When bottled water is all that’s available, pick a brand that’s been bottled close by. Recycle the bottle when you’re done.

If bottled water's the only option, be sure to recycle the bottle when you're done.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Researchers in California recently broke down the production cycle of bottled water and found that making the plastic bottles—and sometimes transporting them—hogs the most energy in the product’s life cycle. People around the globe chugged more than 200 billion liters of bottled water in 2007, a 70 percent increase since 2001. The energy used to make and transport all that bottled water contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

THE DETAILS: Researchers at the Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan research group in California, compared the energy costs of bottled water produced and used in Los Angeles to water shipped there from the South Pacific and France. After calculating the energy used in producing, transporting, processing, bottling, sealing, labeling, and refrigerating the bottles, they found (not surprisingly) that water imported from France burned more than 4 times the amount of energy than water bottled and sold in L.A. When water is shipped short distances, making the plastic bottle itself accounts for most of its energy footprint.

WHAT IT MEANS: Much of the time, it’s hard to justify buying bottled water, since municipally treated water is readily available, is just as safe, and incurs minimal transportation costs. Filtering your home water, if you don’t like the taste or want more purity, is much better than stocking the fridge with bottles shipped from who knows where. But we all find ourselves in need of quick, cold, transportable H20 from time to time, with nary a reusable bottle in sight. Knowing about bottled water’s energy costs lets you make the best of the situation (and at least the water’s healthier than sugary soda in a plastic bottle).

If you have to buy bottled H20, here are some things to consider:

• Slurp it close to the source. If you’re in a mini-market and plan on quenching your thirst with water, check the label and try to find a brand that’s bottled close to where you are.

• Shy away from seawater and springwater. There’s controversy over bottled groundwater because companies are profiting from a watershed’s resources—or, according to some, stealing those resources. As for bottled ocean water—yeah, some marketers are actually taking the salt out of seawater and selling it in bottles—besides being a completely baffling idea, it takes much more energy to process than freshwater.

• Tell companies to use recycled bottles. You should recycle the bottles, of course—put them out for curbside pickup or take them to a community recycling center. Oddly, most companies don’t bottle their water with plastic taken from recycled bottles. Call or e-mail the maker of your favorite brand and ask them to do so. By the way, it’s not a good idea to reuse the bottles for drinking, since they don’t clean well and are prone to bacteria buildup. It’s also possible that chemicals in the plastic will leach into the water as the bottle becomes worn.

• Buy lighter bottles. Number 1, or PET, plastic that’s used for these bottles doesn’t have to be so thick. Coca-Cola and Nestle are among companies experimenting with using lighter No. 1 plastic for bottles. If all bottled water companies shifted to lighter PET, the amount of plastic used could be slashed by 30 percent.