Daniel Jaffee, Portland State University – Dependence on Bottled Water Worsens Social Inequality

Bottled water can be a panacea during a crisis, but it can also worsen inequality afterwards.

Daniel Jaffee, associate professor of sociology at Portland State University, explores why.

Daniel Jaffee is an environmental and rural sociologist and Associate Professor of Sociology at Portland State University.

His research examines conflicts over water privatization and commodification; the social, environmental, and economic impacts of bottled and packaged water; and social movements around bottled water and water justice in both the global North and South.

His first book, Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival, received the C. Wright Mills Book Award.

He received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dependence on Bottled Water Worsens Social Inequality

A frequent image in news coverage of natural disasters and human-caused crises of unsafe tap water is that of authorities distributing huge quantities of single-serving plastic water bottles to affected residents.

These pallets of bottled water have become the default response to water crises like those in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi—places whose residents are disproportionately low-income and nonwhite.

In such communities, public officials often present bottled water as only a short-term, emergency solution. But in practice, bottled water often becomes a long-term substitute for compromised tap water. Some communities have been dependent on bottled water for years.

As a sociologist, I study the causes and the social and environmental effects of the rapid growth of bottled-water consumption in the U.S. and beyond.

Studies show that low-income, Black, and Latino households in the U.S. distrust their tap water more – and consume more bottled water– than do white and upper-income households.

The vast majority of U.S. tap water in fact meets all safety standards. Only 7 to 8 percent of water systems experience any health-related violations in an average year, but those systems disproportionately serve low-income communities and residents of color. Meeting a family’s full drinking and cooking needs with bottled water can cost thousands of dollars per year—vastly more than tap water—thus widening economic and racial inequality.

One major cause of U.S. tap water problems is a 45-year disinvestment trend. Federal spending on water infrastructure has fallen nearly 80 percent in real terms since the late 1970s–pushing the fiscal burden onto cities and states, and leading to deferred maintenance and aging pipes.

Many critics argue the federal government needs to reinvest in public water infrastructure. One current Congressional proposal to do so is the WATER Act, which would allocate $35 billion per year to improve water systems—an amount that is less than the $46 billion Americans spent last year to buy bottled water.

Read More:

–Book:  Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520306622/unbottled

–Recent article in The Conversation:  “When Communities Face Drinking-Water Crises, Bottled Water is a ‘Temporary’ Solution that Often Lasts Years—and Worsens Inequality”

https://theconversation.com/when-communities-face-drinking-water-crises-bottled-water-is-a-temporary-solution-that-often-lasts-years-and-worsens-inequality-214615

–Recent open-access journal article in Wiley Interdiscipinary Reviews-Water:

“Unequal trust: Bottled water consumption, distrust in tap water, and economic and racial inequalityin the United States.”

https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wat2.1700