Anglerfish, which feed on a wide range of matter, are known to sometimes gulp down trash with their oversized mouths. In March 2024, one was found at a seafood market with an entire plastic bottle lodged inside it. Courtesy of Kim Byung-yup
“I personally prefer tap water. I’d say bottled water is as good as dead water.”
That is the view of Choe Jae-cheon, a leading animal behaviorist and biologist and emeritus professor at Ewha Womans University. This would mean that, according to him, Evian, the globally recognized French bottled water brand, and Samdasoo, Korea’s famous Jeju volcanic bedrock water, are ultimately no better than Seoul tap water.
Choe firmly believes that however pure the original source may be, water cannot help but lose its freshness after spending months in plastic bottles during distribution.
From an environmental standpoint, the message is a welcome one. The bottled water industry is among the world’s major polluters, producing a gargantuan volume of plastic waste, and Korea is no exception. Greenpeace says more than 5.6 billion bottles of mineral water were used in the country in 2020 alone. Assuming each bottle measures 10 centimeters in diameter, lined up end to end, they would circle the Earth 14 times.
Bottled water harms the environment not only after it is consumed, but also in the very process of being made. Its plastic containers, produced from oil-based materials, generate substantial carbon emissions and take 400 to 500 years to break down. Some of that plastic is also known to make its way back into the human body as tiny fragments, and when they drift into the ocean, they are eaten by fish and passed along the food chain until they eventually reach the ultimate predator — humans.
Workers sort plastic recyclable waste collected from households at the Suwon Resource Circulation Center in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on Monday, two days ahead of Earth Day. Newsis
In that sense, if tap water is indeed as safe to drink as Choe says, it could be a viable alternative to bottled water — one that helps cut plastic use and ease the environmental burden. But many people still hesitate to drink straight from the tap. The question lingers: Is it really safe?
Choe’s answer is yes. He points to a growing body of research suggesting that tap water may be safer than bottled water. In one recent Ohio State University study comparing samples from four treated drinking water plants and six bottled water brands, for example, researchers found far higher concentrations of plastic particles in bottled water.
On average, one liter of bottled water contained around 6 million micro- and nanoplastic particles, roughly three times the 2 million found in treated tap water.
Source: Korea Times News
