The Question Is Not “Why No Evian?” But “Why Bottled Water?”

by Rebecca Carter January 15, 2007
Categories: Eats.

E!’s The Answer Bitch answered a question on Friday regarding celebrities and bottled water. More specifically the question had to do with a “ban” on Evian from most celebrities.

The theories are numerous, ranging from a rumor of Chernobyl contamination to a switch to the now trendier Fiji and Voss brands.

Ashlee Simpson requests 72 bottles of water (both room temperature and chilled), with an emphatic “NO EVIAN, please!” tacked on at the end.

Supposedly both Clay Aiken and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a rider in their contract that says they are not to be served “Evian or other local spring water.” Too bad. It seems if you are going to drink bottled water, the least you could do is drink the local brand. Imagine how much carbon has been emitted into the atmosphere to ship your water from glaciers in a far-away land.

Nowhere does the column mention any celebrity that requests pitchers of ice water and glasses to drink it out of. We’ve also heard nothing of those 5-gallon reusable bottles, which would also be a step in the right direction.

Drinking water has become too disposable. Americans are the biggest bottled water consumer, sucking down over 8 billion gallons last year. Imagine how much trash that created and how much fuel that wasted. Have you switched to tap or filtered water yet?

About Rebecca Carter

Rebecca Carter is the Co-Founder of Ecorazzi. Rebecca was recently featured in the book Hot, Rich, and Green. She is one of 70 eco-achievers featured in Glamour magazine in April 2009, named Best of Green 2010 by Miami Magazine and Best Environmentalist by Miami New Times Best of 2008. She's raising a couple of little boys in Miami and speaks English & Spanish. Find out more at www.RebeccaCarter.net. Follow Rebecca on Twitter: @rebeccacarter

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http://blogkitten.com/ blogkitten

I use a Brita pitcher for my water – or drink it straight out of the tap!

*gasp*

I think I may be one of 5 people in the world that still does that, sadly.
me

Aren’t those Smoking Gun riders fun to read? (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/index.html) But it was Kelly Clarkson with the Evian aversion, not Clay Aiken. He’s “Artist B” on that rider (from his tour with Kelly in 2004)–you can tell from the allergy requirements. He didn’t have any water requirements at all–musta been drinking from the tap, that crazy kid.

I know people who think Evian tastes “salty,” whatever that means. Tastes like water to me.
Gwen

Touring performers have a bit more of an excuse for bottled water simply because they aren’t in a home environment. Running all over a concert arena lends itself to needing a container for water.

Evian is a “hard” water with 309 TDS (total dissoved solids/salts & minerals). That is a higher mineral content than the other top three waters combined. Definitely affects taste but also might be more irritating to the vocal cords. I have no clue what Evian tastes like but I do know there’s nothing worse than having to drink water I don’t like the taste of.

Per the Smoking Gun site, the Red Hot Chili Peppers want no Evian/Crystal Geyser or other local bottled spring water. Aiken’s tour request rider is for room temp bottled water(non-Evian)in his dressing room. His musicians requested Aquafina in their dressing rooms. Both tap and non-specific bottled water is also requested in addition to glasses, ice and hot water kettles. Ashlee only requests no Evian.

If you are going to get on a soapbox about an issue, make sure you quote the original sources properly (E!)and take time do your homework.
Waterlover

I’m mixed about this issue. I’m all for the environment but I’m also all for my health and there is no way I would EVER drink my tap water or cook with it or anything! No chemicals, chlorine, fluoride, pesticide and industrial run off in my cup please.

Yes a lot of bottled waters come from afar but so do other consumable products like Chocolate, Wine, Soap, Oils etc. I make sure I recycle every single bottle.
bemsha

Most natural markets and even some supermarkets including many Wal*Mart have a Culligan system that takes municipal water and runs it through carbon filters, reverse osmosis and UV to remove chlorine, fluoride and other impurities and organisms that may be in the water. The cost is usually no more than thirty cents a gallon. I use 5 gallon reusable bottles made from polycarbonate, which is nearly unbreakable and leeches almost no chemicals into the water, unlike the softer retail water bottles which can sit on shelves for weeks or months. You get clean, great-tasting water at an affordable price without shipping water all over the world and without the maintenance hassles of operating your own filtration system.
http://www.ecorazzi.com rebecca

Gwen: how did I not quote the source properly?

Waterlover: Much of the bottled water that is for sale is bottled at the water facility, ie: it is tap water in a bottle. See more info at NRDC.
http://www.sustainablesean.com Sustainable Sean

In my opinion, the plastic bottles are really the worst part of this issue. Having grown up on a farm and traveled for fieldwork extensively, I’m not too worried about tap water here. But drinking water from a plastic bottle and then knowing that the bottle may be around in the environment for a long tome (some places still don’t recycle them) really bugs me. I get water in glass whenever possible.
Call Me X

I won’t drink out of the tap simply because of the fluoride. I don’t agree with forced medication in our water when there is no proof fluoride is even of benefit. Ironically bottled waters ALL contain fluoride too. The only sure way is to filter water yourself.
kat

@bemsha, you should switch to #5 polyethylene bottles – they are the most stable of all the plastics. #3 vinyls are the absolute worst. #7 polycarbonates, ie. nalgene, baby bottles, leach BPA, which in recent studies have concluded that they are not a risk, but i have a sneaky feeling that some higher powers that be can easily pulls strings.. like fluoride.

fluoride will not come out in filtration, not with britas, not with reverse osmosis, not even distillation, unless you use something that can get these extra tiny super-agressively bonded ions off your h2o. seriously.

as for the fluoride in tap and municipally bottled waters – they are all industrial byproduct chemicals that are added, not naturally occurring fluoride such as that in fiji or evian.
additionally, i only cook and drink evian at this point, occasionally fiji, because i refuse to use tap water. we are inundated with chemicals and the such, and as much as it pains me to kill the environment and use plastics that are leaching into my bottles anyway..

also everything that is cooked, processed, or prepared in america is guaranteed to have fluoride in it: it’s used as pesticides, it’s in the soil, in the water, it’s in the air. it absorbs readily into plants. tea (brewed, ice) has unhealthily high levels of fluoride.. beware. canned soups are also notorious.

your best bet is to buy fresh, organic foods, the less proceed foods, the less with water as ingredients the better, and cook with international bottled water that has low levels of naturally occurring fluoride. but it is better than being involuntarily medicated.
Kiesha

I was drinking tap water until I got fluoride poisoning that damaged my thyroid. Now I drink bottled.