Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander who ended up accidentally marooned in America, and I want to grasp what makes this country tick.
[1] Now, ever since I got here, I can't stop thinking about America's obsession with bottled water.
[2] Every time I go to get groceries, I can guarantee I'll see someone struggling with a massive crate of DeSanis, middle -aged mother -of -four throwing liters of the stuff into the back of their SUV like they're prepping for the apocalypse.
[3] You get to a hotel, open the fridge, and there they are.
[4] bottles and bottles of branded water.
[5] Since Perrier first arrived in the 1970s, bottled water continues to sort to new heights, an American guzzles back about 45 gallons of the stuff every year.
[6] It's the most popular American beverage, and it's big business.
[7] Every year the two biggest brands generate more than a billion dollars each.
[8] Land of the free?
[9] No, this is the land of expensive bottled water, and I want to understand why everyone is paying $5 for something that's literally free from the tap.
[10] So get those patch lips ready to take a great big sip of H -2O.
[11] This is the bottled water episode.
[12] Fly -less?
[13] Fly -less bird touchdown in America.
[14] I'm a flyless bird touchdown in America.
[15] Do other countries not have a lot of?
[16] a bottled water?
[17] So to be clear, I don't know the facts on this.
[18] What I do know is that, yes, obviously other countries do have bottled water.
[19] New Zealand has bottled water.
[20] But there's something about America that there's so much of it.
[21] It's everywhere.
[22] And I think what's different is that it's the preferred option.
[23] Whereas in New Zealand, tap water is really a very valid option here it's everything you go to a meeting and like you're given a little bottled water you open people's fridges and there's so many different kinds of bottled water and it's just really expensive here as well it is yeah what is your drinking preference when it comes to hydrating yourself what are you doing i love bottled water i'm really dehydrated right now or all the time always do you need some water i almost never pee i don't like drinking water especially when it's coming out of the tap it's boring as well, isn't it?
[24] It is boring.
[25] It's so boring.
[26] But mainly there's a mental block.
[27] This is a weird episode for me because I'm like, God, I'm this person.
[28] If there's a flat of water in my kitchen, I'll go through it so quick.
[29] I'll be so hydrated that week.
[30] And since I've come here, I have started to do this as well.
[31] So I've got obsessed with stupid, those cans of the croix or whatever it is.
[32] Once you start drinking like a slight flavored, fizzly water, you don't want to go back to the flat stuff.
[33] But that annoys me because I look in the recycling bin and I've just got cans up to the top of the bin.
[34] Well, exactly.
[35] It's really bad, not canned as much, but the plastic bottle water is not great.
[36] I feel really guilty when I'm drinking it as I should.
[37] I'm here to guilt trip to you this entire episode.
[38] That's fine.
[39] I feel guilty.
[40] but I do prefer it and I do drink it faster.
[41] What you're saying is for your health you feel more hydrated when you have bottled water near you.
[42] I do.
[43] I went and talked to a bunch of people that I met about their relationship with bottled water and it varied quite a lot.
[44] I've noticed people here are really into bottled water.
[45] Yeah, it's just cleaner and it's better and I think sometimes it's more accessible to some folks that may have problems in the water stream.
[46] Not all bottled water.
[47] water's the same.
[48] Some of them have high pH levels and such like that.
[49] And would you ever drink tap water in the United States, or does it depend like where you are in America?
[50] It depends where you are.
[51] But I haven't drank tap water since I was a kid.
[52] Do you drink a lot of bottled water?
[53] Uh, no. I have a hydro flask and I fill it up.
[54] I think tap water is just fine.
[55] I don't see the bottled water obsession.
[56] I don't fall into that category, I guess.
[57] Always get tap water when I go to a restaurant.
[58] Americans seem incredibly obsessed with bottled water.
[59] I'm guessing from your accent you haven't lived here forever, so maybe you also find that as unusual as I do?
[60] Actually, no, that's funny.
[61] I only drink Evian water.
[62] Really?
[63] I come from the Alps.
[64] I come from like a town right next to Evian.
[65] And, you know what they say?
[66] Like the French paradox, we eat a lot of cheese and fat and but when I get very skinny.
[67] I think it's in the water.
[68] That's why I only drink Avion.
[69] I grew up on that.
[70] And yeah, I know it's terrible.
[71] It's really bad.
[72] Yes, I'm against the privatization of water, for sure.
[73] I think there's just like a mindset.
[74] People are nervous about drinking water from the tap.
[75] You know, even I have that hesitation.
[76] Like, I buy a Brita filter, but my roommate will just drink from the tap.
[77] And I know I'm like, okay, she's been fine.
[78] But for me, I don't want lead poisoning or something.
[79] I grew up on well water.
[80] It's just straight up, like, from underground our house.
[81] Where was that?
[82] New York.
[83] And the boondocks.
[84] 315.
[85] Shout out.
[86] We had our own water So I had to make sure When I wash my hair It takes like 20 minutes The Black Girl Magic So a lot of different attitudes To bottled water Some positive, some negative People land all over the place I watch these skincare videos Some people like Will only wash their face With bottled water Not me I'm not there But there's a weird stigma About the cleanliness And I guess yeah The lead poisoning Yeah I don't know I feel like the water here definitely has a certain taste in it.
[87] I started reconsidering drinking American tap water because I came over here years and years and years ago to cover this video game expo for New Zealand because I'm a big nerd.
[88] And I stayed at the Cecil Hotel.
[89] No, you did not.
[90] I stayed at this year.
[91] No, you did not.
[92] Yeah, I did because I'm booking from New Zealand and I needed to find somewhere cheap because I had a certain budget flights were most of the cost.
[93] So I was trying to find a cheap hotel near the Staples Centre, which is near where E3 was.
[94] So I said to the Cecil.
[95] The reason I gather you're reacting so strongly to the mention of the Cecil Hotel is that everyone knows the Cecil closed down now.
[96] I think it's maybe they're turning into apartments, but it's the hotel where a woman basically was seen acting very disorientated in the hotel corridors and in the lift.
[97] She sort of disappeared and then eventually they found her body in the big water tank on the top of the hotel.
[98] and that water was going down to all the showers and all the taps in the entire hotel.
[99] Her body was undiscovered for weeks, so she was in there literally decomposing.
[100] Yeah, that's pretty much the worst thing anyone could experience is drinking water that someone has decomposed in.
[101] Yeah, well, about that.
[102] I checked in, and I knew it wasn't a great vibe immediately.
[103] Like, I was like, uh -oh, this doesn't feel great.
[104] But, hey, what can you do?
[105] I am shocked to my core that you are one of these people that went to that home.
[106] where there's dead people in this tank.
[107] So, I didn't know about this because it hadn't been a thing.
[108] This is years ago.
[109] This is before the girl was in the tank.
[110] Well, no, because the issue was...
[111] You were not there at that time.
[112] Yes, so at the time I was unaware, but I checked in, and it was a pretty bad room, like, it wasn't great.
[113] But I did what I always do in America, and I drank water from the tap, because I didn't know.
[114] there was any other option and why wouldn't you?
[115] And so it didn't taste great, but it was clear and it was fine.
[116] And then years later, I checked the dates when I was there.
[117] This is not real.
[118] No. And yeah, forgive me but I forget the woman's name who was in the tank decomposing at the time.
[119] And yeah, I drank from that water.
[120] You did not.
[121] You drank her.
[122] Wow.
[123] There's a very popular documentary on Netflix about the Cecil Hotel.
[124] I watch with my parents.
[125] There's a big moment in the documentary where these people are talking about how they brush their teeth with the water.
[126] And it's definitely, it is.
[127] It's the most intense moment of the whole documentary.
[128] And my dad was like, I only drink bottled water.
[129] Like he was so proud of himself for only consuming bottled water.
[130] It was almost like the ultimate justification for anyone to explain why they spend $5 on this thing.
[131] It's ridiculous because it sounds made up, but it happened.
[132] And that is when I started to think maybe tap water is not great.
[133] maybe I should think about and at least consider bottled water when I'm in the United States.
[134] Did you panic when you read that or were like, oh, I'm okay?
[135] I clocked it years later.
[136] So I clocked this when the documentary came out on Netflix.
[137] I sort of was like, oh, yeah, I stayed at the Cecil.
[138] And, yeah, that is when that thing happened.
[139] And I think it was very early days because the water did taste okay.
[140] Okay.
[141] But as always on this podcast, I decided to go and talk to someone that knows way more than me about this topic.
[142] and attempt to learn about America's bottled water obsession.
[143] To be very clear, back in New Zealand, we aren't in the dark ages.
[144] We have the internet, mobile phones, and yes, we've got bottled water.
[145] So unscrew the cap and quench your thirst.
[146] New Zealand deep waters, pure artesian water.
[147] But while we have bottled water, we also have tap water.
[148] Tap water that we actually quite like drinking.
[149] We'll gladly fill our bladders to the brim with the stuff.
[150] When guests come over, we throw it into a pitcher, add a slice of lemon, and no one blinks an eye.
[151] So being here in America has been a bit of a shock.
[152] Hundreds of tiny bottles of water thrusts into my hand at every turn.
[153] Recycling bins full of cans and bottles and glass.
[154] All in the name of staying hydrated.
[155] Not all water is created equal.
[156] There are over 326 million trillion gallons of water on earth.
[157] But only one billionth of 1 % is filtered naturally beneath the earth with a distinct balance of minerals and emerges crisp and refreshing enough to be called Deer Park.
[158] Deer Park 100 % natural spring water.
[159] Born better.
[160] I'm almost immune to it now, but the other day it all snapped back into focus.
[161] I was at a show and thirsty, and I ventured into the lobby in search of a waterfam.
[162] and I realized I had more chance of finding a critically endangered black rhinoceros than a free trickle of water.
[163] And so I went and paid about $8 for a bottle, and my angst about bottled water all rushed back.
[164] I can't exactly say that I fully understand some of the strange things that happen in this country, but I'm happy to offer my perspective.
[165] I'm talking to scientist Peter Glick.
[166] He co -founded the Pacific Institute in Oakland.
[167] He's a brain box when it comes to water and how we use it.
[168] He was elected to the U .S. National Academy of Sciences, and four years ago was awarded the Carl Sagan Prize.
[169] He has about 80 ,000 followers on Twitter, so I guess he's an influencer as well.
[170] I could go on and on about this man, but his main thing, his main passion, it's water.
[171] So I'm an environmental scientist by training.
[172] I've did a lot of the early work on the impacts of climate change on water resources.
[173] Excuse the pun, but I've been bottling up my thoughts on water.
[174] I've been trying to fit in here, choosing not to pick fights over something as simple as water.
[175] But with Peter, I feel I can finally unleash my watery angst.
[176] In New Zealand, we just go to the tap and drink tap water pretty happily.
[177] Ever since I've been in America, what I've found so puzzling and strange is you go to anybody's fridge, and it's just lined with different types of bottled water.
[178] I mean, do you find it unusual yourself?
[179] Or is that just me being new here?
[180] No, no, it's tremendously unusual, although I would note it's absolutely not universal.
[181] Most people still drink tap water, but there is this growing, both concern about tap water, and parallel to that, a growing sense, you ought to be spending money buying bottled water to drink.
[182] I drink tap water.
[183] I've always drunk tap water.
[184] Okay, well, that makes me feel less strange.
[185] The tap water I get, where I am, is unbelievably good.
[186] It's just great quality water, and I think that's true in many parts of the country.
[187] just to interrupt, I haven't heard many people talking this way before, and it's nice to hear, because I've been secretly drinking unfiltered tap water as much as possible since I got here.
[188] I've been doing it secretly like Gollum in his dirty cave.
[189] But according to TapSafe .org, the Alley Department of Water in Power says the city's tap water is so clean it's, and I quote, bottled water quality.
[190] 160 billion gallons of this stuff, reaching or surpassing all drinking water standards, for cleanliness, health, and safety.
[191] In Los Angeles, the taste of the tap water is a little bit different.
[192] Some people don't like it, but the quality of the water actually is very good.
[193] So get a filter or something.
[194] Of course, being in America, I guess you've also got other options.
[195] How come you haven't called to have pure great tasting sparklets water delivered to your home?
[196] I'm in Los Felas and I drink tap water and people look at me strangely when I do.
[197] It's kind of like a shock and it's almost like socially and I feel self -contractive.
[198] But is it fine that I'm drinking tap water here?
[199] Like, that's just a very selfish primary question.
[200] It is fine.
[201] So the United States, like most developed countries, has very strict standards for the quality of your tap water, standards that are regulated under what we call the Safe Drinking Water Act.
[202] A law passed many years ago during the height of the environmental movement in the 1970s.
[203] It's regulated by the EPA, and utilities are required to test their tap water regularly and to make sure that it meets standards, very good standards.
[204] That's a comfort to me. I'm aware of that.
[205] I'm not sure many people are aware of that.
[206] But in general, with exceptions.
[207] And those exceptions can be shocking.
[208] Like in Flint, Michigan, where the community was poisoned for years and years.
[209] Officials aware, but doing absolutely nothing about it until they got called out.
[210] The former governor of Michigan is one of several people who have been told they will face charges in the Flint water scandal.
[211] Republican Rick Snyder.
[212] was in charge when Flint's water supply became dangerously undrinkable.
[213] Is it stories like Flint that color the rest of the country and make everybody in America think tap water is just too dangerous to go near?
[214] Yes, absolutely.
[215] It's the highly publicized failures of our municipal tap water systems that helps erode trust in our tap water.
[216] And those failures are a result of a lot of different things.
[217] We've underinvested in infrastructure all across the board, water, electricity, transportation, all sorts of things.
[218] But with, Flint, Michigan, the water that the utility was putting into the pipes at the top of the system after they treated it was very high quality water.
[219] The problem was with old legacy pipes between the street and the home, basically, where some old infrastructure in homes still had old lead pipes, and the water that was coming from the clean municipal system into the taps got contaminated by that lead.
[220] And that's a problem with old legacy infrastructure.
[221] We should have gotten rid of lead pipes in this country years ago, but we haven't done that.
[222] Is there a simple way here where you can test the tap water in your own home if you are paranoid about old leady pipes?
[223] So yes and no, there are at home tests you can do for lead.
[224] Lead is, of course, bad in your water.
[225] You don't want lead in the water.
[226] But there are hundreds of different chemicals that are regulated by law that the water utility has to meet certain standards on, and testing those at home is not possible.
[227] The trouble with stories like Flint is that as well as people being poisoned by lead and other contaminants, it creates this widespread fear around tap water.
[228] And that's hard to get back.
[229] Building trust in your tap water system is much harder than losing trust in your tap water system.
[230] It's easy to lose trust.
[231] It's hard to build it again.
[232] And it's that uncertainty and paranoia around tap water that's part of the answer to the mystery I'm trying to solve.
[233] Looking at bottled water, when did that become a...
[234] thing here.
[235] I assume it didn't happen overnight.
[236] So it happened slowly over a very long period of time and then fast.
[237] We've always had bottled waters.
[238] In the 1800s, there were famous bottled waters that were bottling water from some of these natural springs that claimed they had health benefits.
[239] Perrier and all the European spas where people would go for their health, eventually bottled water and sold bottled waters.
[240] But those were sort of a different thing.
[241] In the United States, really starting in the 1970s, Perrier pushed very hard to sell its sparkling water.
[242] Deep below the plains of southern France in a mysterious process begun millions of years ago, nature herself adds life to the icy waters of a single spring.
[243] Perrier, its natural sparkle is more delicate than any made by man, and therefore more quenching, more refreshing, and the mix of Our excellence, naturally sparkling from the center of the earth.
[244] Perrier.
[245] Okay, so that ad from 1979 was voiced by Orson Wells.
[246] Yeah, the guy who narrated the War of the Worlds in 1938, accidentally making many Americans think an actual alien invasion was taking place.
[247] That guy also did one of the very first Perrier commercials.
[248] The brand wasn't there to fuck around.
[249] It was there to sell American stuff.
[250] they could get for free.
[251] And then, really in the 1990s and 2000s, coincident with growing concern about tap water and a massive advertising campaign on the part of these private companies, that really started to accelerate the trend to bottled water, and we sort of had an exponential curve of increase in the demand for bottled water.
[252] He's not exaggerating.
[253] In America, the bottled water industry was worth $18 .5 billion, in 2017.
[254] Americans guzzled 13 .7 billion gallons of this stuff.
[255] I can't really find anything logical to compare that number to, but it's the same volume as about 9 million adult elephants.
[256] As a story by journalist Sean Chavez pointed out, bottled water overtook soda is America's favorite drink.
[257] It's enough to make you get out your pan flute.
[258] To me, it's an amazing scam to run, because I can understand like selling people Coca -Cola, like you make this product.
[259] I can't have that at home.
[260] It tastes amazing, whatever you think Coke tastes like.
[261] Literally selling people something you can get out of the tap.
[262] For quite a price at times, it's an incredible grift to me. It is.
[263] It plays on people's fears.
[264] The early advertising of the bottle water companies directly attacked tap water.
[265] It said, you should be afraid of your tap water.
[266] Right.
[267] My neighbor next door got a flyer in the mail which he gave to me, which said, you don't know what's in your water and had a picture of a goldfish swimming around a glass you know like that's a problem and it was offering bottled water a monthly delivery of bottled water there are some incredible examples of extreme advertising by bottled water companies what I saw in Texas simply stated tap water is poison the president of another bottled water company was quoted as saying when we're done tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes it's not the most subtle stuff The big companies have backed off a little bit from that.
[268] They've been warned they shouldn't attack tap water directly.
[269] And now they use the more traditional methods of this bottled water is going to make you healthier or sexier or more popular.
[270] Hi, I'm Jen Aniston and I'm here to talk to you about smart water.
[271] I guess it's up to us what kind of water we choose to drink, which is easier said than done.
[272] Because sometimes I feel like I don't really have a choice.
[273] I was out at dinner with someone.
[274] I got offered, do you want tap or sparkling or still?
[275] Look, I wanted tap.
[276] I'm cheap.
[277] I'm happy to have tap water.
[278] Because I had someone there with me, I felt self -conscious about saying tat.
[279] So I went sparkling and paid a lot for it, right?
[280] And I imagine a lot of people are in that position all the time.
[281] Yeah, so that's a thing.
[282] That's actually an important thing.
[283] So first of all, restaurants make a lot of money on beverages.
[284] So that's fine.
[285] People have preferences.
[286] But some, Sometimes when you say, I want still, they'll bring you some commercial non -gashous water, and they're still selling you water.
[287] So you've got to say tap, please, and embarrass yourself in front of everyone for being this tap drinker.
[288] If I'm with somebody who I don't know what their preference is, I say, but what would you like?
[289] They can say something different.
[290] That's okay.
[291] Those are preferences and those are social things.
[292] But I don't feel embarrassing.
[293] I want tap water.
[294] Yeah, thank you for having my back on that.
[295] and makes you feel slightly more same.
[296] The truth is, they may be embarrassed to ask for Tapwater, too, and may be completely relieved when you do.
[297] Wow.
[298] There's shame.
[299] You feel shame.
[300] Yeah, because you're so judged, because they deliver you there, like, it's this big question.
[301] It is.
[302] I always say, still, please.
[303] I'm just kidding.
[304] I'm kidding.
[305] I actually, I normally go with Tap at the restaurant.
[306] Okay, this is interesting.
[307] I didn't expect this from you, actually.
[308] I'm going to give you a line reading.
[309] Okay.
[310] Okay.
[311] So you're at dinner.
[312] I'm at dinner.
[313] You're at a really nice dinner.
[314] Beautiful dinner.
[315] A date.
[316] You really want to impress.
[317] Okay.
[318] And the waiter comes up and says, tap still or sparkling.
[319] I'm panicking internally for a bit, especially if it's a surprise to me. I'll sort of look over and then I'll be.
[320] David, are you okay?
[321] I'd love the sparkling.
[322] To the sparkling, because I feel if I choose still, then I'm annoyed because it's just essentially it's tap water.
[323] At least if I get the spark.
[324] it's something a bit special.
[325] It's like a little treat.
[326] Okay, but here's what you can say.
[327] But I'm annoyed for the rest of the time that I didn't just get the tap.
[328] And then you're not present on your date.
[329] I think you can say, I'm good with tap, but let's, whatever you want.
[330] But doesn't that create weird pressure for them?
[331] Because you've already put down the gaunt that I'm tapping it up.
[332] And then it makes them feel bad if they choose something else.
[333] I don't think so because maybe they're also afraid to say tap.
[334] And you kind of got to lead the way.
[335] You got to say, like, I am fine with tap, but I'm also great with it's still or sparkling, whatever you prefer.
[336] So why, but Americans judge me so much when I drink tap water from like a hotel or something.
[337] Yeah, ew, I'll never do that.
[338] Yeah, so that's the judgment I'm feeling from my date when I'm being like, tap, please, at a restaurant.
[339] I'm thinking they're looking at me and being like, that is such a disgusting man sitting across from me. I think most Americans are fine with tap at restaurants.
[340] I'll do tap too, but okay.
[341] Not at home.
[342] This is great to know.
[343] I think the difference between tap at restaurants, and this is American vanity for you, They put it in a beautiful bottle.
[344] Yeah.
[345] They bring it out to you, put two beautiful glasses in front of you, pour it.
[346] It doesn't remind you that they're just flicking the metal faucet.
[347] Yeah.
[348] You don't even think that it almost appears to you like bottled water.
[349] Yeah, complete.
[350] And that's all it is.
[351] That's sort of the main thing I took away from that little documentary was that a lot of bottled water.
[352] It is just tap water.
[353] Yeah.
[354] With some of the good stuff actually fills it out and removed, which is very funny to me. potentially it can be a worse deal than what you would get otherwise.
[355] Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird.
[356] We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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[377] Bad mental health, everything else kind of falls down around you.
[378] I have been noting that I've been having a little bit higher anxiety than normal.
[379] And I talk to my therapist about it.
[380] It's just so helpful to talk to a third party and not my friends and be like, I'm feeling weird.
[381] Like nobody wants to hear that.
[382] but my therapist loves to hear it.
[383] Yeah, and it's that thing where until you do therapy, you don't really understand how helpful it is.
[384] Yes.
[385] In New Zealand, we hate therapy.
[386] I'm very rapidly coming around from that very old -fashioned idea.
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[388] It's a bit like how our brain works, so why treat them that way?
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[398] Anyway, back to the little documentary I made.
[399] When we left off, I was talking to Peter about what happens when a city is found to have terrible tap water and how that lines up with the responsibilities of what bottled water companies deal with.
[400] There's also the convenience of it all.
[401] Bottled water made things easy, a little thing you could grab and take with you.
[402] And people need that because during the 90s and 2000s, there was less public water available.
[403] You know, when I grew up in New York City, we'd go to Central Park and there are 100 water fountains in Central Park.
[404] Everybody drank water from the water fountains.
[405] Today, those water fountains, they're not that well maintained, they were hard to find.
[406] So convenience was an argument.
[407] Health, safety was an argument.
[408] Those were all weaponry of private bottled water companies when a city has bad tap water.
[409] They're required by law to warn the public.
[410] They do a test.
[411] They test many times a day.
[412] If there's a problem, they have to tell the public.
[413] But bottled water is regulated not by the EPA, a public agency, required to protect tap water, but by the FDA, which regulates food products, the food and drug.
[414] administration because bottled water is considered a food product.
[415] It's packaged.
[416] The FDA does not do monitoring of all the bottled water companies.
[417] The bottled water companies do their own testing and far less frequently, I would note, than urban water agencies test.
[418] Peter isn't just wildly speculating here.
[419] He investigated this.
[420] Because when there's a public water crisis like in Michigan, you hear about it, and rightfully so.
[421] But when a private water company screws up, it can very easily fly under the radar.
[422] So, like a little gopher, Peter Duggan.
[423] I actually foiled Freedom of Information Act, the FDA, to try and get some information about how often the bottled water company tests were problematic.
[424] And it turns out there were recalls of bottled water that were not told to the public.
[425] I got more than a hundred of examples where things were found in bottled water.
[426] Some of them failed on a count of arsenic.
[427] Particles found, bacteria found, glass and plastic pieces found.
[428] My favorite was a bottled water company in Texas sent out thousands of gallons to companies.
[429] And I had to recall because somebody found cricket parts in the bottled water.
[430] Oh, Jesus.
[431] And that's a story that we don't know about, right?
[432] Because it doesn't have to be publicly reported.
[433] No, that's right.
[434] These recalls are sometimes, but not always posted on the FDA website.
[435] but they're almost never reported in the media.
[436] Now, crickets and arsenic are rare, and those kind of problems are found in the more niche smaller brands.
[437] The Coca -Cola's of this world have more money and monitor things more closely, avoiding cricket body parts as much as possible.
[438] It's bad PR.
[439] But all this talk of contamination reminded me of that other thing you always hear about bottled water, that it gives you cancer.
[440] Like when Cheryl Crow went on the Allen show and claimed her breast cancer, it was caused by bottled water shed left in a hot car, the carcinogenic chemicals from the plastic bottle leaching into the water.
[441] There are lots of different kinds of plastics.
[442] The most common kind of plastic used to sell bottled water is PET, polyethylene -terothallate.
[443] And so far as we know, PET does not leach chemicals into the water or into the food products that might be stored in PET.
[444] It's a remarkably stable kind of plastic, but bottled water is sometimes bottled in other kinds of plastics, and some plastics do leach.
[445] So you have to be careful.
[446] So in general, I would not leave a plastic bottle filled with water in a hot sun for a long time and then drink it, although I don't worry about that much.
[447] Of course, I don't drink bottled water much.
[448] Now, part of the reason Peter doesn't drink much bottled water is because of the plastic.
[449] But it's not out of fear of leaching or cancer.
[450] It's because of the existence of the plastic in the first place.
[451] The plastic story is an important part of the bottled water story.
[452] One of the things that really helped push bottled water was when it didn't have to be packaged in glass.
[453] Glass is heavy.
[454] It's expensive.
[455] It is recyclable.
[456] P .E .T. Polyethylene -terothalate.
[457] It's an incredibly good plastic.
[458] It's clear.
[459] It's strong.
[460] It doesn't impart a taste.
[461] It doesn't leach into food products.
[462] And when PET became cheap and affordable, the beverage companies realized this was a way to get away from heavy, expensive glass.
[463] and they started bottling all beverages, soft drinks, fruit drinks, bottled water in PET.
[464] And that, from a cost point, was very attractive for the companies and really helped the industry.
[465] But the bottled water industry is a small fraction of the total plastic market, but it's an unnecessary fraction because PET, it's recyclable, as the bottled water industry likes to tell us, 100 % recyclable.
[466] But that's not the same as recycled.
[467] and a very small fraction of those plastic bottles are recycled.
[468] Okay, a little deviation here and a bit of a shocking shocker.
[469] But a lot of that plastic you sort into recycling bins to make you feel better about using so much plastic, it's not recycles.
[470] The whole idea of recycling is part myth sold to you by companies that put things in plastic bottles, so you feel guilt -free about continuing to use all that plastic.
[471] That's right.
[472] A small fraction of the plastic bottles in bottled water are ever recycled.
[473] And a small fraction of the plastics that's actually given to recycle is actually recycled.
[474] Why the fuck is that?
[475] That seems crazy to me. It's because we don't require it, because we don't set up a market for it, because we don't insist that bottled water companies or beverage companies in general use recycled plastic in their bottles.
[476] So they all make plastic bottles out of what we call virgin plastic, which comes from petroleum.
[477] If we required that plastic bottles include 25 % or 50 % or 100 % recycled plastic, then there would be a market and there would be a system set up and we would want to collect it and the bottled water companies would help collect it, that would be an important solution, but we've never done that.
[478] The irony in all this as well is I imagine some of the countries that could do with bottled water that is cleaner than what's available publicly don't have it.
[479] Is that a fair call?
[480] Whereas in America, we have everything on tap, but we don't choose the tap.
[481] We choose the bottled water.
[482] That's a really important point.
[483] I've been talking about the United States or developed countries in general.
[484] One of the worst aspects of what I describe as the global water crisis is that it's the 21st century.
[485] And we have failed to provide safe drinking water to everyone on the planet.
[486] There are 800 million people that don't have the tap water that we have in the richer countries of the world.
[487] For them, their alternative is drinking contaminated water and getting sick, which they, do by the millions, or spending money that they don't have for bottled water.
[488] The long -term answer for countries without safe drinking water is not expensive bottled water, but safe tap water, like what largely exists here in America.
[489] And remember, a study from four years ago found private water companies get 64 % of the water they sell to you from tap water.
[490] That's likely had a lot of the good stuff, minerals like calcium and magnesium, removed.
[491] So in summary, I guess America is land of the free, home of the brave, and home to giant reservoirs of clean, glistening, free water.
[492] There's a lot of things to complain about.
[493] There's a lot of things to fix, but our water supply here is kind of great.
[494] It's kind of great.
[495] With exceptions, those exceptions should be fixed.
[496] There have been obstacles.
[497] The Trump administration attempted to repeal the federal clean water rule.
[498] But Peter says there's good news, too.
[499] In Biden's recent infrastructure bill that passed, there's about $55 billion nationwide for water -related spending.
[500] That includes $15 billion to try and get lead out of drinking water, to replace those old legacy lead pipes.
[501] That's about half of what it will cost to do the job, but hey, it's a good start.
[502] Of course, the bottled water industry will fight kicking and screaming to stay because it's worth billions of dollars.
[503] They built a big stadium, football stadium, and a big university in Florida.
[504] One thing, 45 ,000 fans won't see water fountains.
[505] State building codes require water for large venues, so why aren't they there?
[506] Well, the stadium design was approved.
[507] It was up to all codes that were applicable at that time.
[508] And those codes do not call for drinking fountains at all.
[509] That's correct.
[510] Under 2001 code, bottled water can take the place of drinking fountains.
[511] That's what UCF will do on Saturday.
[512] In the first game that they played, it was 100 -degree.
[513] out, and there were 40 ,000 people in the stadium, and it turned out they ran out of bottled water at the concession stands, and a lot of people went to the hospital with heat stroke.
[514] More than a dozen people went to the hospital with heat -related problems.
[515] Well, today, UCF decided it will add water fountains.
[516] The university's new game plan to keep its fans hydrated.
[517] It was a stunning example of the fact that we're taking water for granted.
[518] So what is the future of bottled water here in the United States?
[519] The very first thing we have to be doing is investing in our tap water system.
[520] A hundred years ago, we built the first really great municipal water systems.
[521] We got rid of cholera, dysentery, typhoid in the United States when we learned how to provide safe water to everyone.
[522] But we haven't invested in them, and we need to update them, we need to upgrade them.
[523] We need to make sure that they're really taking out all the contaminants that we know how to take out.
[524] We need to publicly expand trust and rebuild trust in that system.
[525] At the same time, we need to better regulate the bottled water industry.
[526] We need to expand testing of bottled water.
[527] We need to require recycling of 100 % of plastic bottles.
[528] And that'll raise the cost of bottled water, which deserves to be raised.
[529] It's already a thousand times more expensive than tap water, which people don't understand.
[530] But we need to make bottled water a specialty item, not a day -to -day item, a luxury, not a common day good.
[531] We are very swayed by marketing, obviously.
[532] Oh, you like that little fish.
[533] I love that little guy.
[534] And that's like healthy and wonderful.
[535] And it makes you smarter that water.
[536] It's called smart water, so it must make you smarter.
[537] I wrote down some mottoes that come from bottled water that I quite like.
[538] Can't live without it.
[539] It's quite good.
[540] Far from pollution.
[541] Far from acid rain.
[542] Far from industrial waste.
[543] Quite dramatic.
[544] I like that one.
[545] Sip smarter.
[546] Live longer.
[547] Pleasure within you.
[548] Oh, wow.
[549] That one's sexual.
[550] I quite like how sensual that was.
[551] And I really like cleansed inside, beautiful outside.
[552] Cleansed inside?
[553] That's also sexual.
[554] God, it really lean in.
[555] Oh, my.
[556] But with the smart water thing, does part of your brain go, this is going to make me smarter?
[557] No. But really, it's packaging.
[558] It's the label.
[559] It's the label.
[560] It's the packaging.
[561] It's the nice little spout it has at the top.
[562] It has a little spout.
[563] It makes it easy to drink.
[564] And it feels.
[565] clean.
[566] There's just something about it.
[567] Even though I know logically that's wrong, I think we do that a lot, right?
[568] Like, we kind of put logic away.
[569] Oh, no, logic.
[570] I mean, that's why the advertising cuts through so well.
[571] Like, it cuts through our logic straight away.
[572] We don't hear about those plastics.
[573] No, it just goes up on like the FDA's website and like who is logging on there and looking about these little recalls that are going on.
[574] But then Flint is a national catastrophe as it is.
[575] But, you know, That sticks in the mind.
[576] It does.
[577] And again, like, yes, that took a while for that to come out.
[578] Like, it took some digging for that to actually be revealed and for to actually be pushed back on that.
[579] It takes time.
[580] There's other odd stories and odd headlines about contaminated water sources and the fact that some of them have, they call them, like, forever chemicals that are in there.
[581] Yeah, there's some pretty bad pollution going on, which, again, helps the bottled water companies with their clean, pure marketing line.
[582] Yeah.
[583] And I guess it's convenience as well, right?
[584] You can just like have this bottle with you and it's with you for the day.
[585] But even when the bottles that you buy, like the hydro flasks or things like that, they sell that as like, well, you can just fill up your water in the morning and have it with you all day.
[586] It's like, no, first of all, that's still inconvenient.
[587] And the morning you have to pour it in and then you have to clean it.
[588] Just because there's water and it doesn't mean you don't have to clean it.
[589] Your mouth is on it.
[590] I think it's a great solution.
[591] But they can't say it's just as convenient as bottle.
[592] It's not.
[593] No. But in saying that, are we also getting so incredibly lazy at times as well?
[594] Like it is.
[595] I feel it as well as I open up my Tasani's and like my La Croy's and all that.
[596] It's like our laziness levels have gotten to a whole other hand to Sani sometimes.
[597] Oh, my God.
[598] Salty.
[599] Yeah.
[600] I don't know.
[601] I feel like the most dangerous water I've been near is I was in Kazakhstan for a show I did and I swam in a radioactive lake.
[602] It had been generated from an atomic bomb blast.
[603] and I swam in that and I like if I can survive that I feel like I can survive the Cecil water I can survive tap water here like everything will be fine You know Did you have this in America Where fluoride was a big discussion Having fluoride in the water Yeah Conspiracy theorists love diving on that Is it being like government mind control situation I had fluoride tablets Because we didn't have fluoride added to our water in New Zealand And you needed it I had little tap Well I don't know if you do I mean, my parents, like, this will make your teeth stronger.
[604] Like, it'll help your bones.
[605] Well, right.
[606] Like, at the dentist, you would do fluoride treatments.
[607] Yeah.
[608] And you could pick the flavor.
[609] There was always marshmallow.
[610] I would pick marshmallow.
[611] But you had to be a certain age to get it.
[612] And then you were done with fluoride at some point.
[613] But what's the deal with it in the water?
[614] They used to add it to the water, I think, at some point.
[615] Do they still do it here?
[616] To make people's teeth stronger?
[617] Yeah, teeth stronger.
[618] Yeah, it was like a bone structure thing.
[619] Is it the government's job to prevent people from having cavities?
[620] This is a new question I'm opening up.
[621] It says it's usually levels too low to prevent it, though.
[622] Right, okay.
[623] They're giving like a little bit of help.
[624] It's so funny, though, isn't it?
[625] I mean, kids' teeth are rotting from like drinking too much sugary soft drink.
[626] And a lot of those companies are making a bottled water as well.
[627] It's like this big endless loop.
[628] The recycling thing also surprised me as well.
[629] National Geographic did a study 90 or 91 % of plastic doesn't get recycled that you put out for recycling.
[630] It's shocking.
[631] I mean, that's the main problem is just all this plastic that we're just like throwing into landfills.
[632] I think like Chinese should take a lot of America's plastics and it's refusing now.
[633] So we're trying to get into other countries.
[634] Like a lot of it's not even recycled here.
[635] It's a real issue and it just ends up being like chucked into landfill, which is pretty bad.
[636] Yeah, but then I do think the bottled water companies are adjusting.
[637] It's disgusting.
[638] We have boxed water.
[639] This is in cardboard.
[640] Exactly.
[641] Exactly.
[642] We're doing, we're doing our bit.
[643] Yeah.
[644] To try to adjust for the plastic, but still keep it convenient and still keep it clean.
[645] Yeah.
[646] It's, man, we're gullible.
[647] Also canned water called liquid death.
[648] And that marketing is really great because it looks like beer cans.
[649] Oh, right.
[650] So is it like you can kind of like fit in at a party drinking your water?
[651] Is that the idea?
[652] You could.
[653] You totally could.
[654] But.
[655] it can get you into trouble because people can get pulled over if a cop sees what looks like a tall boy in their car.
[656] I didn't realize how aggressive the police here are against having open my open carry in your car.
[657] Because in New Zealand, it's pretty loose.
[658] You can be driving around.
[659] Drinking?
[660] Not drinking, but you can have an open vessel in the car and it's not like the end of the world.
[661] Whereas here, people take that incredibly seriously.
[662] I didn't realize that until recently.
[663] You tried that in the car with me. As a passenger, I had an open beer, and I saw Rob just be like, what are you doing?
[664] We had it in Georgia.
[665] Obviously, when we were in college, it was a big deal open container.
[666] I mean, it's obviously you shouldn't be drinking and driving, so I guess it's like great to push back against that.
[667] Yeah, but if you're a passenger, I don't really understand the problem.
[668] No, neither do I. That's the thing.
[669] Like, what's the issue.
[670] That's the thing.
[671] But here in California, that's a big no -no.
[672] That's what I've learned.
[673] Yeah, and if you're drinking liquid death, you could get pulled over.
[674] And, you know, if you're leaving a wine bar, and you've only had two glasses of wine, but you have the water in there, it could make you a little nervous.
[675] 100%.
[676] Yeah, I can see that.
[677] Has this happened to you?
[678] I feel like you're speaking from personal experience.
[679] Yeah, okay.
[680] It's been a fear once or twice.
[681] So, like, listening to him, have you come around, like, to one or the other more?
[682] I really liked what he had to say about the cleanliness of tap water.
[683] Yeah, it feels like mostly it's pretty good out there.
[684] And you know what?
[685] Another thing, maybe, did we touch on this?
[686] Like, Brita, Soma, there's filters.
[687] Exactly.
[688] And I have one.
[689] We didn't get into filters.
[690] Yeah, but that's the whole other thing.
[691] You've got a filter.
[692] I have a filter and I use it, but I don't, you know, I don't replace the filters enough.
[693] And then I wish I had bottled water again.
[694] It's a whole thing.
[695] If you had a blind taste test of different water flavors, you had your smart water and your Desani, which is apparently salty and whatever, your Fiji spring water.
[696] I like Fiji Do you think if it was a blind taste You could taste like your favorite water out of that Or do you think it's purely that label that you see And that makes your brain go Yum yum yum There's that little fish Oh God I want to say I'm a super taster enough To be able to tell the difference But I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference My least favorite Not saying it's the worst It's my least favorite is Desani My most favorite In my opinion Not saying it's the best one is a Thai, smart water, and Fiji.
[697] Do you think you could taste the difference between those two?
[698] Okay.
[699] Actually, yeah, I do.
[700] Okay, one thing, though, you said you taste a difference for tap.
[701] What do you taste?
[702] I mean, I live in a very old building, and I wonder if I'm just tasting like old metal.
[703] I have been feeling a bit off lately.
[704] Actually, I should be thinking about that.
[705] The water doesn't taste like New Zealand water tastes.
[706] So I live in an old apartment as well, and why, One time I was out of town, I came home, I turned the shower on, and it was all brown.
[707] Oh, God.
[708] Yeah, okay.
[709] See?
[710] Like, what if I had put a cup under that?
[711] Yeah, totally.
[712] That doesn't feel great.
[713] I mean, that feels like it's...
[714] It's like a pipe issue, but still...
[715] Yeah, I mean, it's stories like that that ruin it for everyone else.
[716] I mean, I'd like Peter to speak to the brown water coming out of the faucet, the Cecil, hotel.
[717] Specifically to the Cecil, just all the nightmare stories that go on.
[718] I guess I'm going to take this opportunity to give Spindrift a shout out.
[719] Speaking of Jennifer Aniston and sexy, yeah, Jennifer Aniston is sexy smart water and Kristen Bell is sexy Spindrift.
[720] All right, she's on the Spindrift.
[721] Yeah, she got us all into Spindrift and it's real fruit.
[722] It's sparkling water made with real fruit.
[723] So it's a bit of flavor in there.
[724] Yeah, and it does taste different than like their competitors.
[725] All right.
[726] It's good The only reason I did this episode is that I'm secretly looking To be endorsed by one of these I'm waiting for it You know I'm waiting for those millions to come in Which one?
[727] Which one would you want it?
[728] Desani My God Bring me Desani If the uptake and bottled water If that sort of 2 % growth that we saw Between years keeps happening By 2050 There'll be 12 billion metric tons of plastic And landfills That's a lot It's a lot of plastic Maybe a bit of tap now and then Just not at the Cecil Don't drink from the Cecil All right David Well we learned Some stuff today I like to think we did I think you got 17 % more American I mean I am drinking a lot of La Croy Yeah exactly That's pretty American I think Thank you And let's see what we get into Next week