Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Bottled Water

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander who ended up accidentally marooned in America, and I want to grasp what makes this country tick. Now ever since I got here, I can't stop thinking about America's obsession with bottled water. Every time I go to get groceries, I can guarantee I'll see someone struggling with a massive crate of Dasanis, middle-aged mother of four throwing litres of the stuff into the back of their SUV like they're prepping for the apocalypse. You get to a hotel, open the fridge, and there they are, bottles and bottles of branded water. Since Perrier first arrived in the 1970s,

bottled water continues to soar to new heights. An American guzzles back about 45 gallons of the stuff every year. It's the most popular American beverage and it's 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 $5 for something that's literally free from the tap. So get those parched lips ready to take a great big sip of H2O. This is the bottled water episode. Flightless bird touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America. Do other countries not have a lot of bottled water? So, to be clear, I don't know the facts on this. What I do know is that, yes, obviously other countries do have bottled water.

New Zealand has bottled water yeah new zealand has bottled water but there's something about america that there's so much of it it's everywhere and i think what's different is that it's the preferred option whereas in new zealand tap water is really a very valid option here it's everything you go to a meeting and like you're given a little bottled water you open people's fridges and there's so many different kinds of bottled water and it's everything. You go to a meeting and you're given a little bottled water. You open people's fridges and there's so many different kinds of bottled water. And it's just really expensive here as well. It is, yeah. What is your drinking preference when it comes to hydrating yourself?

What are you doing? I love bottled water. I'm really dehydrated. Right now or all the time? Do you need some water right now? I almost never pee. I don't like drinking water, especially when it's coming out of the tap. It's boring as well, isn't it?

It is boring. It's 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's a flat of water in my kitchen, I'll go through it so quick. I'll be so hydrated that week. And since I've come here, I have started to do this as well. So I've got obsessed with stupid, those cans of La Croix or whatever it is. Once you start drinking like a slight

flavored fizzly water, you don't want to go back to the flat stuff. But that annoys me because I look in the recycling bin and I've just got cans up to the top of the bin. Well, exactly. It's really bad. Not canned as much, but the plastic bottle water is not great. I feel really guilty when I'm drinking it. As you should. As I should.

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. What you're saying is for your health, you feel more hydrated when you have bottled water near you. I do. I went and talked to a bunch of people that I met about their relationship with bottled water and it varied quite a lot. I've noticed people here are really into bottled water. Yeah, it's just 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 water is the same. Some of them have high pH levels and such like that. And would you ever drink tap water in the United States, or does it depend, like, where you are in America? It depends where you are, but I haven't drank tap water since I was a kid. Do you drink a lot of bottled water?

No. I have a hydro flask and I fill it up. I think tap water is just fine. I don't see the bottled water obsession. I don't fall into that category, I guess. I always get tap water when I go to a restaurant. Americans 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, no. That's funny. I only drink Evian water. Really? I come from the Alps. I come from a town right next to Evian. And you know what they say,

like the French paradox, we eat a lot of cheese and fat, but we're very skinny. I think it's in the water. That's why I only drink Evian. I grew up on that and yeah I know it's terrible. It's really bad. Yes I'm against the privatization of water for sure. I think there's just like a mindset. People are nervous about drinking water from the tap. You know even I have that hesitation. Like I buy a Brita filter but my roommate will just drink from the tap and I know I'm like okay like, okay, she's been fine. But for me, I don't want lead poisoning or something.

I grew up on well water. It's just straight up like from underground our house. Where was that? New York, in the boondocks. 315, shout out. We had our own water. So I had to make sure when I wash my hair, it takes like 20 minutes.

Black girl magic. So a lot of different attitudes to bottled water, some positive, some negative. People land all over the place. I watch these skincare videos. Some people will only wash their face with bottled water. Not me. I'm not there. But there's a weird stigma about the cleanliness.

And I guess, yeah, the lead poisoning yeah i don't know i feel like the water here definitely has a certain taste in it i started reconsidering drinking american tap water because i came over here years and years and years ago to cover this video games expo for new zealand because i'm a big nerd and i stayed at the Cecil Hotel. No, you did not. I stayed at the Cecil Hotel. No, you did not. Yeah, I did because I'm booking from New Zealand and I needed to find somewhere cheap

because I had a certain budget. Flights were most of the cost. So I was trying to find a cheap hotel near the Staples Center, which is near where E3 was. So I stayed at the Cecil. The reason I gather you're reacting so strongly to the mention of the Cecil Hotel is that everyone knows the Cecil, the reason I gather you're reacting so strongly to the mention of the Cecil Hotel is that everyone knows the Cecil closed down now. I think it's maybe they're

turning into apartments, but it's the hotel where a woman basically was seen acting very disorientated in the hotel corridors and in the lift. She sort of 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 in 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 decomposed in. Yeah, well, about that.

I checked in and I knew it wasn't a great vibe immediately. Like I was like, oh, this doesn't feel great but hey what can you do i am shocked to my core that you are one of these people that went to that hotel where there's dead people in the so tank i didn't know about this because it hadn't been a thing this is ago. This is before the girl was in the tank. Well, no, because the issue was... You were not there at that time. Yes, so at the 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 and so it didn't taste great but it was clear and it was fine and then years later I checked the dates when I was there this is not real no and no yeah forgive me but I forget the woman's name who was in the tank decomposing at the time and yeah I drank I drank from that water. You did not. You drank her. Wow. There's a very popular documentary on Netflix about the Cecil Hotel. I watched with my parents. There's a big moment in the documentary where these people are talking about how they brush their teeth with the water. And it's definitely- It's so visceral. It is. It's the most intense moment of the whole documentary. And my dad was like, I only drink bottled water. He was so was like, I only drink bottled water.

He was so proud of himself for only consuming bottled water. It was almost like the ultimate justification for anyone to explain why they spend $5 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 when you read that or were you like, oh, I'm okay? Years later. So I clocked this when the documentary came out on Netflix. I sort of was like, oh, yeah, I stayed at the Cecil.

And yeah, that is when that thing happened. And I think it was very early days because the water did taste okay. Okay. But as always on this podcast, I decided to go and talk to someone that knows way more than me about this topic and attempt to learn about America's bottled water obsession. To be very clear, back in New Zealand, we aren't in the dark ages. We have the internet, mobile phones, and yes, we've got bottled water. So unscrew the cap and quench your thirst. New Zealand deep waters, pure artesian

water. But while we have bottled water, we also have tap water. Tap water that we actually quite like drinking. We'll gladly fill our bladders to the brim with the stuff. When guests come over, we throw it into a pitcher, add a slice of lemon, and no one blinks an eye. So being here in America has been a bit of a shock. Hundreds of tiny bottles of water thrust into my hand at every turn. Recycling bins full of cans and bottles and glass. All in the name of staying hydrated. Not all water is created equal.

There are over 326 million trillion gallons of water on Earth. But only one billionth of 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 100% natural spring water. Born better. I'm almost immune to it now, but the other day it all snapped back into focus. I was at a show in Thirsty and 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 $8 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 to offer my perspective. I'm talking to scientist Peter Glick. He co-founded 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. He has about 80,000 followers on Twitter, so I guess he's an influencer as well. I could go on and on about

this man, but his main thing, his main passion, it's 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 pun, but I've been bottling up my thoughts on water. I've been trying to fit in here, choosing not to pick fights over something as simple as water. But with PETA, I feel I can finally unleash my watery angst. bottled water. I mean, do you find it unusual yourself? Or is that just me being you here? No, no, it's tremendously unusual. Although I would note it's absolutely not universal. Most people still drink tap water. But there is this growing both concern about tap water and

parallel to that a growing sense you ought to be spending money buying bottled water to drink. I drink tap water. I've always drunk tap water. Okay, well well that makes me feel less strange. The tap water I get where I am is unbelievably good. It's just great quality water 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 I've been secretly drinking unfiltered tap water as much as possible since I got here. I've been doing it secretly like Gollum in his dirty cave. But according to tapsafe.org,

the LA Department of Water and Power says the city's tap water is so clean it's, and I quote, bottled water quality. 160 billion gallons of the stuff, reaching or surpassing all drinking water standards for cleanliness, health and safety. In Los Angeles, the taste of the tap water is a little bit different. Some people don't like it, but the quality of the water actually is very good. So get a filter or something. Of course, being in America, I guess you've also got other options. How come you haven't called to have pure, great tasting Sparklets water delivered to your home? I'm in Los Feliz and I drink tap water.

And people look at me strangely when I do. Like it's kind of like a shock and it's almost like socially now I feel self-conscious. But is it fine that I'm drinking tap water here? Like that's just a very selfish primary question. It 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 1970s. It's regulated by the EPA, and utilities are 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 those exceptions can be shocking, like in Flint, Michigan, where the community was poisoned for years and years. Officials aware, but doing absolutely nothing about it until they got called out. The former governor of Michigan is one of several people who have been told they will face charges

in the Flint water scandal. Republican Rick Snyder was in charge when Flint's water supply became dangerously undrinkable. Is it stories like Flint that color the rest of the country and make everybody in America think tap water is just too dangerous to go near? Yes, absolutely. It's the highly publicized failures of our municipal tap water systems that helps erode trust in our tap water. And those failures are a result of a lot of different things. We've underinvested in infrastructure all across the board, water, electricity, transportation, all sorts of things. But with Flint, Michigan, 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 the clean municipal system into the taps got contaminated by that lead. And that's a problem with old legacy infrastructure. We should have gotten rid of lead pipes in this country years ago, but we haven't done that. Is there a simple way here where you can test the tap water in your own home if you are paranoid about old leady pipes? So yes and no. There are

at-home tests you can do for lead. Lead is, of course, bad in your water. You don't want lead in the water. But there are hundreds of different chemicals that are regulated by law that the water utility has to meet certain standards on, and testing those at home is not possible. The trouble with stories like Flint is that as well as people being poisoned by lead and other contaminants, it creates this widespread fear around tap water. And that's hard to get back. Building trust in your tap water system 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 tap water that's part of the answer to the mystery I'm trying to solve. Looking at bottled water, when did that become a thing here? I assume it didn't happen overnight. So it happened slowly over a very long period of time and then fast. We've always had bottled waters. In the 1800s, there were famous bottled waters that were bottling water from some of these natural springs that claimed they had health benefits. Perrier and all the European spas where people would go for their health eventually bottled water and sold bottled waters. But those were sort of a different thing. In the United States, really starting in the 1970s, Perrier pushed very hard to sell its sparkling water.

Deep below the plains of southern France, in a mysterious process begun millions of years ago, nature herself adds life to the icy waters of a single spring, Perrier. Its natural sparkle is more delicate than any made by man, and therefore more quenching, more refreshing. And the mixer par excellence, naturally sparkling from the center of the earth, Perrier. Okay, so that ad from 1979 was voiced by Orson Welles. Yeah, the guy who narrated the War of the Worlds in 1938, accidentally making many Americans think an actual alien invasion was taking place. That guy also did one of the very first Perrier commercials.

The brand wasn't there to fuck around. It was there to sell American stuff they could get for free. And then, really in the 1990s and 2000s, coincident with 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 not exaggerating. In America, the bottled water industry was worth $18.5 billion in 2017.

Americans guzzled 13.7 billion gallons of this stuff. I can't really find anything logical to compare that number to, but it's the same volume as about 9 million adult elephants. As a story by journalist Sean Chavez pointed out, bottled water overtook soda as America's favorite drink. It's enough to make you get out your pan flute. At a spring called Perrier. 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 grift to me. It is. It plays on people's fears. The early advertising of the bottled water

companies directly attacked tap water. It said, you should be afraid of your tap water. My neighbor next door got a flyer in the mail, which he gave to me, which said, you don't know what's in your water and had a picture of a goldfish swimming around a glass. You know, like that's a problem. And it was offering bottled water, a monthly delivery of bottled water. There are some incredible examples And it was offering bottled water, a monthly delivery of bottled water. There are some incredible examples of extreme advertising by bottled water companies. One I saw in Texas simply stated, tap water is poison. The president of another bottled water company was quoted as saying,

when we're done, tap water 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've been warned they shouldn't attack tap water directly. And now they use the more traditional methods of this bottled water is going to make you healthier or sexier or more popular. Hi, I'm Jen Aniston, and I'm here to talk to you about smart water. I guess it's up to us what kind of water we choose to drink,

which is easier said than done, because sometimes I feel like I don't really have a choice. I was out at dinner with someone. I got offered, do you want tap or sparkling or still? Look, I wanted tap. I'm cheap. I'm happy to have tap water. Because I had someone there with me, I felt self-conscious about saying tap.

So I went 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. So 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-gaseous water and they're still selling you water. So you've got to say tap, please, and embarrass yourself in front of everyone for being this tap drinker. If I'm with somebody who I don't know what their preference is, I say, but what would you like? They can say something different. That's okay.

Those are preferences and those are social things. But I don't feel embarrassed saying I want tap water. Yeah, thank you for having my back on that. It makes me feel slightly more sane. The truth is they may be embarrassed to ask for tap water too and may be completely relieved when you do. Wow. There's shame. You feel shame. Yeah, because you're so judged because

they deliver you their lights this big question it is i always say still please i'm just kidding i'm kidding i actually i normally go with tap do you restaurant okay this is interesting i didn't expect this from you actually i'm gonna give you a line reading okay okay so you're at dinner i'm at dinner you're at a really nice dinner beautiful dinner a date you really want to impress okay and the waiter comes up and says tap still or sparkling i'm panicking internally for a bit especially if it's a surprise to me i'll sort of look over and then i'll be i mean David are you okay I'd love the sparkling to the sparkling because I feel if I choose still then I'm annoyed because it's just essentially it's tap water at least if I get the sparkling it's something a bit special it's like a little treat okay but here's

what I'm annoyed for the rest of the time that I didn't just get and then you're not present on your date I think you can say I'm good with with tap, but let's, whatever you want. But doesn't that create weird pressure for them? Because you've already put down the gauntlet of I'm tapping it up. And then it makes them feel bad if they choose something else. I don't think so. Because maybe they're also afraid to say tap. And you kind of got to lead the way.

You got to say like, I am fine with tap, but I'm also great with still or sparkling. Whatever you prefer. So why? But Americans judge me so much when I drink tap water from like a hotel yeah i'll never do that yeah so that's the judgment i'm feeling from my date when i'm being like tap please at a restaurant i'm thinking they're 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 too but okay 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 yeah 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 flicking the metal faucet yeah you. You don't even think that. It almost appears to you like bottled water. Yeah, completely. And that's all it is. That's sort of the main thing I took away from that little documentary was that a lot of bottled water, it is just tap water. Yeah. With some of the good stuff actually filtered out and removed, which is very funny to me.

So potentially it can be a worse deal than what you would get otherwise. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It's a product that I use because I'm terrible, as I've said many times, at having anything healthy because I just love eating sugar. So a good way to get the stuff I want and need is to have AG1.

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that is athleticgreens.com slash flightless to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Yummy. Flightless Bird is supported by BetterHelp, 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. 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. And it's that thing where until you do therapy, you don't really understand how helpful it is yes in new zealand we hate therapy i am very rapidly coming around from that very old-fashioned idea i mean look how well would you take care of your car if you had to keep the same one your entire life it's a bit like how brain works so why treat them that way you've got to like make sure things are running smoothly there are plenty of ways to support a healthy brain, learning a language or taking power naps. There's also BetterHelp online therapy. BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat only therapy sessions. 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 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash bird. That's betterhelp.com slash bird. Anyway, back to the little documentary I 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 the responsibilities of what bottled water companies deal with. There's also the convenience of it all. Bottled water made things easy, a little thing you could grab and take with you. And people need that because during the 90s and 2000s, there was less public water available. You know, when I grew up in New York City, we'd go to Central Park and there were 100 water fountains 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 tap water, they're 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 EPA, a public agency required to protect tap water, but by the FDA, which regulates food products, the Food and Drug Administration, because bottled water is considered a food product.

It's packaged. The FDA does not do monitoring of all the bottled water companies. The bottled water companies do their own testing, and far less frequently, I would note, than urban water agencies test. Peter isn't just wildly speculating here. He investigated this. Because when there's a public water crisis like in Michigan, you hear about it, and rightfully so. But when a's a public water crisis like in Michigan, you hear about it, and rightfully so. But when a private water company screws up, it can very easily fly under the radar. So, like a little gopher, Peter dug in. I actually FOIA'd Freedom of Information Act, the FDA, to try and get some information about how often the bottled water company tests were

problematic. And it turns out there were recalls the bottled water company tests were problematic. And it turns out there were recalls of bottled water that were not told to the public. I got more than 100 of examples where things were found in bottled water. Some of them failed on account 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 to recall because somebody found cricket parts in the bottled water. Oh, Jesus. And that's a story that we don't know about, right? Because it doesn't

have to be publicly reported. No, that's right. These recalls are sometimes but not always posted on the FDA website, but they're almost never reported in the media. Now, crickets and arsenic are rare, and those kind of problems are found in the more niche, smaller brands. The Coca-Colas of this world 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. Like when Sheryl 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 is PET, polyethylene terephthalate. And so far as we know, PET does not leach chemicals into the water or into the food products that might be stored in PET. It's a remarkably stable kind of plastic. But bottled water is sometimes bottled in other kinds of plastics. some plastics do leach. 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, part of the reason PETA doesn't drink much bottled water is because of the plastic, part of the reason PETA doesn't drink much bottled water is because of the plastic. But it's not out of fear of bleaching or cancer. It's because of 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. Glass is heavy. It's expensive. It is recyclable. PET, 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 PET became cheap and affordable, the beverage companies realized this was a way to get away from heavy, expensive glass. And they started bottling all beverages, soft drinks, fruit drinks, bottled

water in PET. And that, from a cost point, was very attractive for the companies and really helped the industry. But the bottled water industry is a small fraction of the total plastic market, but it's an unnecessary fraction because PET, it's recyclable, as the bottled water industry likes to tell us, 100% recyclable, 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 shocking shocker, but a lot of that plastic you sort into recycling bins to make you feel better about using so much plastic, it's not recycles. The whole idea of recycling is part myth sold to you by companies that put things in plastic bottles

so you feel guilt-free about continuing to use all that plastic. That's right. A small fraction of the plastic bottles in 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 use recycled plastic in their bottles. So they all make plastic bottles out of what we call virgin plastic, which comes from petroleum. If we required that plastic bottles include 25% or 50% or 100% recycled 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 an important solution, but we've never done that. The irony in all this as well is I imagine some of the countries that could do with bottled water that is cleaner than what's available publicly don't have it. Is that a fair call? Whereas in America, we have everything on tap, but we don't choose the tap. We choose the

bottled water. That's a really important point. I've been talking about the United States or developed countries in general. One of the worst aspects of what I describe as the global water crisis is that it's the 21st century and we have failed to provide safe drinking water to everyone on the planet. There are 800 million people that don't have the tap water that we have in the richer countries of the world. For them, their alternative is drinking contaminated water and getting sick, which they do by the millions, or spending money that they don't have for bottled water. The long-term answer for countries without safe drinking water is not expensive bottled water, but safe tap water, like what largely exists here in America. And remember, a study from four years ago found private water companies get 64% 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 giant reservoirs of clean, glistening, free water. There's a lot of things to complain about. There's a lot of things to fix. But our water supply here is kind of great. It's kind of great. With exceptions, those exceptions should be fixed. There have been obstacles. The Trump administration attempted to repeal the federal clean water rule. But Peter says there's

good news, too. In Biden's recent infrastructure bill that passed, there's about $55 billion nationwide for water-related spending. That includes $15 billion to try and get lead out of drinking water to replace those old legacy lead pipes. That's about half of what it will cost to do the job, but hey, 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 big stadium football stadium in a big university in Florida. One thing 45,000 fans won't see water fountains state building codes require water for large venues so why aren't they there? Well the stadium design was approved.

It was up to all codes that were applicable at that time. And those codes do not call for drinking fountains at all? That's correct. Under 2001 code, bottled water can take the place of drinking fountains. That's what UCF will do on Saturday. In the first game that they played, it was 100 degrees out, and there were 40,000 people in the stadium. 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 went to the hospital with heat-related problems. Well, today, UCF decided it will add water fountains to the university's new game plan to keep its fans hydrated. It was a stunning example of the fact that we're taking water for granted. So what is the future of bottled water here in the United States? The very first thing we have to be doing is investing in our tap water system. A 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 to 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 100% of plastic bottles. And that'll raise the cost of bottled water, which deserves to be raised. It's already a thousand times more expensive than tap water, which people don't understand. But we need to make bottled water a specialty item, not a day-to-day item.

A luxury, not a common-day good. a luxury, not a common day good. We are very swayed by marketing, obviously. Oh, you like that little fish. I love that little guy. You see a little fish and that's like healthy and wonderful. And it makes you smarter, that water. It's called smart water, so it must make you smarter. I wrote down some mottos that come from bottled water that I quite like.

Can't live without it. It's quite good. Far from pollution. Far from acid rain. Far from industrial waste. Quite dramatic. I like that one. Sip smarter.

Live longer. Pleasure within you. Oh, wow. That one's sexual. I quite liked how sensual that was. And I really like cleansed inside. Beautiful outside. That one's sexual. I quite liked how sensual that was. And I really liked cleansed inside. Beautiful outside. Cleansed inside?

That's also sexual. It sounds a lot. God, they really lean in. I know. Oh, my. But with the smart water thing, does part of your brain go, this is going to make me smarter? No. 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 little spout yeah yeah it makes it easy to drink and it feels 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 kind of put logic away oh no logic i mean that's why the advertising like cuts through so well like it cuts through our logic straight away we don't hear about those plastics no it just goes up on like the fda's website and like who is logging on there and looking about

these little recalls that are going on but then flint is a national catastrophe as it is but you know that sticks in the mind it does and again like you said it took a while for that to come out like it took some digging for that to actually be revealed and for to actually be pushed back on that it takes time there's other odd stories and odd headlines about contaminated water sources and the fact that some of them have they call them like forever chemicals that are in there yeah there's some pretty bad pollution going on, which again, helps the bottled water companies with their clean, pure marketing line. Yeah. And I guess it's convenience as well, right? You can just like have this bottle with you and it's

with you for the day. But even when the bottles that you buy, like the hydro flasks or things like that, they sell that as like, well, you can just fill up your water in the morning and have it with you all day. It's like, no. First of all, that's still inconvenient. In the morning, you have to pour it in and then you still have to clean it. Just because there's water in it doesn't mean you don't have to clean it. Your mouth is on it. I think it's a great solution, but they can't say it's just as convenient as bottled water.

It's not. No, but in saying that, are we also getting so incredibly lazy at times as well like it is i feel it as well as i open up my tasanis and like my lacroix's and all that it's like our laziness levels have gotten to a whole lot i have tasani sometimes yeah salty yeah i don't know i feel like the most dangerous water i've been near is i was in kazakhstan for a show i did and i swam in a radioactive lake it had been generated from a atomic bomb blast and i swam in that and i like if i can survive that i feel like i can survive the cecil water i can survive tap water here

like everything will be fine you know did you have this in america where fluoride was a big discussion having fluoride in the water yes yeah conspiracy theorists love diving on that is it being like government mind control situation i had fluoride tablets because we didn't have fluoride added to our water in new zealand and you needed it i had little well i don't know if you do i mean my parents like this will make your teeth stronger like it'll help your bones well right 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 to get it and then you were done with fluoride at some point but what's the deal with it in the water they used to add it to the water i think at

some point do they still do it to make people's teeth 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 it says it's usually i mean it's 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 i mean it, kids' teeth are rotting from like drinking too much sugary soft drink. And a lot of those companies are making the bottled water as well. It's like this big endless loop. The recycling thing also surprised me as well. National Geographic did a study.

90 or 91% of plastic doesn't get recycled that you put out for recycling. It's shocking. I mean, that's the main problem is just all this plastic that we're just like throwing into landfills. I think like China used to take a lot of America's plastics and it's refusing now. So we're trying to get into other countries. Like a lot of it's not even recycled here.

It's a real issue. And it just ends up being like chucked into landfill, which is pretty bad. Yeah. But then I do think the bottled water companies are adjusting. We have boxed water. This is in cardboard. Exactly.

Some sort of cardboard device. Yeah, we're doing our bit. Yeah. To try to adjust for the plastic but still keep it convenient and still keep it clean. Yeah. Yeah, it's, man, we're gullible. Also canned water called Liquid Death. Oh.

And that marketing's really great because it looks like beer cans. Oh, right. So is it like you can kind of like fit in at a party drinking your water? Is that the idea? You totally could. But it can get you into trouble because people can get pulled over if a cop sees what looks like a tall boy in their car. I didn't realize how aggressive the police here are against having open, like, open carry in your car.

Because in New Zealand, it's pretty loose. You can be driving around. Drinking? I think. Not drinking, but you can have an open vessel in the car and it's not like the end of the world. Whereas here, people take that incredibly seriously. Yes. I didn't realize that until recently.

You tried that in the car with me. As a passenger I had an open beer And I saw Rob just be like what are you doing We had it in Georgia Obviously when we were in college it was a big deal open container I mean it's obviously You shouldn't be drinking and driving

So I guess it's great to push back against that If you're a passenger I don't really understand the problem No neither do I What's the issue But here in California that's a big I. That's the thing. What's 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 and you've only had two glasses of wine, but you have the water in there, it could make you a little nervous. A hundred percent. Yeah, I can see that. Has this happened to you? I feel like you're speaking from personal experience. Yeah, okay. It's been a fear once or twice.

So listening to him, have you come around to one or the other more? I really liked what he had to say about the cleanliness of tap water. Yeah, it feels like mostly it's pretty good out there. And you know what? Another thing, maybe, did we touch on this? Like Brita, Somaa there's filters exactly and i have we didn't get into filters yeah but that's all other thing you've got a filter i have a filter and i use it but i don't you know i don't replace the filters enough and then i wish i had bottled water again it's a whole cycle if you had a blind taste test

of different water flavors you had your smart water and your Dasani, which is apparently salty and whatever your Fiji spring water. I like Fiji. Do you think if it was a blind taste, you could taste like your favorite water out of that? Or do you think it's purely that label that you see and that makes your brain go, yum, yum, there's that little fish? Oh, 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 it's the worst it's my least favorite is dasani okay my most favorite in my opinion

not saying it's the best one is a thai smart water and fiji do you think you could taste the difference between those two okay actually yeah i do okay one thing Do you think you could taste the difference Between those two? Actually yeah I do Okay one thing though You said you taste the difference for tap What do you taste? I mean I live in a very old building And I wonder if I'm just tasting like old metal

I have been feeling a bit off lately Actually I should be thinking about that The water doesn't taste like New Zealand water tastes So I live in an old apartment as well. And one time I was out of town. I came home. I turned the shower on and it was all brown. Oh, God.

Yeah, okay. See? Like, what if I had put a cup under that? Yeah, totally. That doesn't feel great. I mean, that feels like it's... It's like a pipe issue, but still. Yeah, I mean, it's 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

faucet the cecil hotel just all the nightmare stories exactly go on i guess i'm gonna take this opportunity to give spindrift a shout out speaking of jenn Jennifer Aniston and sexy Jennifer Aniston is sexy smart water and Kristen Bell is sexy spindrift. Alright, she's on the spindrift. She got us all into spindrift and it's real fruit. It's sparkling water made with

real fruit. So there's a bit of flavor in there. Yeah, and it does taste different than their competitors. All right. It's good. The only reason I did this episode is that I'm secretly looking to be endorsed by one of these. I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for those millions to come in.

Which one? Which one would you want? Dasani. My God. Bring me Dasani. If the uptake in bottled water, if that sort of 2% growth that we saw between years keeps happening, by 2050 there'll be 12 billion metric tons of plastic in landfills. That's a lot.

That's a lot of plastic. Maybe. A bit of tap now and then. Just not at the Cecil. Don't drink from the Cecil. All right, David. Well, we learned some stuff today. I like to think we did.

I think you got 17% more American. american i mean i am drinking a lot of lacroix yeah exactly that's pretty american i think thank you and let's see what we get into next week