LCA study shows environmental impact of bottled water up to 3,500 times higher than tap water
What is the best option for individual water consumption if we take into account both health and environmental impacts? The answer to that question, according to a new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, is that, at least in the city of Barcelona, tap water is the option that offers more overall benefits.
This new LCA-based study, published inScience of the Total Environment, was aimed at providing objective data about three different water consumption choices: bottled water, tap water and filtered tap water. This scientific work has been carried out in collaboration with the Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology (GEMMA) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech (UPC).
Since tap water quality might differ between cities or countries, the research team focused in the city of Barcelona, due to the robustness of available data. The Life Cycle Assessment was conducted using a specific software and a method called ReCiPe, which allowed researchers to estimate the damage to ecosystems and to resource availability as well as indirect impacts in human health derived from the production process of bottled and tap water.
Results showed that if the whole population of Barcelona decided to shift to bottled water, the production required would take a toll of1.43 species lost per year and cost of 83.9 million USD per year due to extraction of raw materials. This is approximately1,400 times more impact in ecosystems and 3,500 times higher cost of resource extraction compared to the scenario where the whole population would shift to tap water.
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