Philippa Stevenson: 'Health' craze is pouring money down the drain

Putaruru has a dilemma. It aspires to be the water capital of the country but its ratepayers can't afford to upgrade pipes that deliver "putrid" water to parts of the town.

Last month the town celebrated its third water festival, including a water tasting contest and highlighting its renowned Blue Spring - the source of 60 per cent of New Zealand's bottled water.

But on Tuesday a public meeting discussed Putaruru's problematic water reticulation system, parts of which are 50 years old and urgently need replacement. Residents and Ratepayers' Association president Yvonne Sycamore described water in some parts of the town as "putrid", undrinkable and smelly.

South Waikato District Mayor Neil Sinclair says the unpopular smell is chlorine added to the water because of the poor state of the pipes. It would take an estimated $8 million to replace them, adding an unaffordable $300 to individual rates bills.

Not surprisingly, the town is casting an eye on the economic potential in the water it sells to bottling companies, whose plants on the newest section of pipes are unaffected by the problems.

Bottlers take less than 3 per cent of the water pumped from the spring but they make a hefty profit.

Bottlers pay around 75c a cubic metre for Blue Spring water. By the time it reaches consumers it can cost around $3 a litre.

If companies paid at the same rate as their customers they'd be paying more like $3000 a cubic metre.

Putaruru shares water issues with communities worldwide. More than 1.5 billion people have no access to safe drinking water and each year diseases caused by unsanitary water kill up to 12 million people. But in affluent nations we guzzle water in designer bottles that we dump.

Activists worldwide are increasingly concerned about the bottled water industry, claiming it threatens resources and ways of life. A leading argument is that money would be better spent building or repairing tap water infrastructure than fuelling the bottled water phenomenon.

Worldwide, bottled water is the single largest growth area among all beverages, including alcohol, juice and soft drinks. The Asia Pacific region is the fastest growing market. Estimates for annual sales growth in New Zealand and Australia range from 14 to 30 per cent a year.

Some of the safest, most monitored drinking water in the world flows from our taps, yet in 2003 New Zealanders paid around $27.5 million to swig about 40 million litres of bottled water.

Bottled water costs around a thousand times more than that from the tap. We pay more for water than we do for petrol but marketers are confident they can lure more of us to the bottle. Frucor, which handles four water brands, says our average consumption of bottled water is 9 litres per person per year, below the world average of 16.3 litres.

In the US, consumption more than doubled from 39 litres per person in 1993 to 85.5 litres in 2003 at a cost of around $10 billion. In Britain, $2.6 billion was spent on bottled water in 2004, a 70-fold increase over 20 years.

Bottled water may be convenient and healthier than other drinks but nothing suggests it is any better than tap water. In 1999, the Consumers Institute tested 17 brands of bottled water and found little difference between those labelled mineral waters and the Auckland and Christchurch tap water it tested.

In 2001, World Wildlife Fund International reported that in most developed countries bottled water may be no safer or healthier than tap water.

Dentists worry children are getting more cavities because bottled water has less fluoride than tap water and that sipper bottles are pulling their teeth about, and waste managers are concerned about discarded bottles.

Do we even need all this water?

The amount of water a person needs varies with weight, climate, level of exercise, and state of health. Too much can be as dangerous as too little.

The repeated recommendation of eight glasses of water a day is a myth.

After spending 10 months studying the question, retired Dartmouth Medical School professor and kidney specialist Dr Heinz Valtin concluded that if you haven't thought about how much water you're drinking daily, you're probably drinking enough.

Thirst probably best indicates how much water a person should drink.

Your conscience is probably the best guide to what you drink.