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00:00Well, to get a greater insight on all of that, we can speak now to Professor at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine at the University of Lausanne, David Stradler.
00:08Thanks for your time. Can I start simply by asking you, any health risk to what Nestle was doing?
00:16Good morning, everybody. So, no, not really. The Nestle scandal is mainly a regulatory complaint issue. So, no, not a public health crisis. There are no risks for the consumer.
00:26OK, so reassuring. People were perhaps spending hundreds of percentage more for what they thought was cleaner bottled water or less contaminated bottled water than the tap water.
00:36But it was more about the money. But which do you think is better for us overall, then bottled water or tap water?
00:42It depends on the quality of the tap water. Mainly the first choice must be the tap water, mainly for ecological reasons.
00:49Then, if the quality of the tap water is too bad, for sure, you need to go on the bottled water.
00:56And in this case, paradoxically, the filtration process actually enhanced water safety, offering additional protection to the consumer.
01:04So, from a health perspective, this kind of measure, they just increase the safety.
01:10It's really a matter of trust and trust tolerance in the market.
01:16Indeed, we heard in that report one woman saying she would now trust tap water more.
01:21Do you think at least across Europe, perhaps, we could allow that?
01:25I mean, there have been scandals in water supplies as well across the continent.
01:28So, in general, tap water is controlled and the results of these controls are public.
01:38So, in terms of trust, you can normally easily have information about the tap water you receive at home.
01:44In this sense, there is more transparency compared to bottled water.
01:49And we also need to consider that finding truly uncontaminated water sources is now increasingly difficult to the human activity.
01:56So, in the future, probably, we need to deal with this kind of treatment.
02:01Indeed, and that brings into the question the very idea of having bottled water in the first place.
02:06I mean, is that not adding to the problem of our water supplies and their quality?
02:14Yeah, exactly.
02:15So, in terms of water quality, there are no impact in this sense.
02:21And it's a matter of deal between our, let's say, quality of life.
02:26We use a lot of chemicals for our life, for agriculture, for industry.
02:31And now, we also have an heritage from the past, a lot of pollutants coming from the past.
02:35And we also need to consider that today we have analytical methods much more sensitive than in the past.
02:40So, we can also identify compounds that we don't see before.
02:45This explains this kind of issue.
02:47And in the future, we really need to consider that we increase the discussion about this.
02:52And probably, filtration must become necessary for the majority of the water in bottles.
03:00Indeed, and our use maybe of plastic bottles needs to reduce.
03:03But you mentioned the environmental impacts.
03:05And we are seeing so much our environment change.
03:08We're seeing more droughts, for example.
03:10I mean, that's obviously going to have an impact on, you know, the water tables and what is available to both companies and countries.
03:17Where do you think, see things headed there?
03:21Yeah, this is the main, actually, issue now, as it's not related to the, basically, water bottle only.
03:30So, we need to understand that our life has an impact in natural resources and more and more.
03:43So, we also have this heavy, let's say, chronic pollution from the past.
03:50We are not actually in the main pollution era of humanity in the last 50 years.
03:55So, this kind of scandal must now discuss from a, in a larger perspective, meaning how we want to have incontaminated resources versus our quality of life and our impact in the natural.
04:12And I guess it also begs the question of who should manage our water resources?
04:18Exactly, sure.
04:19So, there are some solutions, basically, to protect some areas.
04:25And also, why not to just leave time to clean these kind of areas?
04:31Because a lot of pollutants, they are present in the water because they are used.
04:35But if we don't touch, let's say, this area for several years, we can't evacuate this pollution.
04:41So, in terms of management of resources, we really need to think larger than only the issue of filtration of bottled water.
04:48And could you see a future, finally, where we have companies and countries fighting for water resources?
04:56For sure.
04:57I think this will be a major issue also due to the climate change in which we basically already saw last year and the year before difficulties to have water from natural sources.
05:09In this term, the quality of water must be, in the future, also an economic value, increasing the need of treatment, but also the value of the economic value of this resource, which probably push authorities to increase the regulatory about the protection of natural sources.
05:28David Stadler of the University of Lausanne.
05:30Thanks so much for joining us and giving us your time here on France 24.
05:33Very much appreciated.