Degradation: When PET degrades several things happen: discoloration, reduced molecular weight and formation of acetaldehyde, which is a colorless liquid with a fruity smell. It forms naturally in fruit, but it can cause an off-taste in bottled water. For bottled water, low acetaldehyde content is quite important, because if nothing masks the aroma, even extremely low concentrations (10-20 parts per billion parts of resin, by weight) of acetaldehyde can produce an off-taste. To avoid degradation a copolymer is used in the resin. Why people should avoid using bottled water: Five Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water 1. Bottled water isn’t good value It costs considerably more than tap water and can be filtered onsite if that’s what the taste you prefer. All the money you pay for the bottles is mostly profits with a fraction for manufacture and the water itself. 2. No healthier than tap water There have been lots of talk about bottled water been cleaner and pollutant free but tap water is just the same and treated before been sent into municipal water systems. This water is regulated far more than bottled water. 3. Bottled water means garbage Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away. 4. Bottled water means less attention to public systems Only the very affluent can afford to switch their water consumption to bottled sources. In California its estimated the requirement of $17.5 billion in improvements to the state’s drinking water infrastructure as recently as 2005, costing 222 million gallons of drinkable water to leaky pipes. 5. The corporatization of water In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies. Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water.
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