But did you know that this now applies to mineral water?

Twenty years ago, before Perrier became trendy, most people would have laughed at the prospect of buying water in a supermarket.

Yet now you will find whole aisles in the supermarket dedicated to the stuff, and specialist shops are selling "designer water", often shipped in from far-flung places like Fiji and New Zealand.

It is now becoming yet another issue that creates environmental guilt for the consumer.

Is it possible to have environmentally friendly mineral water?

Environmental impact

I suppose it is possible, but consider some of the negative environmental effects associated with the average bottle.

Firstly, the extraction of mineral water may have negative effects on the hydrology of the area that it is extracted from.

There are reports of "designer water" being extracted from places where the local population is already facing pressure on water supplies.

Many of the brands of water commonly on sale are travelling hundreds of miles from source to store, creating a carbon dioxide burden in addition to that created by the manufacture of millions of plastic bottles used to contain the water.

Large quantities of bottled water is simply wasted by being poured down the drain or even left in the bottle after that has been discarded.

Since most plastic is now recycled in Asian countries these days, there is also the transport burden of shipping spent bottles.

If they aren't recycled (at least half are not), many are destined for landfill or incineration, where the global warming potential is even greater.

It is, perhaps, not surprising that some companies and government departments are now using filtered water instead of bottled.

I rather suspect that this way of thinking may be more driven by cost than environmental reasons, but if it achieves the same result, who's quibbling?

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