Dangers of Bottled Water Informative Speech

Dangers of Bottled Water General Purpose: To Inform Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech my audience will able to describe the dangers of Bottled water. Central idea: Bottled water is not as safe as people believe it to be. Organization Style: Cause and Effect I. Introduction Attention getter: “Every five minutes in the U. S over 2 million plastic bottles are used (Arrey). ” Americans drink about 7 billion gallons of bottled water a year that’s about $8 billion dollars in sales per year (Arrey). We all drink bottled mineral water these days.

We all like to think it’s a far healthier option than tap water. It’s extremely handy to be able to carry around your own water supply in in this hectic and fast paced world we live in. As you all know in am a chemistry major so I spend a lot of time in a lab. I have noticed that the that the purified water we use isn’t as pure as we would like it to be. This water is purified the same way that most bottled water is. So this made me wonder what is in the water causing it to react with thing that is shouldn’t be reacting with.

So I stared doing research and found report after report that are reveal the facts that the industry dosen’t want you to know the true face of the bottled mineral water industry. Preview points: As I progressed through research and found that the easiest way to divide the startling facts into to three categories the first the ture Sources of the water, then move on to Quality and the nasty hidden secrets, and finally Bottled Water vs. tap. II Body. A. The Source 1.

We are all too easily fooled by fancy pictures a fancy language we really need to stop and read more carefully the labels of the food products we are consuming because often first appearances are misleading. a. Example Alaska Premium Glacier Drinking water claims to be the pure glacier water from the last unpolluted frontier, the actual source comes from a municipal water supply in Greenville, Tennessee (Layton). 2. One brand that claims to come from a mountain range actual comes out of the back of a car park. 3. The truth is that 40 per cent of mineral water you buy ctual come from the tap and they label it as “pure Spring Water” of “Natures water”. 4. As a matter of fact, you and I could start our own bottled water company tomorrow and the FDA would have very little authority over us and the brand. 5. Even if a manufacture is caught selling unsafe water the most they can be fined for is that they are false adverting there are no fines for any of the health hazards that it may have presented to the local population. Now that I have discuss the hidden secrets of the sources lets move on to the quality of the water.

II. Quality 1. When we all think mineral water these days we think of it as far safer option. Research has proven otherwise. a. The Environmental Working Group conducted a comprehensive test on 10 of the top U. S. brands of bottled water and found an alarming amount of containments. Out of these brands tested and contaminated a total of 38 chemical pollutants there was an average of 8 contaminants in each brand. b. The list of the 10 brands tested is anonymous as part of market based research, except for 2 brands: Wal-Mart and Giant bottled water brands.

These 2 were actually named in this study because the first tests and numerous follow-up tests confirmed that these 2 brands contained contaminants at levels that exceeded state standards or voluntary industry guidelines. 1. The most alarming contaminants were cancer causing byproducts of population, fertilizer residue, industrial solvents, caffeine, pharmaceutical and heavy metal mineral including arsenic and radioactive isotopes(Evolving). B. 1. Another study showed that nearly one third of the brands on the market have an illegal level of bacterial growth.

This study also found high levels as high as 13 parts per billion of arsenic tap water is only allowed to have 5 parts per billion. 2. They also found Phthalates which is a chemical compound that mimic estrogen. 3. This test went on to test this impurities on lab rates and found that the damaged the genitals, kidneys, liver and lungs, and know they are starting to find these same symptoms in humans. 3 Bottled water vs. Tap A. FDA regulations for bottled water are more lax than the that of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency which regulations for municipal drinking water. 1.

FDA regulations start with the most basic must have a sanitary container and sanitary environment. 2. According to “HowStuffWorks” The FDA states that it must come from approved sources. But the FDA but does not come out and make sure it is safe it just means it comes from either a protected natural source, such as a spring or artesian well in which measures have been taken to assure against contamination by surface water; or a municipal source of drinking water. 3. There are rules on what the bottle can say they do have to put if the water originally came from an untreated sources (Layton).

B. In some areas FDA regulation on bottled whatever are stricter than the EPA rules C. Example- Tap water, which travels through lead pipes to get to your faucet, is allowed to have up to 15 parts per billion of lead by necessity, whereas bottled water can’t have more than 5 parts per billion. D. This rules all sounds great in theory, but the harsh reality is that, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, making it exempt from FDA oversight(Baskin). E. However in most cases EPA rules are much stricter. 1.

Tap water is not allowed to contain any Coli or fecal coliform bacteria at all (Coli can cause illness, and fecal coliform can indicate the presence of disease-causing agents), bottled water is allowed to have trace amounts of these contaminants. 2. Bottled water sources are typically tested for harmful contaminants once a week at most. They results are not disclosed to the public or community whereas municipal water supplies are tested hundreds of times every month. As I conutiued to read on this subject I kept seing that bottled water had a 4,000 percent markup up value.

Since I work at walmart that gives me the ability to scan the item and look up the mark up value so I did and I found this to be ture. III. Conclusion So to recap: – Bottled water has the main dangers 1-Source of the water in the bottle; with little regulation we could be drinking anything and we are not provided results or data for what the water contains 2- Quality. Even the bottled water from reliable sources is still not as purified sometimes as would a home water treatment do for probably at the same price, if not less. 3- Just because it is bottled ater dose not meant that it is any better than regular tap water. `Works Cited Arrey, Eliel. “3 Dangers YOU Ought To Know About Bottled Water. ” EzineArticles. com. SparkNET, 5 Oct. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. Baskind, Chris. “MNN – Mother Nature Network. ” MNN – Mother Nature Network. Http://www. glickinteractive. com/, 15 Mar. 2010. Web. 06 Mar. 2013. “Evolving Wellness. ” Evolving Wellness RSS. Http://www. evitaochel. com, 18 Oct. 2008. Web. 06 Mar. 2013. Layton, Julia. “How Bottled Water Works” 29 August 2006. HowStuffWorks. com. 06 March 2013.