Chicago is a global city known for its social prowess as well as its role as a major manufacturing center. Cars, warehouses, and factories maintain this world-renowned pulse but in turn circulate considerable amounts of pollution through its veins. These contaminants draw the cleanliness of its natural resources, especially water, into question. This concern is reflected in the enormous sales of bottled-water, which many consider a safer and better tasting alternative to an increasingly polluted Lake Michigan.
A recent demonstration by NEIU students, however, has twisted the cap off the bottled-water industry, exposing their negative environmental impact while highlighting the surprising quality of tap water.
Inspired by a national movement entitled “Think Outside the Bottle,” five students from a biology course set up a blind taste-test pinning a sample of bottled water against tap water. Participants were asked to guess the origin of the samples, but were frequently unable to accurately discern between the two. According to Whitney Behr, Joyce Tran, Robert Sara, Dan Evans, and Heather Haneman, the members of the student-led biology group, this is because bottled-water is often just packaged tap water. The standards for water purification are often less stringent for bottled-water companies than for municipalities, the group said. The group also touched on the environmental impacts of bottled-water products, noting that a large percentage of plastic water bottles are not recycled. The energy and fuel required to produce the bottles is also a factor that adds to the wastefulness of the industry.
The Green Cycle Group, an NEIU student organization promoting environmental awareness, endorsed the taste-test demonstration. Last year, Green Cycle lobbied for the addition of a three-dollar “clean renewable energy fee” to student tuition. This money will go toward outfitting the school with efficient energy-harnessing equipment, such as solar panels. Green Cycle also convinced the computer labs to set double-sided printing as the default on all computers in an effort to save paper. The collaboration of Green Cycle with the taste-test demonstration highlighted the lively environmental movement at NEIU.
Many political analysts predict that future wars will be fought, not over oil reserves, but fresh water sources. If this is indeed the case, then privatizing water and selling it for profit has serious moral implications. The companies that dominate the bottled-water industry are names such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle. Their economic power allows them to claim the world’s most precious human resource as their own, and sell it at high prices. The NEIU demonstration revealed the social and environmental implications of bottled-water, prompting students to think global, drink local, and save a few dollars in the process.