Taylor Made Water Systems

Corporate Accountability International has started a petition to urge our Congress to stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per quarter on bottled water. 

Click here to see/sign the petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-house-of-representatives-to-ditch-bottled-water-and-save-taxpayer-dollars

 

Tell the House of Representatives to Ditch Bottled Water and Save Taxpayer Dollars

 

Targeting: The U.S. House of Representatives and Speaker of the House John Boehner

Started by: Corporate Accountability International

The new Speaker of the House John Boehner recently made waves with his intention to cut $35 million of bloated spending from the U.S. House of Representatives’ budget.

News reports noted a prime example of that waste: In the first quarter of 2010 alone, the House spent $190,000 taxpayer dollars on bottled water.

That’s a lot of money—equivalent to paying perhaps 4 teachers’ salaries—so that our elected officials can sip water that’s bad for the planet to boot.
Luckily, Speaker Boehner has plenty of support if he wants to cut back on bottled water spending. On January 5th,

George S. Hawkins, general manager of the area water utility DC Water, wrote Boehner a letter offering to supply each member of Congress with his or her own reusable water bottle (for free!).

Hawkins even offered Congress free water quality testing to assuage concerns from lawmakers who aren’t keen on the idea, and some DC residents have opted for water filters in cases where they feel their water needs it—our elected representatives could do the same.

Bottled water is not safer or healthier than tap water, and often comes from the tap anyway. It can be up to 1,900 times more expensive, and the energy needed to produce the plastic is enough to fuel nearly 3 million cars for a year. Nearly one million tons of plastic water bottles are discarded as litter each year, ending up in landfills, lakes and streams.
Already, many state and city governments are phasing out their bottled water purchases in this era of environmental and fiscal responsibility. The Congress of the United States should do the same.

Tell Speaker Boehner and your own Congressional representatives to make good on the promise to cut wasteful spending, and eliminate bottled water purchases from the House budget. Sign the petition to the new speaker below.

This is a very cool video showing a water drop bounce off of the surface of water like it’s on a trampoline.

 

In a not very shocking development, which I predicted, Fiji waters reopened its bottling plant on its namesake island.  After “negotiations” with the Fiji government.  And all is well with shipping water across the globe again because Hollywood likes a square bottle…

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575647062823813710.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Fiji Water Reopens Bottling Plant

Bottled-drink company Fiji Water said it reopened its bottling facility in the South Pacific country for which it is named, ending a two-day standoff with the local government over taxes.

The company, which is owned by billionaire investors Lynda Resnick and Stewart Resnick, closed the facility Monday, sending about 400 workers home. The shutdown came in response to a move by Fiji’s government to impose a steep tax increase on companies that extract large volumes of water from the country. Fiji Water was the sole company affected by the increase.

On Tuesday, Fiji Water lawyers Craig Cooper and Marigold Moody met with Fiji government officials, including Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, seeking to resolve the dispute. After the meetings, Fiji Water agreed to accept the tax increase and reopened the plant Wednesday at 8 a.m. local time.

"Fiji Water is committed to working with the Fijian government and remains dedicated to helping the country’s economy and its people," company President John Cochran said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Commodore Bainimarama, who came to power in a 2006 coup, said he would welcome a rival taking over Fiji Water’s assets if the company refused to comply with the government’s tax increase.

Fiji Water, which was started in 1996 by Canadian businessman David Gilmour, has close ties to Fiji. Its water comes from an artesian aquifer in the Yaqara Valley, a remote part of Fiji’s main island. Almost all of the company’s workers are Fijians.

On Monday, the company idled those employees, saying it would pay them two weeks’ salary. However, it said it called them back to work for Wednesday’s re-opening.

Fiji Water accounts for about 2% of the $10.6 billion U.S. bottled-water market, making it one of the biggest imported waters in the U.S.

The Resnicks’ holding company, Roll International Corp., bought Fiji Water in 2004from Mr. Gilmour, who also founded a resort in the country.

Fiji Water’s sales rose to $141 million in 2008 from $78 million in 2005 but fell last year to $85 million.

According to a press release from Fiji Water, they will be closing their bottling plant on the island of Fiji after the government imposed a 15 cent per liter tax on bottled water.  Apparently, the tax only applies to Fiji Water as the largest bottler on the island.  Fiji water is often criticized for being one of the least environmentally responsible bottled water choices (despite their Green Water advertising campaigns), so maybe now they will produce closer to their customers. 

But they’ll have to change the claims about their source water, I suppose.

Actually, my guess is that this is a bit of posturing by both sides, so I’d expect a compromise solution before they actually abandon the facility.  Stay tuned…

————–

Fiji Water closes facility on namesake island country

Monday, November 29, 2010

SUVA, FIJI — Bottled water company Fiji Water announced that it is closing its facility on the South Pacific country of Fiji, according to a press release.

The company said it was forced to close operations on its namesake island country due to a massive tax increase, the release stated.

Fiji’s government announced last week that it will impose a 15-cent per liter tax on bottled water at locations where more than 3.5 million liters per month are extracted.

Fiji Water, which currently pays 1/3rd of a cent per liter, is the only bottled water producer in Fiji affected by the increased tax, according to the release.

“This new tax is untenable and as a consequence, Fiji Water is left with no choice but to close our facility in Fiji, effective Monday Nov. 29, 2010,” said Fiji Water President John Cochran. “We are saddened that we have been forced to make a business decision that will result in hardship to hundreds of Fijians who will now be without work.”

New York city tap water has tiny shrimp in it?  According to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, yes it does, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.  In cities like New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle where the source water for tap water is above federal standards, no filtration is required.  Therefore, tiny marine life is natural and common in their tap water.  The copepods pictured below are small crustaceans that New Yorkers and others are swallowing every day. 

New York’s experts agree that they pose no health risk to humans, but they add that if you are concerned, a simple filter will remove the 1-2 millimeter, invisible shrimp. 

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/02/whats-water-tiny-invisible-shrimp/

What’s in Your Water? Probably Tiny Invisible Shrimp

By Jeremy A. Kaplan

Published September 02, 2010

 

Copepods like this one are in every glass of New York city tap water — and that’s nothing to worry about.

Invisible shrimp could very well be living in every drop of water you drink — but that’s OK, they’re nothing to worry about.

A photo posted to the online sharing site Reddit has the Internet abuzz. It shows a tiny animal — a shrimp-like crustacean called a copepod — and announces that the reader found it in his New York City tap water.

"You swallow these invisible shrimp with every gulp of NYC tap water," trumpeted online blog Gizmodo about the discovery. Time magazine’s website also announced the find breathlessly, exhorting New Yorkers to "drink up" — but noting that the critters may pose a problem for many of the city’s Jewish residents.

"Besides a serious ‘ick’ factor, the copepods are technically crustaceans, which means they aren’t kosher for the city’s large Orthodox, observant Jewish population," the site warned.

It’s all true. There are, indeed, copepods in New York’s drinking water — and the reason they’re there is that the city’s water is superb for drinking. In fact, people across the country with excellent natural water supplies swallow invisible bugs like these every day.

Most copepods are so small — barely 1 to 2 millimeters long — that they’re more or less transparent. And they can be found in most freshwater habitats, including the reservoirs that supply public drinking water to cities like New York.

"It’s one of those interesting facts you learn about local drinking water — but it’s in no way dangerous," Farrell Sklerov, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), told FoxNews.com.

He explained that many cities filter their water, but if the water quality exceeds federal standards — which New York City tap water does — it doesn’t require filtering, a process that would remove the copepods. Among other cities that don’t filter their water are Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Sklerov said.

He said the copepods "pose no risk to human health. It’s not something that’s regulated because there’s no harmful effects from them."

A representative of NOAA’s Fisheries Services explained that copepods are a form of plankton, the minuscule creatures that form the majority of the biomass in the ocean and feed many animals, notably whales.

"There are areas that have blooms of copepods at certain times of year, such as Cape Cod bay in the spring," said NOAA’s Teri Frady. "Right whales eat them, and that’s why you see right whales near Cape Cod at that time of year."

They’re also harmless for humans, though if you’re disturbed, simply pass your water through an ordinary, over-the-counter filter.

Many people do have allergies to crustaceans, the large group of shellfish that includes lobsters, shrimp and copepods, raising the specter of allergic reactions to tap water. That’s probably not a concern, said Clifford W. Bassett, medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of NY and faculty, NYU School of Medicine and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine Long Island College Hospital..

"Shellfish allergy has risen to be one of the most common food allergens in the US, in adults. Although not studied formally to my knowledge, in general, there needs to be exposure to an allergen, and be significant enough to cause an immune response in an allergic individual, for symptoms to occur," he told FoxNews.com.

In any event,  I suspect the "dilutional" effects of drinking water most likely would reduce the risk," Bassett said.  

"Any individual who suspects they may have a food allergy should be seen by an allergist for proper evaluation and management of this condition."

And don’t worry. The bugs are kosher.

In a 2004 article in The Jewish Press, Rabbi David Berger, a professor of history at the City University Graduate Center, said, "The notion that God would have forbidden something that no one could know about for thousands of years, thus causing wholesale, unavoidable violation of the Torah, offends our deepest instincts about the character of both the Law and its Author."

So drink up. The shrimp’s on the house.

 

NYC, boasting some pretty good tap water, is launching a campaign to promote its tap water over bottled water.  And they’re selling T-shirts and reusable water bottles!  But, they won’t bottle their water as that would go against their Green message of discouraging plastic bottles for energy and waste reasons. 

(more…)

 

I like this, and not just because they are using a Point of Use Cooler, like our TM1R…

 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/dc-grocer-bans-water-bottles.html

D.C. grocer bans water bottles

 

MOM’s Organic Market is getting in on D.C.’s anti-plastic push with a decision to eliminate the sale of water bottles from its six regional markets.

As part of its “Battle the Bottle” campaign, the grocer plans to add water filtration machines in stores, allowing customers to fill their own bottles with up to a gallon at no cost. The new system should be in place within the next few weeks, Scott Nash, the founder and CEO of MOM’s, said.

"Societies are truly addicted to plastic, much in the way we are addicted to oil," Nash said in a statement.
Pollution and fears over potentially harmful chemicals in plastic bottles have helped drive anti-plastic sentiment in recent years.

In January, D.C. added a 5-cent tax on plastic bags that has forced a dramatic drop in their use.

Nestle is raising salmon in municipal well water to determine if tapping 100 million gallons of local spring water in a small Oregon town is feasible.  Faced with decreasing revenue in its massive bottled water empire, Nestle is getting creative in trying to thwart environmentalists’ objections to its acquisition of source water from rural springs in small towns.  Many of these towns are economically depressed and the potential new revenue and job source is very tempting.  Personally, I prefer purified municipal water, so I’m happy leaving rural springs pristine.  Of course, I’m not Nestle. 

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704414504575243921712969144.html?KEYWORDS=nestle

MAY 25, 2010

Bottled Water Pits Nestlé vs. Greens

By DEBORAH BALL

CASCADE LOCKS, Oregon—In this idyllic town on the north slope of Mount Hood, an autopsy on three dead rainbow trout may play a role in Nestlé SA’s efforts to reverse a deep slide in its bottled-water business.

Bottled water, which for years delivered double-digit growth for Nestlé, is under fire from environmentalists. They decry the energy used to transport it and the use of billions of plastic bottles, and oppose efforts to use new springs, citing concerns about water scarcity.

In Cascade Locks, Nestlé is trying to tap 100 million gallons of water annually for its Arrowhead water brand from a new spring—and keep the environmentalists happy, too. A key is proving that water drawn from the spring—which supplies a hatchery that raises Idaho Sockeye, an endangered species—can be replaced with municipal well water, with no harm to the fish.

Nestlé is running a one-year test here to raise 700 rainbow trout in a tank filled with well water. Worried that activists might sabotage the test, Nestlé put the 1,700-gallon tank under lock and added security cameras. Officials from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife monitor the fish’s progress and are now autopsying the three that have died so far.

"We are accused of mining water, which would suggest we are depleting a resource," says Kim Jeffrey, chief executive of Nestlé’s North American water business. "But instead, we take water in a sustainable way. The notion that we just take what we want is simply not factual."

The project is testament to Nestlé’s determination to fix its bottled-water business. Its North American water sales fell to 4.4 billion Swiss francs, or $4.2 billion, in 2009, down 13% from 2007.

"Water is a category that gave us so many years of joy," Nestlé Chief Executive Paul Bulcke said in an interview. "And all of a sudden, it changes. That is what hurts."

Until 2007, bottled water was a dream business for Nestlé, whose brands include Pure Life, Poland Springs and Perrier. Per-capita consumption of bottled water in the U.S. soared to 29 gallons in 2007 from 16 gallons in 2000. A bottle of Nestlé’s San Pellegrino water became a trendy statement of health consciousness.

Annual growth rates of Nestlé’s U.S. water business topped 15% in the mid-2000s. By last year, it had 38% of the $10 billion U.S. bottled-water market, more than rivals Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. combined.

But the gusher has slowed the past two years as environmentalists have tried making bottled water a new cause. Some tony restaurants in Los Angeles and New York have conspicuously stopped offering bottled water. A slate of documentaries claims that water producers mislead the public about the virtues of bottled water compared to tap.

Nestlé’s water sales have been hit badly by the economic downturn, as shoppers began seeing bottled water as an unnecessary luxury, turning to cheaper tap water instead. Moreover, consumers who still wanted bottled water began buying some of the slew of cheaper new private-label brands that supermarkets have launched over the last couple of years. In response, Nestlé has been pushing Pure Life, a lower-priced water that comes from purified municipal sources.

Bottlers say bottled water represents a small share of water use and is typically tapped in a sustainable way, a view backed by independent hydrologists. But the attacks hurt.

In 2007, one group launched a campaign called "Lying in Advertising." One poster read: "Bottled Water Causes Blindness in Puppies," with a tagline reading, "If bottled-water companies can lie, we can too." And now, a Congressional bill that would slap a 4% tax on bottled water to pay for upgrades of municipal water systems is gaining fresh attention, after a rupture in a water main left two million Boston residents without drinkable water in May.

Nestlé has been a favorite target of activists since the 1970s, when it encountered tough criticism of how it marketed baby formula to poor mothers in underdeveloped countries. Its role as leader of the U.S. bottled-water market and the fact that it taps springs in often-pristine rural areas has exposed it to particular criticism from opponents of bottled water.

Some 80% of Nestlé’s bottled water is from springs, while the rest is purified municipal water. Coke and Pepsi’s bottled water brands largely come from purified municipal sources.

Last fall, Nestlé threw in the towel on plans to tap one glacier-fed spring in Northern California after a six-year battle. Nestlé waged a six-year court case to carry on using a spring in Michigan, reaching a settlement last summer. In October, it gained approval to tap a Colorado source, after agreeing to 44 conditions.

Now, in Cascade Locks, Nestlé is fighting environmentalists’ opposition to its plan to draw water from a spring in this 1,100-person town.

Finding the right spring for bottled water is no easy task.

Water is costly to transport, so a spring must be relatively close to large markets, yet far enough to protect it from urban pollutants. It must have enough spare capacity to make it worth building a bottling plant nearby, and the water needs the right balance of minerals to taste right.

The job has gotten tougher as Nestlé tries to cut costs and carbon emissions by decreasing the distances its trucks travel; it has cut the average miles each delivery requires by about 15% since 2007. Nine out of 10 candidate springs turn out to be unsuitable, says Dave Palais, a Nestlé resource manager.

Cascade Locks is a rare fit. Mr. Palais has been searching for a spring to supply water to Northwest markets since 2007. The company currently trucks water from California or British Columbia.

Cascade Locks, which gets about 80 inches of rain a year and sits right off Interstate 84, is home to Oxbow Springs. When Nestlé came calling in 2008, Cascade Locks’ town fathers were thrilled. Since the decline of the timber industry in the 1970s, Cascade Locks has struggled. With 18% unemployment, the town has seen an exodus of residents. Last year, the high school closed due to a drop in enrollment. The number of businesses has dwindled from about 90 three decades ago to about a dozen.

To bottle Oxbow Springs’ water, Nestlé has proposed a plan that includes looking out for Idaho Sockeye, which are among the fish raised in a 100-year-old hatchery managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Nestlé would pipe water from the spring to a proposed new $50 million bottling plant that would employ 53 workers. In turn, it would pump Cascade Locks’ municipal well water to the hatchery to replace all the water taken from the spring—buying 300 gallons a minute from the town for the switch, or about a sixth the total municipal capacity.

Town officials say Nestlé would pay about $360,000 a year for the water under current industrial rates, but say they could strike a deal for special pricing for such a large customer.

The project would boost Cascade Locks’ beleaguered finances by doubling the city’s property taxes. City Administrator Bernard Seeger envisions sprucing up the town’s dilapidated main street and expanding police service from three days to five.

"When Nestlé came, we said, ‘Wow, this would be amazing,"’ says Mr. Seeger. "We’re sitting on a massive amount of water here."

The Fish and Wildlife Department, which had looked for a way to bring more water to the hatchery several years ago but found it too expensive, could use the new pumps and pipes that Nestlé would install to expand the operation, says Douglas Bochsler, the agency official in charge of the project.

Nestlé has held two town hall meetings to explain the project and hear residents’ concerns. It has rented a store front on Cascade Locks’ main street where Mr. Palais spends several days a month to answer questions and set up a toll-free number, although it says few calls have come in so far.

Environmentalists have been just as quick off the mark. Washington D.C.-based Food and Water Watch, a dogged opponent of Nestlé, has created a coalition of 16 environmental and religious groups dubbed "Keep Nestlé Out of the Gorge." In March, it delivered a 10-gallon water bottle holding 3,700 signatures of opponents to Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife. Protesters waved placards reading "Protect Oregon’s Water."

Julia DeGraw, the Food and Water Watch activist leading the campaign, argues that a resource as precious as water should never fall into corporate hands, saying it discourages cities from investing in water infrastructure and increases the risk corporate interests may prevail over public ones in case of a drought. She raises environmental concerns, including the effect on fish. Ms. DeGraw also accuses Nestlé of targeting towns that are economically depressed, an allegation Nestlé denies. She says Nestlé has paid on average one-fifth of one cent a gallon to buy spring water, while selling it to consumers for $5.30.

"A lot of Oregonians don’t want to see the state’s resources extracted by a multinational that would make a massive profit off it," says Ms. DeGraw, a native Oregonian. "It’s all or nothing for us."

Nestlé says it offers towns fair conditions to tap springs and fully informs citizens of its plans. Nestlé says the difference between its purchase price and the retail sales price is due to the cost of filtering, bottling and distributing its water; it says its lowest retail price for a gallon of spring water is about $1.20.

The Oregon Water Resources Department plans to hold a public comment period before deciding, while the Department of Fish and Wildlife says it would include a clause to break any contract with Nestlé in case of adverse environmental impacts.

Nestlé says it’s conducting studies to address some environmental concerns. Only after studies are done, and the year-long test to see that the fish survive in municipal water, will Nestlé file its application with state authorities.

"If Food and Water Watch wants to be responsible, they should wait to see what the [tests] say and not make spurious arguments," says Nestlé’s Mr. Jeffrey.

In April, at a screening of a new anti-bottled-water documentary, "Tapped," Mr. Jeffrey challenged Jim Walsh, a Food and Water Watch leader also in attendance. "Do you want to come in and talk to me about the issues, or do you just want to see us out of business?" Mr. Jeffrey says he asked Mr. Walsh.

"The latter," responded Mr. Walsh, according to Mr. Jeffrey’s recollection.

Mr. Walsh says he doesn’t recall saying he wanted to see Nestlé go out of business, but says his group is "fundamentally opposed to the process of bottling water."

Mr. Jeffrey, a 32-year veteran of the bottled-water business, says state authorities monitor Nestlé’s spring withdrawals too closely for it to deplete water. A Nestlé plant draws about the same amount of water in a year as a single ski area or a large farm, he says, and would have to abide by restrictions during droughts.

Hydrologists say bottled water is a tiny fraction of what industry, farms and homes use and don’t generally view it as a threat to aquifers. "Bottled water use is a drop in the bucket," says Thomas Harter, expert in water management at the University of California at Davis.

The Cascade Locks efforts are part of a push by the company to cast its water in a friendlier light. Nestlé is launching a lighter bottle with nine grams of plastic, a quarter of that found in some sports-drinks packaging. Nestlé truck drivers must now turn off engines instead of idling and the company is introducing hydrogen-fuel-cell forklifts.

Environmentalists say it is impossible for a company that churns out 20 billion plastic bottles a year to become environmentally friendly and dismiss the efforts as "bluewashing."

In Cascade Locks, some resent seeing a rare business opportunity possibly lost. "This is becoming the Battle of the Middle Gorge," says Mayor Brad Lorang. "Stopping Nestlé won’t save the planet, but getting Nestlé to come here could save the town."

Write to Deborah Ball at deborah.ball@wsj.com

Corporate Accountability International, a nonprofit group, reported the bottled water spending of 5 states – Maryland, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon.  Spending ranged from $78,000 to $475,000.  Citing the irony of the government itself choosing bottled water over tap water (regulated and declared “safe” by our government), the group called on the states to stop spending money on bottled water. 

 

State spends $200,000 on bottled water

According to a new report released today, the state of Maryland spent at least $200,000 on bottled water last year.

The report, called Getting States Off the Bottle, was released by Corporate Accountability International, a membership nonprofit that calls out corporations on their "irresponsible and dangerous" actions.

The group says water bottling companies scare the public into drinking only bottle water that fouls the environment and burdens the budget. But in about 44 percent of cases, bottle water is tap water. At the same time state and local governments are buying into the companies’ PR campaign that local tap water is unsafe, the governments are failing to invest in proper upkeep of water infrastructure, the report says.

The report authors have taken a look at state bottled water expenditures — though a real look is tough because a lot of the water purchases are hard to track. This is the second installment of the report and includes five states. Maryland is one. The others are Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. The range of spending was between $78,000 and $475,000 during fiscal ‘09.

“Plastic water bottles are a major contributor to waste in our stream, rivers, and bay.” said Mary Roby, executive director of Herring Run Watershed Association, in a statement. She participated in an event to draw attention to the bottled water today in Druid Hill Park. She and others called on Gov. O’Malley to cancel state spending on bottled water.

Supporters say more than 100 cities and three states (Illinois, Virginia and New York) already have cut spending on bottled water or upped their contribution to public water.

Corporate Accountability International says officials in Gov. O’Malley’s office have said they will  work on reducing spending on bottled water and continue to invest in public water. Already the state has funneled $119 million in stimulus money to water quality and drinking water projects in the state. The group says public water systems across the country need about $22 billion in investment.

The group also wants other public workers — and the public — to cut bottled water use in non-emergency situations. Officials there say surveys show a third of people who had switched to bottled water have recently switched back.

Are you one of them?

On World Water Day, the UN released a report stating that polluted water creates illnesses that fill more than half of the world’s hospital beds.  They estimate that 3.7 percent of all deaths are related to polluted water, which is more than die from all forms of violence.

They also confirmed that the bottled water used in the U.S. alone requires 17 million barrels of oil to produce.

Those are two good reasons to filter your own water!   

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100322/ap_on_re_af/un_un_clean_water

UN: Polluted water killing, sickening millions

 

AP – An Indian village boy runs through a parched field on World Water Day in Berhampur, Orissa state, India, …

By RONALD BERA, Associated Press Writer – Mon Mar 22, 12:30 pm ET

NAIROBI, Kenya – More people die from polluted water every year than from all forms of violence, including war, the U.N. said in a report Monday that highlights the need for clean drinking water.

The report, launched Monday to coincide with World Water Day, said an estimated 2 billion tons of waste water — including fertilizer run-off, sewage and industrial waste — is being discharged daily. That waste fuels the spread of disease and damages ecosystems.

"Sick Water" — the report from the U.N. Environment Program — said that 3.7 percent of all deaths are attributed to water-related diseases, translating into millions of deaths. More than half of the world’s hospital beds are filled by people suffering from water-related illnesses, it said.

"If we are not able to manage our waste, then that means more people dying from waterborne diseases," said Achim Steiner, the U.N. Undersecretary General and executive director of UNEP.

The report says that it takes 3 liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water, and that bottled water in the U.S. requires the consumption of some 17 million barrels of oil yearly.

Improved wastewater management in Europe has resulted in significant environmental improvements there, the UNEP said, but that dead zones in oceans are still spreading worldwide. Dead zones are oxygen-deprived areas caused by pollution.

"If the world is to thrive, let alone to survive on a planet of 6 billion people heading to over 9 billion by 2050, we need to get collectively smarter and more intelligent about how we manage waste, including wastewaters," Steiner said.