It's worse than you thought: water from plastic bottles has hundreds of times more impact on the environment than tap water Well water from plastic bottles causes much more damage to the environment and requires 3500 times more material than water from the tap. This is according to new Spanish research. A thorough Life Cycle Analysis, a calculation of the total CO2 emissions of a product, is difficult to make. After all, you have to take every aspect into account. With a water bottle you have to calculate how much energy it costs to make plastic from oil, but also how much CO2 is released when extracting oil. And burning the plastic bottle at the waste plant also costs energy and CO2. ISGlobal, the health institute of Barcelona, ​​precisely calculated the environmental costs of 'plastic water' and compared it with tap water. The results are perhaps not surprising: bottled water is worse for the environment than tap water. But the fact that, for example, 3500 times more raw materials are needed for bottled water than for tap water, will still be shocking to many people. Bladder cancer and use of materials The Spaniards' research covered two things: health and the environment. The researchers looked at three (extreme) scenarios: one in which everyone in Barcelona only drinks bottled water, one where everyone drinks tap water, and one where everyone drinks filtered water. The latter is relevant in this study, because the researchers wanted to measure the health impact of tap water versus bottled water. In Barcelona this is a bigger problem than in the Netherlands, where the tap water is of excellent quality. According to the researchers, in Barcelona there is relatively much trihalomethane in the tap water, a substance that can cause bladder cancer. Traditionally, people have little faith in the water supply, which is why a majority of the population drinks bottled water. However, this has disastrous consequences for the environment. The researchers did not calculate exact CO2 emissions, but show that the impact on the number of living animal species in the area and the use of materials is hundreds of times greater with bottled water than with tap water. No more plastic To get the best of both worlds, a (carbon) filter in the tap seems to be the best solution. This means that an important part of the trihalomethane disappears, without the major environmental impact of plastic. But the investigation is not just a lesson for Barcelona's health services. Also, or especially, countries with an excellent drinking water supply can learn from this. Water in plastic bottles is so much worse for the environment that switching to tap water (whether or not in a reusable drinking cup) is one of the best things you can do for the environment.