来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年1月28日
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For years, the debate has raged on: which is better, bottled water, or tap? Despite its ever-growing popularity in the US, bottled water is atrocious for the environment. To quote Harvard University’s Office for Sustainability, “The entire life cycle of bottled water uses fossil fuels, contributes to global warming, and causes pollution.”
多年来，关于瓶装水和自来水哪个更好的争论一直在激烈地进行着。尽管瓶装水在美国越来越受欢迎，但它对环境有害。引用哈佛大学可持续发展办公室的话，“瓶装水的整个生命周期都在使用化石燃料，加剧全球变暖，并造成污染。”
Although water bottles are recyclable, Americans throw away about 80% of the bottles they use – and, by some estimates, Americans use 1,500 plastic bottles of water every second. Plastic bottles contribute immensely to global environmental crises, in part due to the fact that they disintegrate into microplastics, the presence of which are so ubiquitous researchers recently discovered them in the placentas of unborn babies. Bottled water takes 2,000 times the energy to produce and ship than its tap equivalent. The extraction and manufacturing processes used by bottled water corporations can also have negative environmental and economic effects, and amount to the privatization and commodification of a limited and invaluable resource to which all should have a universal right.
尽管水瓶是可回收的，但美国人扔掉了他们使用的80%的水瓶——据估计，美国人每秒用掉1500个塑料瓶水。塑料瓶极大地加剧了全球环境危机，部分原因是它们会分解成微塑料，研究人员最近在未出生婴儿的胎盘中发现了微塑料的存在。生产和运输瓶装水所需的能源是自来水的2000倍。瓶装水公司使用的提取和制造过程也可能产生不利的环境和经济影响，相当于对一种有限和无价的且所有人都应享有的资源进行私有化和商品化。
When clean, safe water is unavailable, drinking bottled water becomes a necessity. The average consumer, however, does not purchase bottled water out of need, but because it’s convenient and often effectively marketed as purer or tastier than tap – despite the fact that it does not necessarily even come from the appealing sources consumers think it does. Bottled water is also about 3,000% more expensive per gallon than what’s in the tap.
当没有干净、安全的水时，饮用瓶装水就成为一种必需。然而，普通消费者购买瓶装水并不是因为需要，而是因为它方便，而且经常被宣传为比自来水更纯净或更美味——尽管事实是，它甚至不一定来自消费者认为的有吸引力的来源。瓶装水每加仑也比自来水贵3000%。