Stuff You Should Know - Just Say No to... Bottled Water

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

Bottled water is huge business, and terrible for the environment. But where did this all start? Listen in and learn.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart 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.

That's right and you know what? I think we should say the outset here. No, no. We have to. You didn't know what I'm going to say. 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. And when I say old, I mean that it's from 2005 or six or so. Six. 16 years old. On bottled water. So it is old, but I mean I think most of the stuff in here is still true from checking in and researching further. But what it did do was provide an interesting look at statistics because you know we had to get updated statistics on how much bottled water we

use and how big the industry is. And it's really amazing though just to have sort of a before-after picture from 2006 to now 2000. I mean I saw stats from like 20 and 21. Yeah, there's been a tad bit of growth since 2006 in that industry. Yeah, I think like one stat she cites and we're going to go through all this, but just as an example is seven billion gallons of bottled water were consumed by Americans in 2005. And I got from 2019 that is, I don't know, I'm sorry, 2020 that is now 15 billion gallons. Mm-hmm. That is a tremendous increase in bottled water consumption. 45 gallons per American per year, per American. Yeah.

Includes dumb babies. That's a lot of water. I mean I guess it's better than if we were, if we had decided to all start drinking like that much high fructose corn syrup. Sure. Every year. But there's a lot of problems with bottled water, as you can imagine, and maybe some you can't quite imagine yet, but we're going to go over all that. We're going to give you the ins and outs of bottled water, okay? The ins and outs.

So please forgive us, this is kind of an old article. What perked my ears up, Chuck, is that she referred to bottled water as newfangled at one point and said people who drink bottled water just think they're so fancy. And I was like, this seems old. This seems like an old way of looking at things. Well, it is interesting because I think that was true for a while. Yeah. And then I think we're to point now in 2022 where there's a large portion of America that doesn't want to get bottled water at all anymore and refuses to use like single plastic,

single use plastics like this. But there are also still a lot of people that, you know, you go and you see them like loading up by the case full 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. Okay, lay it on me, fella. I have to tread carefully 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 bought a bunch of, you know, and when we did like, hey, I'm going to the grocery store for the week. And they went with us and they bought, they wanted to buy like a case of bottled water.

And we were like, oh, no, no, no, please don't. Trying to tread carefully though, you know, we're like, we got really good filtration, good water, it's good, good, good. And they said that they're on a thing where they have to drink so much water. I was like, oh, that's great. And we have a good filtration system here. But they were like, well, it really helps me keep up with how much I'm drinking if I do it per bottle. And Emily just looked at me like, 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 purer or whatever. And it was, it was more than just that. Who knows? I don't know. The reason they gave though, was keeping up with it. Right. 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 them out to the beach. But anyway, it's a personal frustration. And I'm trying, I'm going to try not to like, just live on my soap box in this episode. But suffice it to say, I really 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. Gotcha. If somebody's pinching you and they're like,

I'm not going to stop 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. Sure. You're like, Oh God, I got to get this bottled water and I hate it. You're out of high fructose corn syrup. And then I 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 want to crawl under the rug. Yeah. Well, come out from under the rug. Chuck Lee, we got to talk about bottled water. I know. I just wanted a level set.

So, okay, I think you did that pretty well. Let's talk a little, a little history about bottled water. And this comes to us from our friends over at Sirius Eats. This part's interesting. I thought so too. So bottled water has been around, I saw somewhere since the 18th century in America, certainly in the mid 19th century, there were people bottling water and selling them. And usually 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 bottled water. Yeah. And Perrier, you know, I'm sure you remember when we were kids that before like bottled water was, as we know it was such a big thing.

Perrier was something you started seeing ads for on TV and in magazines that was just, I think they were smart enough to brand it early on, or not early on in their, I mean, they've been around since the mid 1800s, but early on in the 70s and 80s in America of like, you know, a fancy schmancy thing to do. Yeah. The Patrick Bateman types really slurped it down, right? Yeah, absolutely. But that was because of a rebranding that they did 120 years after they started selling this stuff here in America. They hired Orson Welles, 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 types still are. And so Perrier became like the first bottled water that America kind of became obsessed with. But it was like aspirational, it was expensive. 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 94 with their Aquafina 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 if they were scared by Perrier, because they were also marketing it as an alternative to soda, right, like a healthy alternative. And then Pepsi started

crushing it. And then Coke was like, oh, well, we can't have that. No, so they launched Dasani, which apparently means, or it means nothing. It's just supposed to evoke like a kind of like a refreshing pure sensation, I guess. I guess. Or sorry, a clean fresh tastes at a Coke spokesperson back in the late 90s, early 2000s. Yeah. And then that also set off a huge consolidation rush, where there, I mean, some of the brands that you know today, a bottle of water like Arrowhead and Poland Springs and Deer Park, they've been around since the mid 19th century. That's crazy. They got snatched up by all these larger brands or consolidated when people started to say, yeah, we'll drink bottled water. And I remember very clearly in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was a

big cultural discussion, I guess, but also kind of chiding of people who drank bottled 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 discussion was done, America said, you know what? We want bottled water. That's what we're going to drink. And in 2017, it became the most consumed beverage in the entire United States, bottled water. Yeah. Wow. How about that? 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, bottled water is number one. Beats beer, yeah. Yeah, bottled beer or canned beer. Crazy. Yeah, it's hard to believe,

but that's kind of what's happened here. 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 bottled water is 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 certainly some funky tasting tap water in America, depending on where you live. Yeah, definitely. And there's a lot of people who kind of take the opposite tack. They're like, 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. Remember our episode on the New York City's

water delivery system? Oh yeah. And just how amazingly good New York City tap water is. In some places, the local tap water is what they sell as spring water, basically. So some people have it better than others, but in general, people who drink tap water just take a certain tack toward bottled water. You're a dummy for drinking that. That doesn't make any sense. Whereas people with bottled water say, you're drinking poison right out of your kitchen sink. I can't believe you would do that to yourself and your family. So there's kind of like a disconnect there between those two groups. Yeah. And to be sure, we are not talking about, I mean, there are some, my friend Dave Barnhardt

is a documentary filmmaker who has made a documentary on the water in Flint, Michigan. And we're not talking about places where the tap water is like legit dangerous and it's shameful that that kind of thing goes 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. Florida's got some funky water too, my friend. Egg water, yeah. Well, I went to, on 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 funky to be like in the same city as. It's just, it's funky stuff.

And for those of you who've 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. Yeah. It's totally safe. Nothing's wrong with it. It may even bestow some health benefits compared to water that has a lower sulfur content. Oh, interesting. The upshot of 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 in your house? Yeah, for sure. Okay. If you want to get rid of everything, you just get a reverse osmosis system. It's as simple as that. The problem is it takes out everything. So there's beneficial stuff in water you don't really want to take out, magnesium, potassium, calcium, and probably a bunch of other little micronutrients 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 good one. Okay. So in reverse, I think we also did one specifically on reverse osmosis too,

if I'm not mistaken. Did we? 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 a 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. 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 would for sure. Julia, and this is again from 2005. 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 outright, but you can get really generous

with how far you stretch things. 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 Juneau, Alaska tap water. Yeah. The municipal supply. Yeah. Which I guess is, you know, if you trace it back, it might come originally from the last unpolluted frontier. Sure. Yeah. No, there's certainly a bit of legitimacy to that, but it's dishonest still. Yeah. Agreed. There was also one called Glacier Clear Water that until 2002 was owned by the dairy farmers of America in Kansas City, Missouri. Okay. 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 was not coming from any glacial activity. And so it was stuff like that that really made the rounds in the early 2000s and made people who were into bottled water look like idiots. 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 the propensity for bottled water was not beaten out of us. It was, it just got even more honed, I guess. 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. That's pretty interesting. I think before we break, maybe we should at least go over the kinds of bottled water that the FDA, like the terms that the FDA regulates. Yes? At least. Okay. We should start with artesian. It's a great sounding word. Yeah. 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 rock. It's underground. And it comes from porous rock or sand formations that 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 14 years, we've never mentioned artesian water, you know?

I think so. There's also mineral water. Total mineral water. Yeah, I do too. A lot. Mineral water is just water that has a higher content of total dissolved solids. It 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 a taste, a distinctive taste, and in particular, a mineral water taste. So I think the standard, because you said the FDA regulates this, and we'll talk more about that in a little bit, but the FDA standard is that to be mineral water, it has to be spring water that has at least 250 parts per million of total dissolved solids. Regular old spring water,

non-mineral water has 50. That's a big difference that your tongue can pick up on. Then you got your naturally sparkling water. 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 naturally to qualify for that language. Yeah. And I went and looked and I was sad to see that my favorite San Pellegrino water, it is artificially carbonated after the fact. And that's sad because I was looking into this and apparently natural carbonation, which like the volcano is heating the rock that holds the aquifer 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, but it's really, really hard to keep water carbonated and then get it to market. So they take the water out and then recarbonate it and then sell it. So it's really hard to find naturally carbonated water and I think it's very expensive too. I like that Topo Chico. I don't believe that that is naturally carbonated. 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 in a glass bottle. It tickles your nose. It does. And we don't buy cases in cases, but it's a treat. Yeah. And it does come in a glass bottle, but Chuck, I've seen you, you have a ritual where

every time you finish off a bottle of Topo Chico, I just smash it on the ground and shout. Yeah. Say yahoo. Yeah. And sometimes I'll smash it against something hard and then hold the broken bottleneck in my hand and attempt anyone to come at me. Yeah. You'll say any takers? Never had any takers either. No, you never have. It's very menacing. What else we got? We got the purified water I was talking about and this is, when you're talking about the disannies and the aquafinas, is when they take public tap water and they purify it. It comes from, in other words, a municipal water source. And that's pretty much the long and short of that. And I mean, if you're talking about pure

water, this 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, you have to either filter it. You have to distill it. You have to run it through that old reverse osmosis. You have to take some oxygen and subject it to electricity and create ozone and then infuse the water with that. So it goes and reacts with all the stuff in there and 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, 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 non-potable water, meaning like you should not be drinking this. This is not for human consumption. That can be treated through these ways and it becomes, it can be bottled and sold as purified water because the end result is the same. It's almost devoid of anything but water molecules. Yeah. And I think we'll get into the different FDA versus EPA standards because EPA is who regulates your tap water. But I believe that the FDA standard for bottled water allows more poop in your water than the EPA does in your tap water, right? Yeah. The EPA says you can have zero poop in your water and the FDA says, hey, hey,

let's relax a little bit. Let's take our hangups off of the American public. Oh man. What's wrong with a little poop in your water? Right. You got spring water, which I love. There's nothing better than if you can drink directly from a spring 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 wonderful site to behold if you've never seen a natural spring. I love it. I love it. And then it's collected there at the surface in the case of bottling or they may drill down if they can't get to the surface, but it's like a sanitary protected area

that is drilled down to what's feeding the spring. They might just go to an area that's more accessible, I guess. But if they do that though, it has to be the same composition as it does from the source. Yes. Hey, I'm going to put three words together and you try to convince me that they don't evoke an image of a future medical kink. Sanitary protected hole. Isn't that awful? Isn't that an awful collection of words? Yeah. That could be the new album title for Diarrhea Planet. I guess so. But that'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. 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, fimple. That's the new one I'm testing out because I've been using easy peasy too much. Did you just say simple, fimple with an F? Yeah, but really you could make anything. You could use any continent or combination. Except for simple, pimple. That's kind of gross because a simple, simple I guess, but that's unnecessarily complex. I like easy peasy lemon squeezy. Yeah, I do too, but again, it's starting to kind of take off a little bit, so I'm going to go elsewhere. All right, simple, fimple, we'll be right back. Stuxnet. Who Stuxnet? Stuxnet. I don't know. You know it's Stuxnet. Is that in this? Stuxnet. It's a great name. Yeah,

it's Stuxnet. That's the name of it. It's a great name. Stuxnet with an X. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh

Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father.

And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Chuck. So like we said, the FDA regulates bottled water and it's kind of a quirk of bureaucracy that it does. It would make way more sense that the EPA does, but the EPA says, no, we're too busy concentrating on drinking water and our standards. FDA, you go handle this. And FDA says it 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

because it's considered a packaged food and all packaged foods have to have an expiration date, even though water's 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 FDA considers bottled water, they categorize it as low risk. Yeah, which is just a presumption. Yeah, and I guess that, I don't know, I guess that lets them internally off the hook for, I mean, I'm sure it shouldn't be as robust as pharmaceuticals or something. I'm not saying that, but yeah, they categorize it as low risk. It says that it must come from an approved source, but that doesn't mean it's not like the FDA goes out to the spring in Tennessee or whatever to check it out or anything like that, right?

No, they definitely do not. They say it has to come from, one of these, like an artesian well, it has to come from well water, it has to come from municipal water, like all of those sources that we mentioned, and by the way- And what are their sources worth here? Right, and by the way, you have to actually put on your label what kind of water this is, like those aren't just like 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 then further than that, like they have kind of sub regulations for the different kinds of water, like if it's from a spring or something like that, I think it has to be tested like once a week or something to make sure it's sanitary.

That's another one. If it comes from municipal water, it has to go through that filtration process, like we said. And then also, if you add anything to the water, because remember, I was saying reverse osmosis, Chuck is like, it takes everything out, 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 on the label, it contains chunks of fat. Or with that, fat is probably how the marketing team would want them to say it. And like a starburst, you know, on the label. Interestingly, fluoride is, when we did an episode on fluoride, 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, bottled water is not fluoridated. So some dentists have talked about the 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 it's bottled water with added fluoride, like I think a lot of baby water, that's the thing, right? 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, but it's going to say it 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 $100 someone has. You think? Sure. Got to 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 I was 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. They don't know why because it's come out of the sky and the sky has poisoned all of us, obviously.

Yeah. You would call it though. You would call it sky water, S-K-Y-E with like an umlaut over everything. Right. An umlaut over each other. I hope it didn't give someone an idea. Again, I think somebody's probably done that. All right. So the FDA also says there's just certain amounts of stuff you can have there. Again, poop, you can have a certain amount of poop, bacteria, viruses, parasites. You can have a certain amount of radon in there. You can have a certain amount of lead in there. That's actually one place where the FDA exceeds the EPA standards is with lead. The FDA says you have to have a much lower amount of lead in your bottled water than the FDA allows for because the EPA 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 over treated, the water won't corrode the lead and very little lead will be brought to your tap. So the EPA says some lead's going to be in your water just by virtue of flowing through these pipes and the FDA says, well, this stuff's not supposed to be flowing through pipes or if it did flow through pipes, it has to be so well filtered that there should be almost no lead in it whatsoever. But other than that, the EPA usually beats the FDA, right? Yeah. And then this is the federal standards. Then your different state may or may not have state regulations for the industry. Some states don't have anything at all going on. Some states

are going to be a little more strict, obviously, and say like you have to have a license, you have to submit to inspections of that kind of thing. So 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 Bottle Water Association. The good news is, is that I believe, and this is an old number, but I bet it's still pretty accurate, that about 80% of the bottled water in the U.S. is a member of the IBWA, and they have their own internal like self-enforced regulations, as far as, you know, it's called, I believe the IWBA model code. And, you know, they talk about, you know, all the filtration types and all 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 2013, really had a big effect on the industry. Right. But to be clear, this is not like a body that like imposes fines or stuff like that. It's all just sort of self-regulated and voluntary. Yeah, it's like, oh man, what episode were we talking about where I was 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 don't remember. I don't either. But I have a feeling this is, and I think anytime you see an industry coming up with its own voluntary regulations, it's a lot of PR stuff. Yeah. You know what I mean? You almost said gobbledygook.

I did. But they, I mean, they do have these standards and they do have, you know, certification you can get through them. But yeah, again, it's voluntary. And like you said, like if you are not selling water from state to state, technically 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 11 states that don't regulate bottled water, there's no one looking over your shoulder whatsoever. 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. It's kind of like that

situation. But then I saw that there's a way 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 bottled water. Oh, interstate, whatever, commerce? Packaging. Yeah, 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 a minute, we have all this bottled water stored in the garage, cases and cases of it, stored in our hot garage in Arizona. Is that bad for you? And the answer is, yes, it is. Leaching happens. We'll get into all the different kinds of plastics, but

mainly what you're going to find is polycarbonate. You're going to find PVC, and you're going to find polystyrene. 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, how does it pronounce, thalates? Thalates, yeah. Thalates. Thalates. Thalates. Ph-h-t-h-a-l-a-t-e-s. Everyone knows what those are. Yeah. That it's going to be leaching chemicals into your water, especially if it stays warm, especially if it's stored for a long, long time. And I read recently, and this is something I would do if I 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 going to keep this bottle and like refill it for as long as possible. 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 2018 study at all? Not yet, sir. Go ahead. So 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, or fine. And I went and looked it up and I'm like, that sounds really fishy. Where did they get their funding? What is that PG stand for? They're defunct. They came along in 1998, 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, that suspicion that, no, there's some sort of like leaching going on and that's probably bad for us has finally been quantified. There's a 2018 study in frontiers and chemistry. And in the study, 259 different bottled water sold in 11 different countries were tested. And what they found is like of no surprise whatsoever, 93% had microplastics in them. And I suspect the other 7%, like they screwed up the testing. I can't believe it's not 100% of these bottled waters have microplastics. Yeah, this is, if you want to read the original article, it's really good. It's from Time Magazine. Your bottled water probably has plastic in it. Should you worry by Markham Hyde, I guess, and it's from May of 2019. And yeah, it's definitely

good to see like a real source and a real study and not just a defunct organization that's like, oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry about it. So in this, they found that there's a substantial amount of microplastics and it's not like little trace amounts. Remember like the parts per million or parts per billion of some of the stuff that the FDA and EPA allows in bottled water and tap water. The average among these 259 bottled waters was 325 particles per liter of microplastics. Yeah, that seems like a lot. Okay. If that seems like a lot, buckle in for this one. Nestle Pure Life Bottled Water had an average of 10,000 particles per liter of microplastics. And you might say, okay, that's fine. I get a little plastic in my teeth. Like,

pull it out. It's fine. Microplastics are becoming, it's becoming clear that microplastics are probably endocrine disruptors. Yeah. I think they fall into a class called obesogens and polypropylene in particular seems to be an endocrine disruptor. And you'll never guess 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 just being in our bottled water, they're everywhere. Like we have an episode due 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. And we'll 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 them 500 years to break down. They don't break down. They basically say that they just break apart 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. From the plastic water bottles that people drank that never break down. Isn't that amazing? Full circle is such a beautiful circle of life that we got going on. All right. We'll take that break and we'll talk more about single-use plastic and why there's such a problem right for this. Stuxnet. Who Stuxnet? Stuxnet. I don't know what they're doing. You know it's Stuxnet. Is that in this? Stuxnet. Stuxnet. It's a great name. That's the name of it. I know. It's a great name. All right. Stuxnet with an X. Stuxnet. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking,

this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and

let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck. So we're talking about single use plastic, which means you take a bottle of water, 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 10% of bottled water bottles were recycled back when this article was first written. Now we're up to almost 30%. Yeah. In the US specifically, because Norway recycles 97% of their plastic. Okay. And then 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. And China was basically the world's plastic recycler for a long time. People are trying to figure out how to handle this issue, which has now become even more pronounced.

And that's kind of where we are right now, while America is at the same time in the world, frankly, stepping up to use even more plastic water bottles than ever. Yeah. There is one alternative that I've seen being used here and there. It's corn-based. It's called PLA, or it's made from polylactic acid. And it is biodegradable, compostable, three months to degrade in a compost pile. But here's the fine print. It sounds great. And I saw that a major fancy-schmancy hotel chain made the big switch and made a big to-do about this. Now we use corn-based 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. So it's not recyclable. If you throw it in the recycling, PLA will mess up. And it doesn't even take much for it to really mess up the other kinds of plastic that they're recycling. And they just dump it all in the trash. Yeah. I mean, exactly. Or they try and send it on a boat to China and that's a long, long way. That's an environmental nightmare. So be aware if you see corn-based biodegradable plastic, unless you really take it upon yourself to compost it, then you're doing the right thing. Good for you. But it says very little of this stuff ever makes it to the compost. Yes. So there's like 50 of our previous episodes just hanging around here. Like our episode on

soda, our episode on recycling, our episode on composting, our episode on plastics. Remember the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? We talked about plastic never breaking down. 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. There's probably a lot of people that are like, what are you talking about? Because it was a random reference years ago. They're a band, 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? Did I? Yeah. No, I don't remember. That was what brought the whole thing up. Frozen poop knife. Oh, that's right. You remember somebody made a knife out of their poop and killed a bear or an interloper or like an evil brother-in-law? I don't know. That's right. And that's what brought the whole thing up. Yeah, they're great though. They're from Nashville. And I don't know that we've ever heard from them, but. That we did. They rejected our offer publicly or our suggestion publicly on Twitter. Oh, right. Yeah. Man, I got to fill you in on the last 13 years. You're getting blank. I know. 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. I 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 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 book. You the person using it. We the people who are making this plastic packaging and who are using it to sell you our products. And it's not our fault. Right. Well, finally, finally, some people in legislatures are calling BS on that. And there's

something called extended producer responsibility laws. I like the sounds of this. Yeah, me too. They're thinking of them in Washington state, Maine and Michigan. And it basically says you have to figure out like you are responsible for dealing with the packaging waste that your product is sold in. 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. I love 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

like very best friends. If you want to watch that documentary, it's very eye opening. And it is called Flint, the poisoning of an American city. And boy, if you want to, if you want your eyes opened about the fact that it can be the year in the 2020s and that we're still just like pumping poison water 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. 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 then, you know, there certainly haven't been very scientific studies, but there have been random

like 2020 things and stuff like that where they will do like 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 depending on how gross your tap water tastes or how much you're into mineral water, taste can be a factor. Like if you don't want your water to taste at all, go get yourself some purified water and call it a day. Or 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? So taste is probably the one thing that you can say, yeah, that might actually be a factor. But not always. A lot of people choose tap water and blind taste tests like you were talking about. Yeah, I saw a water sommelier in New York. Oh, I've seen that guy. Yeah. Did you see that? It was, I think, why do I want to say it was that TV show that Zach, what's his face? Who's the hunky guy? I think all guys named Zach are hunky. Zach Gallivanakis? Yeah. He's pretty hunky now. He's a priming example. He really is. He's always been hunky. I can't remember the guy. It's Zach Efron. He has that show and if I'm not mistaken, he sat down with the water sommelier

and it was really interesting. I mean, it's very easy to scoff at something like that, but different kinds of water for sure have different flavor profiles. 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 I just found it interesting. It is interesting. It's like The Water Boy. Remember that movie with Adam Sandler? Sure. We had that magic water that just tasted amazing. Yeah. My brother is on record. It's very characteristic of him is saying that his favorite water is hose water. Hose water is pretty good. It's got that nice rubber taste.

He's being serious too. And I think it evokes childhood stuff when you're outside playing and having a water hose fight, then you drink some of that stuff. Yeah. The added sensation of that slight sting because it's coming out a little faster than you wanted to. Yeah. Or is a spider perhaps going to come out? Right. So there are some people who are like, hey, hey, this is all fun and games to poo 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, bottled water is literally a lifesaver. 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

for the most part with some places shamefully accepted is probably as healthy, tastes probably as good and is roughly as pure as the bottled water that you're paying hundreds to maybe thousands of times more for drop for drop and is having far less of an ecological 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 2005. But there are people who say, okay, maybe we don't do bottled water. I get that because I'm concerned about microplastics. I also realize it's an ecological nightmare. But I don't know that it's a good idea to say everybody just drink water out of the tap. And what they point to is the safe drinking water act from the 70s, I believe. I think ironized

Cody really had an impact on that one. And then it was updated in 1996. 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 should start studying that. Oh, 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 is happening and more of it needs to happen. But just as much the Congress needs to say, hey, scientists, what have you been finding out about water that we're drinking since 1996? Let's update the laws because the municipal tap water can be within 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 research on the water drinking because it's such a vitally important part of our world. And it's pretty ridiculous that here in the United States it hasn't been updated for 25 years. Yeah. And that would give some southern member of Congress to stand up and like beat their shoe on the desk and say, these laws are as outdated as an old water article on how stuff works. That was a great Trent lot. Trent lot. Yeah. Is that guy 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 didn't mean to derail you. No, no, I'm good. Well, if you want to know more about Bilewater, you could do worse than checking out this antiquated article on how stuff works. You could check out Sirius Eats for some great history. We also got some research from Time Magazine, Healthline, all over the internet. And there is something called the Environmental Working Group. They have a tap water database. It's awesome. You can go in, type in your zip code, select your water utility, and then just have the sock scared off of you when it reveals to you what's in your water. Check it out.

Yeah, I did that yesterday. I want to know what I was going to say. You know, the little box water that they're doing now is a better alternative even than single-use plastic. Oh, yeah. The box water that sends you a check every month in the hopes that you'll mention them, you shill. This is not a brand, I don't think is it? Yeah. Oh, is it really? It's called box water? I believe so. Oh, okay. I just meant water that's packaged in something that's not leaching plastic and it's easier to recycle. I got you. All right. You know those boxes are made from baby lambs. What are you going to do then? Nothing. You just give up, I guess. All right.

Well, since I said give up, everybody, that means it's time for listener mail. I'm clickety-clickin' and I'm finding it. See, I've got four good ones stored up here. Oh, good. Got a little kitty going. You know, I'll do this one. Okay. Because this is promoting a documentary that I want to see. Another one. Hey, guys. Love your show. Always thrilled when a new episode pops up. My girlfriend and I both listen separately and together. It was great to hear an entire episode dedicated to Wiseman's movie, Tittacut 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 by how many people

have never even heard of Grey Gardens. Anyway, been wanting to write for a while in hopes of turning you guys onto a movie that I made. And this recent Tittacut 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 Stradivari, the violin, of course, who through the magic of social media convinces a famous European concert violinist 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. It was shot, by the way, the Strad Style has a shot in it, that has an homage wink to Tittacut Follies in it as well. And he sent me the trailer,

and 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 Strad Style, S-T-R-A-D, made by listener and filmmaker Stefan Avalos, and go stream it. I'm going to watch it. It looks really good. Same here. It does sound magnificent, actually. Yeah, it looks good. It looks right up my alley. Well, thanks, Stefan 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 for letting everybody know. Thanks to you, Chuck, for letting everybody know. Hey, sure. If you want us to let everybody know, let us know via email. Send it off to

StuffPodcast.iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.