"Water, water everywhere"...in plastic bottles

A recipe for Strawberry Shrub

Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

I’m not a daily paid up member of the bottled water club. When my tongue has stuck to the roof of my mouth, I’ve run a tap of the stuff into a glass. If I’m not near a tap, I wait until I am. I understand how summer makes people thirsty, increasing the purchase of those plastic bottles later crammed into bulging litter bins and rolling down gutters. But enthusiasm for bottled water extends throughout the year to winter. Water isn’t a commodity I associate with that chilly time of year. Winter’s more a season for hot chocolate. Yet pedestrians wrapped in scarves and thick coats still stride the streets attached to their comforting plastic bottles.

I know I should be drinking more water and have a certain admiration for those who scrupulously dose themselves - although less for those who, like being ruled by the imperative to get 10,000 steps into their daily stride, set themselves the task of drinking the prescribed 2 litres a day. I prefer to take the view that when the body needs hydrating, it generally lets you know. Besides, necessary public conveniences are in decline. In London, at least, they are being turned into hip underground cocktail bars which don’t include space for a loo.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

My interest in the whole thirst-slaking subject evaporates to having no opinion at all when water is administered from metal or other reusable bottles. Plastic bottles may resolve our immediate hydration demands; but those who buy them seem to spend little time considering what happens to those bottles once they are empty. And their recycling isn’t the only issue of concern.

Plastics contain over 13,000 chemicals. More than 3,200 of them are known to be hazardous to human health. According to the United Nations Environmental programme, many of the others have not ever been assessed.

Last August, I wrote a Tabled on the plastic particles found in bottled water, babies’ bottles and kettles, citing, among other statistics, a 2019 World Wildlife Fund report which concluded that through normal consumption, the average person consumes an estimated 5 grams - the equivalent of a credit card - each week, via food and drink packaging, and plastic particles in the atmosphere.

Credit cards are made from polyvinyl chloride. It’s unlikely that we consume a whole card’s worth of that specific chemical each week. But it is possible that we consume a total card’s worth from an accumulation of the plastic chemicals polluting our water and food containers and the air that we breathe.

It may have a specific, unexpected, consequence on population figures.

According to the World Health Organisation, 1 in 6 young people globally are affected by infertility, a rate of 17.8% in high-income countries. Pollutants are among the causes cited. In her 2017 book Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race, Dr Shanna Swan, a professor of environmental medicine and public health at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, established a link between plummeting human sperm counts and plastic pollution.  

Plastic bottles don’t only put water drinkers at risk. They are hazardous, too, to those involved in their recycling.

Recycling globally is less than 9 percent, an amount hardly indicative of a successful campaign. Tackling it is a job that, according to Dr Therese Karlsson, a Science Advisor with the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), imperils those involved. She told Salon, "Studies show that waste workers are exposed when they collect plastics, communities near recycling facilities are exposed from air and water pollution and consumers who use recycled plastic products face toxic exposures." 

That final clause follows evidence which has now come in that recycling it makes plastic more hazardous in its new form.

Recycled plastics often contain higher levels of chemicals which, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme, can more significantly poison people and contaminate communities. These include toxic flame retardants, benzene and other carcinogens, brominated and chlorinated dioxins which are environmental pollutants, and various endocrine disruptors that can cause changes to the body's natural hormone levels.

It’s unlikely that those in power in the developed world will impose any taxes on bottled water manufacturers: Look at how little effect health institutions are having in persuading governments heavily influenced by lobbyists for the industrial food complex to foist high taxes on sugar, salt and processed foods to help tackle obesity. 

Children are taught the virtues of recycling yet nothing about the dangers of plastics to encourage to avoid them altogether where possible. They - and adults - are unlikely to know that because plastic products don’t decompose naturally, recycling them into new plastics is simply recycling the same toxic plastics.

It’s the original plastic production we need to reduce. The only hope is to try and encourage those we see drinking water from plastic bottles to switch to permanent containers. 

Every little success will help.

Shrub, from the Arabic sharâb, is the old word for “sherbet”—those  vinegar-and-fruit syrups of the  Middle East, originating in the  seventeenth century, which contain  enough sugar to temper the tang  of the vinegar. Stretched with  sparkling or still water—or a chilled white wine, Prosecco or Crémant—they make  the base for a refreshing drink  or celebratory cocktail. Try this Strawberry Shrub drizzled over fruit sorbets or ice  cream.

Makes about 500ml/16 fl oz/2 cups

Handful of fresh mint leaves
500g/1lb very ripe  strawberries, hulled, sliced 
200g/7oz/1 cup sugar
255ml/8½ fl oz/1¾ cups red-wine vinegar  

In a medium bowl, crush the mint leaves and mash the  strawberries together. Add the sugar, and stir till it has mostly  dissolved. Refrigerate it overnight. If any sugar hasn’t dissolved, remove the mixture to a saucepan, and heat it gently over medium-low heat. Don’t let it simmer or you’ll kill the freshness of the flavour. Strain the shrub through a fine-mesh strainer. For greater clarity, strain it again, through a paper towel. Add the vinegar and pour it into sterilized bottles, and refrigerate it.