kind of the opposite of a diarrhea planet
if you think about it. Yeah, I think that's the twist. Yeah, hey,
diarrhea Planet. I hope you guys are still doing it.
Uh so, then you got well water is the last
one before we go to our break, and that comes
from a well it does. Simple simple. It's a new one.

(21:47):
I'm testing out because I've been using easy peasy too much.
Did you just say simple fimple? Yeah, but really you could.
You could make anything. You could use any consonant or
combination for simple, pimp. That's kind of gross. You could
say simple simple, I guess, but that's unnecessarily complex. I
like easy beasy, lemon squeezy. Yeah, I do too, But again,

(22:10):
it's it's starting to kind of take off a little bit,
so I'm gonna go elsewhere. All right, simple simple, We'll
be right back. Stuck stucks in. That sucks. I don't
know that you know it. Stuck and Stuck. It's a
great name. That's the name of it. It's a great name. Alright,
Stucks net within with an X. I want to learn

(22:33):
about a rosortic college act, how to take the perfect
but with all about fractals, getting kiscon that's the hun
the Lizzie Border murders that they kind of all runs
on the plane everything we should know. Word up, Jerry. Alright, Chuck. So,
like we said, the FDA regulates bottled water, and it's
kind of a quirk of bureaucracy that it does. It

(22:55):
would make way more sense that the e p A does,
But the e p A says, no, we're too busy
concentrating on drinking water and our standards. F DA, you
go handle this, And the FDA says, that makes sense
because we're going to consider bottled water a packaged food,
which is I can't remember what episode we talked about
it in, but that's why water has an expiration date

(23:16):
because it's considered a package food, and all packaged foods
have to have an expiration date, even though water is
never really going to expire, right, So the FDA is
in charge of regulating bottled water and they do a
so so job of it. Yeah. I think the deal
is is the f d A considers bottled water low
the categorized as as low risk. Yeah, so just a presumption. Yeah,

(23:41):
and I guess that I don't know. I guess that
lets them internally off the hook for I mean, I'm
sure surely it shouldn't be as robust as like pharmaceuticals
or something. I'm not saying that, but uh, yeah, they
categorize it as low risk. Uh they It says that
it must come from a roof source. But that doesn't

(24:02):
mean it's not like the f d A goes out
to the spring in Tennessee or whatever to check it
out or anything like that. Right, No, they definitely do not. They. Um,
they say it has to come from you know, one
of these like an archiesian well, it has to come
from well water, it has to come from municipal water,
like all those those sources that we mentioned. And by
the way, right um, and by the way, you have

(24:26):
to actually put on your label what kind of water
this is? Like those aren't just like like you know,
categories like those are terms that you will see on
a bottled water label because by law, they have to
say what kind of water, it is right. And and
then further than that, like they have kind of sub
regulations for the different kinds of water, Like if it's

(24:46):
from a spring or something like that, Um, I think
they they they has to be tested like once a
week or something to make sure it's sanitary. Um. That's
another one. If it comes from a from municipal water,
it has to go through that filtrition process like we said. Um.
And then also if you add anything to the water,
because remember I was saying reverse osmosis chuck is like

(25:09):
it takes everything out pure the water purification does well.
They usually add some stuff in to give that water flavor. Again,
if it's like that, say like they put they fortify
it with protein molecules or chunks of fat or something
like that. It's got to say in the label it
contains chunks of fat or with ad fat is probably
how the marketing team would want them to say it.

(25:32):
And like a starburst you know on the label. Uh. Interestingly,
fluoride is uh. When we did an episode on Florida
that was jeez, I feel like one of our earlier
year one or two episodes definitely the fluoridation of our
drinking water in the United States, um bottled water is
not fluoridated, so uh. Some dentists have talked about the

(25:54):
fact that if you only drink bottled water in your house,
then you're avoiding that fluoridation that they think you need
to make your teeth strong. Yeah, so if they if
it's bottled water with added fluoride, like I think a
lot of baby water, that's the thing. Is there baby water? Yeah?
I think there's like Gerber bottled water for babies and
stuff like that. I think those things usually have added fluoride.

(26:15):
But it's gonna say it on the on the label.
If you don't see on the label with added fluoride
or something like that, that's not a thing. Why has
no one, I'm sure this will happen at some point.
Why has no one tried to collect rainwater and market
that as like, you know, Icelandic rainwater bottled up. I
would bet you a hundred dollars someone has you think?

(26:37):
Sure gotta be because I was thinking, like when I said, like,
what other water sources are there? Obviously there's the ocean
and stuff like that, but it's like, well, I guess
there's rainwater, and why hasn't someone you know touted that
as like the next big thing. I mean, it's supposed
to be some of the purest water you can get
your hands on is rainwater, which is surprising but true.

(26:59):
They don't know because it's come out of the sky,
and the sky is poisoned all of us obviously, Yeah,
you would call it though, you call it skywater s
k y e with like an um loud over everything. Right. Um.
I hope it didn't give someone an idea. I again,
I think somebody's probably done that, all right. So the

(27:20):
FDA also says there's just certain amounts of stuff you
can have it there. Again, poop, you can have a
certain amount of poop, bacteria, virus, is, parasites, you can
have a certain amount of raid on in there. You're
gonna have a certain amount of lead in there. That's actually,
that's actually right. That's actually one place where the f
d A exceeds the e p A standards is with lead.
The FDA says you have to have a much lower

(27:43):
amount of lead in your bottled water than the FDA
allows for because the or the e p A allows
for in tap water. Because a lot of the pipes
in the United States have lead in them, and supposedly
as long as your local water supply is not over
chlorinated or being overtreated, that the water won't corrode the

(28:05):
lead and very little lead will be brought to your tap.
So the e p A says, some leads going to
be in your water just by virtue of flowing through
these pipes. And the FDA says, well, this stuff is
not supposed to be flowing through pipes, or if it
did flow through pipes, it has to be so so
well filtered that there there should be almost no lead
in it whatsoever. But other than that, the e p

(28:27):
A usually beats the f d A. Right, Yeah, and
then you know this is the federal standards. Then your
different state and may or may not have h state
regulations for the industry. Uh. Some states don't have anything
at all going on. Some states are going to be
a little more strict obviously, uh, and say like you
have to have a license, you have to submit to

(28:48):
inspections of that kind of thing. Um. So if you're
you know, if you're out there thinking what is one
to do, then it sounds like the wild West. There
is a voluntary body, the International Bottled Water Association, UH,
The good news is is that I believe, and this
is an old number, but I bet it's still pretty

(29:09):
accurate that about of the bottled water in the US
is a member of the i b w A and
they have their own internal, like self enforced regulations as
far as you know, it's called I believe the i
w B A model code. Uh. And you know they
talk about, you know, all the filtration types and all

(29:30):
the disinfecting that you have to do and stuff like that. Yeah,
and like really they really stepped up their game with
the Let's get the poop out campaign of two thousand
thirteen really had a big effect on the industry. Right.
But to be clear, this is not like a body
that like impostes fines or stuff like that. It's all
just sort of self regulated and voluntary. Yeah. It's like,

(29:52):
um ooh, man, what episode we're talking about where it's like,
I have a feeling this is the industry getting out
ahead of a problem, like problem legislation that's going to
make them do stuff. I remember, I don't either, but
I have a feelings. And I think anytime you see
an industry coming up with its own voluntary regulations, it's
a lot of um, uh pr stuff, you know what

(30:13):
I mean. I did, but they I mean, they do
have these standards and they do have um, you know,
certification you can get through them. Um. But yeah, again,
it's it's voluntary. And like you said, like if if
you are not selling water from state to state, technically

(30:34):
the FDA does not have jurisdiction over you as long
as you're only selling within your state's boundaries, as long
as the source of this water comes entirely from within
that state's boundaries. And then if that state is one
of those I think seven or eleven states that don't
regulate bottled water, there's no one looking over your shoulder whatsoever.

(30:55):
Your water is totally unregulated. It falls in a weird
little loophole like what that part in Yellowstone Park that
supposedly has no laws on it or whatever. That's kind
of like that situation. But then I saw that there's
a way that the FDA can still get you if
your packaging was made in another state, any part of it.
You're now subject to full FDA oversight for your bottle

(31:18):
of water, interstate uh whatever, packaging. Yeah, I guess so
should we. I think we should talk about leaching some
because I feel like leaching is something that is kind
of just started to come around in the past like
six or seven years, which is the idea that wait

(31:38):
a minute, we have all this bottle water stored in
the garage, cases and cases of it stored in our
hot garage in Arizona. Is that bad for you? And
the answers is yes, it is. Uh. Leeching happens the
you know, we can, we'll get into all the different
kinds of plastics, but um, mainly what you're gonna find

(31:59):
is polycarbonate. You're gonna find PVC, and you're gonna find
polly styrene. And you know, back in the day, there
were some people that said, like, oh, it's really fine,
it's no big deal. Other people would say, well, we're
really not sure. And other people would say, no, if
you heat up a bottle that has uh, how's it

(32:20):
pronounced thay lates, th lights, lights, thals, p h t
h A l a t e s, everyone knows what
those are. Um that it's it's gonna be leaching chemicals
into your water, especially if it stays warm, especially if
it's stored for a long long time. And I read

(32:42):
recently and this is something I would do if I, uh,
if I like had to get a bottle of water
like in a pinch like I was talking about, I
would say, all right, at least I'm gonna keep this
bottle and like refill it for as long as possible. Uh.
They said that that's not a good thing to do either,
because multiple reuses will encourage leaching, which I didn't know, right,
So did you mention the two eighteen study at all? Not?

(33:06):
So this this article, this is like a little time
capsule because chuck in it. They quote a guy from
the PG Research Foundation who basically says, it's all good,
We're fine. And I went and looked it up. I'm like,
that sounds really fishy. Where they get their funding? What
is the PG stand for? Their defunct They came along

(33:27):
in just long enough to tell everybody that plastic was fine,
and now they're defunct, so it's even fishier. I couldn't
find any funding stuff like that. But since then, um,
that suspicion that now there's some sort of like leaching
going on and that's probably bad for us has finally
been quantified. There's a two thou eighteen study in Frontiers
and Chemistry and in the study, two fifty nine different

(33:50):
bottle water sold in eleven different countries were tested, and
then what they found is like, of no surprise whatsoever
had micro plastics in them. And I suspect the other
seven percent, like they screwed up the testing, Like I
can't believe it's not a hundred percent of these bottle
waters have a microplastics. Yeah, this is uh. If you

(34:12):
want to read the original article, it's really good. It's
from Time magazine. Your bottle water probably has plastic in it?
Should you worry? By markham Hyde. I guess, And it's
from May of twenty nineteen, and yeah, it's definitely. It's
definitely good to see like a real source in a
real study and not just a defunct organization. That's like

(34:32):
that's pretty good. Yeah, it's fine, don't worry about it.
So in this um they found that there's a substantial
amount of microplastics. And this's not like little trace amounts.
Remember like the parts per million or parts per billion
of some of the stuff that the f D A
H and E p A allows in bottle water and
tap water. The average among these two nine bottle waters

(34:54):
was three D and twenty five particles per leader of microplastics. Yeah,
that's seems like a lot. Okay, if that seems like
a lot, buckling for this one. Nestlee Pure Life bottled
water had an average of ten thousand particles per leader
of microplastics. You might say, okay, let's fine and get
a little plastic in my teeth, like pull it out,

(35:16):
it's fine. Um, microplastics are becoming uh, it's becoming clear
that microplastics are probably endocrine disruptors. I think they fall
into a class called obeseagen's and polypropylene in particular seems
to be an endoc endocrine disruptor. And you'll never guess

(35:37):
what our bottled water, what type of plastic our bottled
water bottles are made out of? That? Yes, polypropylene. So
this seems to be one of those things where everybody's like, yeah,
we don't understand it, so it's probably fine. And now
we're finally getting to the science where it's like, man,
microplastics are really screwing us up. And even worse than

(35:58):
just being in our bottled water, they're everywhere. Like we
have a an episode do where we just talk about microplastics. Okay, yeah,
we'll take a break here. In a sec. But I
think to set us up for the next part, which
is the environmental nightmare, which is just the bottles themselves,
like after you drink it in the environment, because we're
talking about like drinking the water itself. Uh, And we'll

(36:21):
get into the nightmare of after you've had that water
in the single use plastic aspect in a sec after
the break. But microplastics I read basically that plastic water
bottles don't break down at all. When they say like, oh,
it takes some five years to break down, they don't
break down. They basically say that they just break apart

(36:41):
in the microplastics, and that microplastic ironically will end up
in the water supply, which could ensure one day that
we can only drink things like bottled water because there's
so much microplastic in the water supply on the plastic
water bottles that people drank that never break down. Isn't
that amazing full circles, such a beautiful circle of life

(37:01):
that we've got going on? All Right, we'll take that
break and we'll we'll talk more about single use plastic
and why that's such a problem. Right for this stuck
stuck in home, I don't know that you know it.
Stuck in this it's a great name. That's the name
of it. It's a great name, alright, stuck within with

(37:22):
an X I want to learn about as how to
take a perfect but with all about fractals and kiscon
that's the hun the Lizzie Border murders that they kind
of all runs on the plane everything that we should know.
No word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck. So we're talking about
single use plastic, which means you take a bottled water,

(37:46):
you drink the water, and then you just toss the
plastic bottle. Apparently, if we've come a long way in recycling,
it used to be something like ten percent of bottled
water bottles were recycled back when this article was first written.
Now we're up to all my in the US, uh,
specifically because Norway recycles of their plastic okay, and then

(38:08):
so part of the problem with that, if you'll remember
back to our Recycle Update episode, China recently said, you
know what, you can take all your dirty plastic bottles
and shove them because we're not going to recycle them
for you anymore, which is a big problem because recycling
plastic can be actually fairly expensive. In China was basically

(38:28):
the world's plastic recycler for a long time. So now
people are trying to figure out how to how to
handle this issue, which has now become even more pronounced um.
And that's kind of where we are right now, while
America is at the same time in the world, frankly
stepping up to UM use even more plastic water bottles

(38:48):
than ever. Yeah, there is one alternative that I've seen
being used here and there. It's corn based. It's called
p l A or pole. It's made from polylactic acid uh,
and it is biodegradable, uh, compostable three months to degrade
in a compost pile. But here's the fine print. It
sounds great, and I saw that, you know, a major

(39:11):
fancy schmancy hotel chain, you know, made the big switch
and had made a big to do about this. It like,
now we use corn bass and it's compostable, but it's
only compostable if you compost it. And even the head
of the hotel chain was like, yeah, we found that
very little actually makes it to the compost pile. UM,
So it's not it's not recyclable, like if you throw

(39:33):
it in the recycling p l A will mess up
and it doesn't even take much for it to to
really mess up the uh, the other kinds of plastic
that they're recycling. So they just dump it all and yeah,
I mean exactly, and or they try and sending it
on a boat to China and that's a long long way.
That's an environmental nightmare. So you know, be aware if

(39:54):
you see corn based biodegradable plastic. Uh, unless you know,
you really take it upon yourself to compost it, then
you're you're doing the right thing, good for you. But
very it says, very little of this stuff ever makes
it to the compost. Yes, so there's like fifty of
our of our previous episode just hanging around here, like
our episode on soda or episode I'm recycling, or episode

(40:17):
and composting, our episode on plastics, remember the Great Pacific
garbage patch we talked about plastic never breaking down. That's all.
They're all showing up for a friendly hello, our episode
on diarrhea Planet. That's right, which, by the way, we
should just explain real quick. Oh, there's probably a lot
of people they're like, what are you talking about? Because
it was a random reference years ago. They're a band,

(40:37):
Diarrhea Planet, and they're great, and I'm a big fan,
and I just always thought that they should change their name.
So that's why we're It's a callback from years ago,
and I think you should fill them in in case
they don't stumble across the episode where that appeared. And
what did you say they should change their name to. Yeah,
I don't know what brought the whole thing up. Frozen
poop knife. Oh, that's right. You remember somebody made a

(41:00):
knife out of the poop and killed a bear or
an interloper or like an evil brother in law. I
don't know, And that's what brought the whole thing up. Yeah,
they're great though, they're they're from Nashville, and uh, I
don't know that we've ever heard from them, but that
we did, they rejected our publicly, our suggestion publicly on Twitter.
All right, Yeah, man, I gotta fill you in on

(41:23):
the last thirteen years. You're you're getting blank. So just
to kind of button this up about the single use plastic,
like it is a problem everybody and it's just one
of those things like our trash also did a landfill
episode that we just kind of put out of sight.
And out of mind. But that doesn't mean it just
disappears and goes away. So fortunately, one of the things

(41:43):
that a lot of people are thinking of who think
about this kind of stuff is something that has made
sense for a long time. But in our Littering episode,
we talked about how there was a huge corporate push
to basically say, you're the litter bug. You the person
using it. We the people who are making this plastic
packaging and who are um using it to sell you

(42:05):
our products, and it's not our fault. Finally, finally, some
people in legislatures are calling bs on that, and there's
something called extended producer responsibility laws. Yeah, me too. Uh,
they're thinking of them in Washington State, Maine, and Michigan,
and it basically says you have to figure out, like

(42:26):
you are responsible for dealing with the packaging waste that
your product is solding. You don't just get to walk
away from it. And I think they're trying to figure
out how to make that happen. But the fact that
they're even talking about this stuff is another example that
we're starting to wake up. Finally, that's amazing, that's cool.

(42:46):
I think of hearing that I do too, Chuck. Will
it make a difference. Stay tuned. I should shout out
my friends film. By the way, I just realized, like
Dave's one of my very best friends. Uh, you want
to watch that documentary. It's very eye opening. Uh. And
it is called Flint The Poisoning of an American City. Uh.

(43:07):
And boy, if you want to, if you want your
eyes opened about you know, the fact that it can
be you know that you're in the twenties and that
we're still just like pumping poison water to a to
a town astounding rates, then you should check it out. Yeah,
I'm going to check that one out. I'll bet it's good.

(43:27):
It sounds blood boiling. What about the taste of bottled water,
because that's sort of the one thing we haven't really
covered is some people say they like the taste more,
and you know, they're certainly haven't been very scientific studies,
but there have been random like things and and stuff
like that where they will, uh, they will do like

(43:48):
blind taste tests, and it depends on where you are, obviously,
and I think a lot of these have happened in
New York. But yeah, unfair, yeah, because they have good water,
but in blind taste tests. It seems like a lot
of times that people either can't tell the difference or
they rate tap water kind of higher than they ordinarily
would if it was labeled as such. Yeah, I think

(44:08):
depending on how um gross your tap water tastes, or
how much you're into mineral water, um taste can be
a factor. Like if you don't want your water taste
at all, go get yourself some purified water and call
it a day. Or if you if your tap water
is pretty bland and you like a little taste to it,
you might want some mineral water, sparkling mineral water. Who knows, right,

(44:32):
So taste is probably the one thing that you can say, Yeah,
that might actually be a factor, um, but not always
a lot of people choose tapwater and blind taste tests
like you were talking about. Yeah, I saw a water
Somalia in New York. Oh, I've I've seen that guy?
Did you see that? It was? I think? Why do
I want to say? It was that TV show that

(44:53):
uh Zach? What's his face? Who's the hunky guy? I
think all all guy's name is Zach or hunky Za Galivanakis. Yeah,
he's example he really always been hunky. I can't remember
the zac Efron Uh, he has that show and if
I'm not mistaken, he sat down with the water Somalia Uh,

(45:15):
and it was it was really interesting. I mean it's
very easy to scoff at something like that, but water
are different kinds of water for sure, have different flavor
profiles and um, and it's interesting to sit down and
sort of listen to someone walk you through that. I
don't know if I would go to the water Cafe
or wherever this was that they were doing this, but um,
I just found it interesting. It is interesting. It's like

(45:38):
the water Boy. Remember that that movie with Adam Sandler.
Sure he had that magic water that just tasted amazing. Yeah,
my brother is on record, is uh. It's very characteristic
of him as saying that his favorite water is hose water. Yeah,
hose water is pretty good, have that nice rubber taste. Yeah.
I think he's being serious too, and I think it

(45:58):
evokes uh uh, you know childhood stuff when you're outside
playing and having like a water hose fight. Then you
drink some of that stuff. Yeah, the added sensation of
like that slight sting because it's coming out a little
faster than you wanted to, or is a spider perhaps
gonna come out right. So there are some people who

(46:19):
are like, hey, hey, this is all fun and games
to to poop poo Americans over use of bottled water
and everything. There are plenty of places that don't have
access to clean drinking water, and in that sense, bottle
of water is literally a lifesaver. Um. There's nobody arguing
that or denying that. I think what people are saying
is like, look, if you live in America, your tap water,

(46:40):
for the most part, with some um some places shamefully accepted,
is probably as healthy, taste, probably as good, and as
roughly as pure as the bottled water that you're paying
hundreds to maybe thousands of times more for, you know,
drop for drop, and is having far less of an

(47:00):
ecological um impact than your bottled water is your little
bottled water habit. And I think that makes sense, and
that certainly was a sensible thing to say in two
thousand five. But there are people who who say, Okay,
maybe we don't do bottled water. I get that because
I'm concerned about microplastics. I also realized it's an ecological nightmare.
But I don't know that it's a good idea to say,

(47:23):
everybody just drink water out of the tap, and what
they point to is the Safe Drinking Water Act from
the seventies. I believe. I think Ironized Cody really had
an impact on that one um and then it was
updated and then that was it. And since then our
science of oh, what's this thing in the water we
didn't notice before that we said was fine, maybe we

(47:45):
should start studying that. Oh it turns out it gives
you bladder cancer? Or how is it okay to have
chlorine in your water really even in small amounts? Like,
all of this research just is happening, and more of
it needs to happen. But just as much Congress these
to say, hey, scientists, what have you been finding out
about water that we're drinking? Since let's update the laws.

(48:06):
Because the municipal tap water can be within those those
those quotas or limits set by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
That doesn't mean it's actually safe. It just means that
from what Congress has set the limits for, it's safe.
It's what Congress has said is safe. It's not necessarily
scientifically safe. So we need to do more and more

(48:27):
research on the water drinking because it's such a vitally
important part of our world. Um, and it's pretty ridiculous
that here in the United States that hasn't been updated
for twenty five years. Yeah, and that would give you know,
some Southern member of Congress to stand up and like
beat their shoe on the desk and say these laws

(48:47):
are as out data is an old water article on
how stuff works. That was a great Trent Lot. Trent Lot. Yeah,
is that guys still around? No? No, I'm just trying
really hard to demonstrate how irrelevant and out of date
we are. Oh. I thought I had something else to say,
but now I can't think of it. Sorry, man, I

(49:10):
didn't mean it, derail. No, No, I'm good. Well, if
you want to know more about bottle water, you could
do worse than checking out this anequated article on how
stuff works. You can check out Serious Eats for some
great history. We also got some search from yep, Time magazine,
healthline all over the internet, and there is something called
the Environmental Working Group. They have a tapwater database. It's awesome.

(49:33):
You can go in, type in your zip code, select
your water utility, and then just have the socks scared
off of you when it reveals to you what's in
your water? Checking out? I did that yesterday. I know
what I was gonna say. Uh, you know the little
um box water that they're doing now, is is a
better alternative even than single use plastic? Oh yeah, the
box water that sends you a check every month and

(49:54):
the hopes that you'll mention them. You chill. It's not
a brand, I don't think, is it? Yeah? Oh? Is
it really? It's called box water, I believe. So Okay,
I just meant water that's packaged in something that's uh
not leaching plastic and it's easier to recycle. But I
got you right? Do you know those boxes are made
from baby lambs? Ah? What are you gonna do? Then? Nothing?

(50:17):
You just give up? I guess all right. Well, since
I said give up everybody, that means it's time for
a listener mail. I'm clickity clicking, and I'm finding it.
See I've got four good ones stored up here. Oh good.
You know I'll do this one because this is uh

(50:37):
promoting a documentary that I want to see another one. Hey, guys,
love your show. Always thrilled it when a new episode
pops up. My girlfriend and I both listened separately and
together it was great to hear an entire episode dedicated
to Wiseman's movie to the Cut Follies. Though any self
respecting documentary filmmaker knows it well, it's a movie that
many in the civilian world quote unquote don't. I'm surprised

(51:00):
by how many people have never even heard of Gray Gardens. Anyway,
been wanting to write for a while in hopes of
turning you guys onto a movie that I made, and
this recent Titticut Follies episode seemed to be the perfect excuse.
It's called strad Style. It's a documentary about a rural
Ohio gentleman with an obsession for strativeri the violin, of course, who,

(51:24):
through the magic of social media, convinces a famous European
concert violinists that he can make a copy of one
of the most famous and valuable violins in the world.
If you've ever seen and liked something like American Movie,
I think you might dig this. Uh it was shot
by the way that Strade Style has a shot in
it that it is own that has an homage wink

(51:46):
to Titticut Follies in it as well. And he sent
me the trailer and uh it looks great. It looks
like it did quite well in the festival circuit. It's
like a real deal documentary and it's called Strade Style
s t R a E made by listener and filmmaker,
uh Stephen Abalos and go stream it. I'm gonna watch it.

(52:07):
It looks really good. Same here. It does sound magnificent. Actually, yeah,
it looks good. It looks right up my alley. Well,
thanks Stephen or Stefan, depending on how you pronounce your name.
Congratulations on your doc. That's a huge achievement and we're
proud of you. We don't even know you, and we're
proud of you. So thanks. Thanks for letting everybody know.
Thanks to you Chuck for letting everybody know. If you

(52:30):
want us to let everybody know, let us know via email.
Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
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