Nothing raises the ire of a good greenie like bottled water, right? You only need to review the Sierra Club’s bottled water facts brochure (or watch a film like FLOW) to recognize the source of that anger: individual plastic bottles of water create costs at all points in their lifecycle, from the pumping of spring water (when that’s the case), to production of bottles, to transportation of the product, and finally to disposal of the empty bottle. These processes impact environmental quality, broad access to fresh water, and even human health… an awful lot of bottled water doesn’t stand up to claims of a cleaner, healthier product.

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Design firm MSLK notes that we American consume 1500 plastic bottles of water every second. Great statistic… but does it create a particularly vivid image for you of the levels of bottled water consumption? If not, no worries: MSLK has that covered. Their new art installation Watershed integrates 1500 empty water bottles with “signs with facts about the dangers of this rate of consumption and what the public can do to make a change.”

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Bottled water contributes to a host of environmental challenges — you know that. But, let’s face it — bottled water is also incredibly convenient, especially if you’re on the go a lot. A refillable bottle is environmentally preferable, but if you’re out and about, and run out of water, you may also find yourself out of luck in terms of refilling it.

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Still have bottled water as a regular item on the grocery list? Or just pick up the occasional bottle when you’re out? It’s so convenient…

As you probably know, that convenience comes at an environmental and social price: documentaries such as FLOW and Thirst, organizations such as the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund, and even a few of us lowly bloggers, have reported on the costs created by water’s transformation from a freely-available resource to a multi-billion dollar commodity. That bottle of water you buy now contributes to the world’s third-largest industry.

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This year, The Sundance Film Festival is highlighting the environmental importance of filtered tap water by joining with Brita and Nalgene in support of Filter for Good, an innovative campaign to reduce bottled water waste. Meet the people helping bring change to the Sundance Film Festival by watching the video below.

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LONDON, UK, March 9, 2008 (ENS) – The use of bottled water for meetings and other official business is to be phased out across the whole government estate. The new policy, announced Thursday, is expected to come into effect by the summer.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell has written to the head of every government department suggesting they should replace bought-in bottled water with tap water for all future meetings.

A number of departments have already stopped using bottled water for official meetings but the proposal is to extend the tap water only policy throughout all government departments.

Sir Gus said, “The Government is committed to sustainable operations across its estate and I have made this issue one of my key priorities for the Civil Service.

“Today’s announcement is a small part of a much bigger program of action in this area,” he said.

A number of government departments and agencies, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Defra; the Food Standards Agency; and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, have already made the switch from serving bottled water to tap water at meetings.

In 2006, the last year that Defra used bottled water, caterers supplied 12,600 bottles to the department.

The Office of the Cabinet Secretary said that tap water requires around 300 times less energy than bottled water for packaging and transport and does not leave plastic bottles behind for disposal.

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Water is an amazing resource, that gets wasted in amazing numbers. Check out the sobering numbers below, and keep ‘em in mind when the faucet starts to drip.

2.5 — in gallons, the amount of water that most of the developing world gets by on per day.

400 — in gallons, the amount of water used by the average American in a day, 30% of which is used outdoors.

7 billion — in gallons, the amount of water used outside per day in the US.

70% — the amount of water used worldwide for agriculture and farming.

40% — the effectiveness of the above usage…yikes.

1,430 — gallons per capita per day used in the United States.

100 — gallons of that that is household use per person.

263 — the number of rivers that either cross or demarcate international political boundaries; worldwide water shortages could prove disastrous. Already, major conflicts such as Darfur have been connected to shortages of, and lack of access to, clean water.

88 — the percent of deaths in children under five from diarrhea, or 1.5 out of 1.8 million, caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation together.

18 — the percent of all under-five deaths and means that more than 4,000 children are dying every day as a result of diarrhoeal diseases.

11.3 — the amount, in billions of dollars, required to provide basic levels of service for drinking and waste water in Africa and Asia, according to UNICEF [ipsnews.net].

35 — the amount, in billions of dollars, spent on bottled water in the First World.

1.5 — the amount, in millions of barrels, of crude oil used to make PET bottles for bottled water, enough to fuel 100,000 American cars for a year.

2.7 — the amount, in tons of plastic, used to bottle water; 86% of which becomes garbage or litter.