Emma Haziza returns every Saturday to a news item around the climate, the environment, and offers solutions. Saturday, May 20, environmental issues raised by the production of bottled mineral water.
Nestlé Waters announced on Tuesday May 16 the elimination of 171 positions at Vittel in the Vosges. In question: the drop in sales, but also climate change and in particular drought. On the Volvic side, the population even faces restrictions on the supply of drinking water. Some shallow water would be determined directly for the population, while Volvic water comes from another extremely deep, d a different pocket. These inhabitants who lack drinking water risk being supplied by bottles of Cristaline water or tank trucks when they have mineral water under their feet.
A multi-level system
To fully understand, there are more surface waters and deep aquifers from which manufacturers draw captive aquifers. These mineral waters have been enriched over decades, even thousands of years. The large ore carriers then come to extract in deep boreholes, generally at a depth of a hundred meters.
In Evian, the last glacial period called the Würm, directly allowed between -117,000 years and -11,000 years ago to have gravels, a set of sands which added together, which made it possible to accommodate water between the grains. This bag allows you to have water enriched with minerals, bicarbonates, sodium, magnesium, calcium. These waters are waters which were usually useful for human health and protected and which today are in the hands of large agri-food groups. All of this raises the question of the common good. Who owns this water? Can we afford to massively extract water that has been enriched, which is protected if this is the case?
This also raises the question of producing bottled water that is exported a lot when local populations are running out. This is the limit of a multi-level system. In France, nearly 310,000 tons of plastic bottles are produced per year. Nearly 25 million bottles are used every day, of which we know that 90% of the plastic will never be recycled. But behind, we still have water which is a mineral pocket, a wealth of France which is being extracted. Whereas in reality, when we look at mineral water, we realize that well 66% of our tap water comes directly from spring water, therefore from deep water, itself enriched. Nevertheless, the population has lost confidence in this tap water.
The consumer has a role to play
This is the next challenge. Tap water is drinkable. Drinking water standards are extremely advanced, but the consumer must overcome the taste of chlorine. For this, there are solutions and in particular filters at the outlet of your tap. They are not sufficiently industrialized, developed, and yet they exist. Charcoal filters also add flavor.
On the other hand, the fight against attacks by pesticides must intensify, after the various scandals that have taken place, in particular with fungicides found in our tap water. So we have to preserve this environment and regain confidence in this tap water. We have to move towards this solution: it is the only one that is viable.