Something in the Water Episode 8 - Distrust at the Tap: Addressing Public Water Fears

In this thought-provoking episode of "Something in the Water," host Elena Berg shifts the focus from bottled water to tap water, exploring the complex web of trust, taste, and toxicity. With the help of Dr. Jale Tosun from Heidelberg University, the discussion delves into the reasons behind public mistrust in tap water, influenced by past failures and current perceptions. The episode also contrasts American skepticism with European confidence in tap water, highlighting initiatives across Europe aimed at boosting public trust through legislative and informational campaigns. Through this exploration, Elena and Dr. Tosun unravel how social, environmental, and political factors shape our water choices and what can be done to restore confidence in public water systems.

Episode Guest: Dr. Jale Tosun

More information about Dr. Tosun here

Browse Dr. Tosun’s publications on Research Gate

More information about the episode and Something in the Water here.

Episode Transcript  and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted by Elena Berg

Written and produced by Elena Berg and Clark Marchese

Audio Editing by Clark Marchese

Cover art by Sarah Glavan

Theme Music by Josef Salvat

Transcript:

[00:00:16.440] - Elena Berg

Hello, everyone. It's Elena Berg, your host of Something in the Water. Welcome back to the show where we talk about all things drinking water. Thank you so much for being here. We've finished our roundup of episodes talking to water farmers from around the world, and now we are shifting gears just a little bit to get into some of the big discussions about water. We've spent the bulk of the show so far talking about bottled water, and in a podcast hosted by a water sommelier, I suppose that was always going to happen. But today, we're shifting our focus to the tap. Trust in the tap, how it gets broken, and how to fix it. Electrolytes, fluoride, sodium, two hydrogens, one oxygen, a little bit of chlorine, all good things to have in your drinking water. Lead, mercury, E coli, pesticides, all very bad. At times, it can feel like the tap is just as controversial as the bottle. The main reason for that is broken trust. We know that a running tap simply doesn't exist in some places, but in a lot of places where it does, and the standard set for it is high, people still default to the bottle.

[00:01:38.930] - Elena Berg

I think we have to have patience for that, and we need to unpack it. Yes, we should be minimizing our reliance on bottled water if we have an alternative. But we also have to understand that the apprehension doesn't come from nowhere. When public trust is broken in tap water, it is typically on the heels of something catastrophic. The contamination of Michigan is the go-to example, but it's not the only one. The consequences of these big failures can affect people's lives and health for generations. So if you know for a fact that the tap water in your area isn't safe, we're not encouraging you to drink it. I don't think many of us would object to plastic used in hospitals. We obviously don't love how much plastic was used in the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, but it did help us to end the pandemic make faster and save many lives. The water bottle, too, can save many lives if the tap isn't safe. Now, our goal today is not to increase fear for the tap, nor to encourage the use of the bottle where the tap is safe. For the record, as a water sommelier who's very attuned to nuances in taste, I think tap water can be delicious.

[00:02:51.520] - Elena Berg

And as an environmental scientist, I do think that it's an area that, if maintained properly, can have a big positive impact on the planet. So instead Instead, we'll be discussing the root of mistrust on account of government failure. After that, we'll hear from Dr. Jale Tosun, an expert from Heidelberg University, about what governments are doing to maintain safe standards of tap water and to increase public trust. Sound good? Sounds good. Okay, let's begin. To preface, as we've been around the world a bit in this podcast, today Today, we're talking about TAP mistrust, mainly in the United States, and TAP initiatives, mainly in Europe. What we do know, thanks to research by Pierce and Gonzales, is that perception of TAP water affects drinking habits. We also know that perception isn't dependent, in a general sense, on knowledge about the built environment. It turns out that our perceptions about neighborhood risk factors or infrastructure or the source of tap water, those things have very little effect on our drinking habits. Instead, our choices are influenced by individual demographics like racial background or economic status. This is probably because some of the US's biggest tap water failures have directly impacted poor communities of color.

[00:04:16.860] - Elena Berg

In the last two years, many news outlets have reported that cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Jackson, Newark, Pittsburgh, and most famously, Flint, have undergone or are undergoing long term water quality crises related to the presence of heavy metals and harmful bacteria. We're not talking with a medical expert today about how these things can impact our health, but the consequences can be pretty dire, especially for children in earlier stages of development. Advisories instructing the public to boil all water from the tap can address some of these issues, but not all, and it's certainly not a long-term solution. These crises are a result of environmental factors such as floods, outdated infrastructure, chemical spills, and an overall lack of investment. Now, even though a lot of these problems are isolated, albeit long-standing, they've started to affect public perceptions throughout the United States. It's not hard to imagine why repeated occurrences of systemic government apathy towards certain groups would have this result. Either way, we've gotten to the point where four out of every 10 Americans have misgivings about their tap water. Kamira is a chemical a company that helps municipal infrastructures comply with public drinking water standards. They conducted a global survey in which only 60% of American respondents said yes to the statement, I trust the tap water in my home to be safe to drink.

[00:05:44.940] - Elena Berg

This gets interesting when you compare international responses to the same question. Finland, pulling in 97% of people saying yes. Now, 97 is exceptionally high, but Germany, for example, ranked 73%. These numbers This can be explained in a few ways, and that's why we have a guest here to help us understand this. It just so happens that Dr. Jarlitosen is a researcher in Germany, and she's going to explain the factors that go into consumer choice and some efforts by European governments to increase public reliance on tap water that might explain their higher numbers in public trust. We talk about how the public can get involved in this effort, and finally, we talk about how our choices affect the environment and how the environment is going to start affecting our choices more and more. Without further ado, Dr. Jale Tosun, welcome to the show. Hello, Dr. Tosun. Thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the show. First things first. I would love it if you could give us a brief introduction to you and your work.

[00:06:54.240] - Dr Jale Tosun

Of course, with pleasure. My name is Jale Tosun. I'm a Professor of political science at Heidelberg University, Germany. I'm also the co-director of the Heidelberg Center for the Environment, which is an interdisciplinary center where we work on various topics with regard to environmental protection and climate change. I'm also the editor of a nature brand journal called climate action.

[00:07:16.270] - Elena Berg

We've spent a lot of time on the show addressing the demonization of bottled water, where it comes from, which parts are warranted, and how to go forward. But there's a lot of misconceptions about tap water, too. There's a lot fear, and there's been a lot of broken trust over tap water. I'm wondering if you can tell us what some of the main factors are that influence consumer choice over what water they drink.

[00:07:40.860] - Dr Jale Tosun

Well, as usual, there are several factors which are of importance if we want to explain consumer decisions around drinking water. The most important factor is how people grew up, so their socialization effect. We can observe something like an intergenerational transmission of water consumption patterns. When we ask consumers about how they form their attitudes about drinking water, they tend to respond that it has to do with how they grew up, what information they obtain from their parents, and with information they obtain from their friends. We have this very strong social aspect around drinking water. If you grew up on the understanding that tap water is safe, that it that it is tasty, that it is practical, you will just continue drinking tap water. If you grew up with a different routine, which involves going to a retailer, buying bottled water, so this will be your routine. Routines are there to help to make decisions at relatively low cost. Changing routines is always very hard because then you first of all have to obtain new information, you have to evaluate the information, and then you actually have to change your behavior. Then what we also see is that health-focused decisions matter a lot.

[00:09:02.240] - Dr Jale Tosun

So whenever you hear about contamination of tap water, which can happen even in industrial countries once in a while, people become more skeptical of it. And therefore, we can see that at least for a short period of time, even if they usually drink tap water, they switch to bottled water because they're afraid of adverse effects of contaminated water. And then people will not drink tap water simply because they are suspicious of the quality, even though in objective terms, the quality of the tap water provided may actually be fine.

[00:09:38.180] - Elena Berg

Yeah, I think those habits are really hard to change.

[00:09:41.100] - Dr Jale Tosun

But then there are also other factors such as the taste or also the taste preference of individuals and the sensory qualities of water, like what it looks like, how it smells, and then eventually, of course, the taste, as I just mentioned. Then what we also could see, especially in data for Germany is that people are very aware of health-related aspects of water and also how hygienic water is. Respondents in Germany, for example, they tend to answer that they think bottled water is more hygienic than tap water. This actually explains a great deal of the variation in the response patterns we observed.

[00:10:22.360] - Elena Berg

Right. So the idea that bottled water is safer. Yeah, I think that fear is pretty widespread in the United States as well. The irony, of course, is that bottled water is often less well regulated than tap water. In the case of so-called purified waters in the US, those are basically just tap waters that have been filtered again and put into a single-use plastic bottle. But in any case, I want to ask a clarifying question about the social factors. If we say that social factors influence decisions, can you give me an example of what social factor would yield what decision?

[00:10:57.730] - Dr Jale Tosun

What we can see is that the social status matters. People who come from an academic background also tend to be more inclined to drink tap water, whereas people who come from a working glass background, they, first of all, usually prefer other drinks over water. They are more inclined to drink soft drinks, for example. But they also usually go for bottled water also as an expression of status and of self-understanding. But it's also the social environment as such. If you think of the following situation, for example, you go to a restaurant and you order tap water. In Germany or in many European countries in particular, you have to actively ask for tap water, which is very different in the United States, where you're just provided with tap water. But if you go into a restaurant in Europe, you have to actively ask for tap water. By asking for tap water, you evidently decide against going for bottled water, which would cost extra money. That could be perceived to indicate that you're not willing to spend money when you go to a restaurant and people may see this as a socially constructed impediment to drinking tap water.

[00:12:15.610] - Elena Berg

Oh, that's super interesting. Okay, so there's a conspicuous consumption thing going on in the restaurant space as far as social behavior goes. As a water sommelier, the restaurant space is something that I focus on quite a lot. When I started learning about the mineral water industry a few years ago, I immediately noticed how few French waters were offered in the restaurants in Paris. I learned pretty quickly to ask for a Crafedou or tap water when I sat down. But if I want something else, the choices are generally Avian and sparkling, usually Perrier or San Pellegrino. So little choice despite the fact that there are so many wonderful mineral waters in France, where I live. In any case, do you know if there is a reason that restaurants in Europe don't default to tap water or a reason why you have to ask for it directly?

[00:13:07.630] - Dr Jale Tosun

Well, yeah, I think, I mean, what's certainly important to bear in mind is that we also have a bottled water industry, which is pretty big. I mean, I come from Germany, and we have so many different brands of bottled water, mostly mineral water, carbonated, which is what we really like in Germany, but the same goes for France and Italy, for example. Restaurants, usually, they enter contracts where they are also required to offer bottled water as part of the condition so that they can lease a place.

[00:13:40.820] - Elena Berg

Okay, so we know that there are a range of factors that influence choice It's social background and habit formation being really important. As an environmental scientist, I have to ask, what are some of the environmental implications of consumer choice?

[00:13:55.560] - Dr Jale Tosun

Well, yeah, of course. That's very important. This is also when the policy aspects come into play, actually, or even more into play. The thing with bottled water is that usually it comes in plastic bottles, which means that we need resources to produce that plastic. Well, of course, we can recycle plastic, but there are limits to recycling it. If we don't recycle it, we end up with a lot of plastic waste. There's certainly an environmental impact of the bottles which we use for bottled water That's absolutely important and something one needs to bear in mind. But then there's also another dimension. I mean, once you have bottled water, it usually has to be transported from one place to another, which entails the need for trucks and for traffic. You have CO₂ emissions which emerge from the need to transport bottled water. Therefore, we also have a direct climate-relevant impact of bottled water.

[00:14:59.100] - Elena Berg

Are there any environmental impacts of tap water?

[00:15:02.080] - Dr Jale Tosun

An aspect which is certainly important is that with climate change becoming a more severe issue, there will be increased competition over water. We definitely need to bear this aspect in mind that as the temperature go up, there will be an increased competition for water. But then also the infrastructure is, of course, important. If you have plumbing systems which produce a lot of water leakage, that would also be something which is not very desirable. It's important that you have a well-maintained and well-functioning public infrastructure. Maybe not necessarily public, but a functioning infrastructure. An important discussion we had was whether the state is in the best position of developing and maintaining this infrastructure. That has been a debate, which is, I think, still luring because that matter is still not resolved.

[00:15:53.490] - Elena Berg

Maybe I'm hearing in there a slight implication that there may be a greater incentive for private companies to to protect water resources than public entities because there's more money to be made. This is actually quite a huge debate, and we will have it next week. But the importance for tap water, not only for human health, but also for the environment, is that the infrastructure is maintained. You wrote a paper I want to talk about, too. It's called Making Europe Go from Bottles to the Tap: Political and Societal Attempts to Induce Behavioral Change. Can we talk a little bit about the political and societal attempts steps that you discovered and also why European governments have taken these steps?

[00:16:35.330] - Dr Jale Tosun

Well, yes. First of all, I think it's very important to mention that at the European level, we have a revised drinking water directive, which was adopted in December 2020. That directive, that entered into force just one month after it was adopted, so in January '21. That directive explicitly aims at promoting tap water. For example, by asking the member states to install water fountains in public space, for example. That's something you have to bear in mind with regard to the European governments, because once you have a directive adopted at the European level, the member states have to implement it. But the directive is relatively open, right? How exactly you promote consumption of tap water is not specified in detail, but it means that the member states are asked to take action. Having said that, it's also to bear in mind that in the European Union, we have governments that in the past have already promoted the drinking of tap water, whereas others haven't. We have a lot of variation. The impact of the directive in terms of direct policy change will vary considerably across the European countries.

[00:17:51.160] - Elena Berg

I want to know if there are any examples of this in specific countries. I'm going to ask you about that right after this quick break.

[00:18:34.520] - Elena Berg

Can you give us any examples of efforts that a specific country has taken in applying this European Directive for drinking water or any common threads you see emerging?

[00:18:49.130] - Dr Jale Tosun

What the governments can do varies a lot. So one potential policy response to the directive could be that governments launch information campaigns or advertisement campaigns such as Iceland, for example. Iceland launched a couple of years ago, but I know as a fact that the campaign is still on. A campaign where tap water is presented as if it was a luxury good. It is presented as if it's an advertisement for bottled water. But there are also other information-based instruments such as apps. There is a free tap water Belgium app, for example, where you can see which restaurants would provide you tap water for free. That's also a so-called information-based instrument. Then you also have countries that have adopted laws and regulations. In France, for example, when you order a meal in a restaurant, they must serve you tap water for free. But, and this is the point I already made earlier, you have to ask for it explicitly. It would not come automatically. Maybe in some restaurants it would, but the law stipulates that the customer has to ask for it actively. When customer asks for it and has ordered a meal, then the restaurant must also serve tap water for free.

[00:20:06.380] - Dr Jale Tosun

There was also an attempt by the international government of the Luneia in Belgium to actually institute a right to receive free tap water, but so far it hasn't materialized. That was actually a quite surprising announcement which the government made a couple of years ago, but so far it's not working out. One of the reasons for that is that you have an economically important sector which actually produces bottled water and that the restaurants oftentimes rent the premises from water producers or producers of drinks, and so they are legally obliged to sell bottled water. That's an impediment which is preventing the Walloon government at this point from implementing this announcement. Another way governments can go is by providing water fountains, for example. Milan, a city in northern part of Italy, has a very dense infrastructure of water fountains which provide really good quality drinking water.

[00:21:11.480] - Elena Berg

Okay, so that's quite a bit. The US probably has some lessons to learn from all of these different initiatives. I'm wondering, though, because the level of the European Union is quite high in terms of administration and governance, and all of their decisions, well, a good number of countries across Europe have to be on board for a directive to be established, what, if you know, is driving these changes? If we trace it back, what's driving the implementation of the European directive in the first place?

[00:21:43.620] - Dr Jale Tosun

Well, I mean, there's several considerations. First of all, what we can see is that there is an increased demand from European citizens for equal access to water. There was this famous Citizens Initiative, Right to Water, which did not directly address free access to drinking water or tap water in restaurants, but it was an initiative that aimed to establish a connection between democracy and access to good quality water. It also had some other goals, most importantly, to prevent the privatization of drinking water infrastructure. But the European Commission refers to that initiative quite often to motivate and to justify why it's also now supporting this idea that that access to water should be as broad as possible and ensure that also marginalized and vulnerable populations have access to good quality drinking water. I think there's this bottom-up demand for that, which is certainly important. Then, of course, as I just tried to allude to this social dimension, that no one in the European Union must be excluded from public goods such as drinking water. We have the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. There also, access to water is an important goal. There's also this more international dimension to policy action, but that's also a stimulus which effect directly national governments.

[00:23:13.050] - Dr Jale Tosun

We also have demands to reduce our carbon footprint, again, going back to an international agreement, in this case, the Paris Agreement. There are several drivers, I shall say, which are responsible for that. Some of them are more bottom up coming from the citizens. Others come either from the European Union or they come from the international level even.

[00:23:37.830] - Elena Berg

Okay, I'm hearing a lot of good things here. It seems like the public is mobilized and the government is responsive to the people, but it's also encouraging to see how governments recognize that water management is an important key in upholding the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals, or just climate action in general. In the face of all of these efforts, do we see any areas where consumer habits are changing or trust is being restored?

[00:24:06.270] - Dr Jale Tosun

There was a very low trust in Italy, for example, especially in the south of Italy, where a privatization or a fundamental revision of the system has helped to restore trust or to establish trust in that system. There's a tendency that especially countries in the south of Europe have low trusting populations, and they usually are more skeptical of drinking water provided by a public system, for example.

[24:34.810] - Elena Berg

Does that also mean that they have higher rates of drinking bottled water to begin with?

[00:24:39.800] - Dr Jale Tosun

Yes. I think Italy is a great example for that because in the north, and I just gave the example of Milan, people are actually very accepting of tap water because in the north of Italy, there's much more trust in the capacity of the state, whereas in the south, people usually go for bottled water. We can certainly say that the Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, or even the Netherlands and Austria. Austria, not strictly being a Nordic country, but a country where also a lot of tap water is consumed. These are countries where you can see that probably also because of the really good quality of the tap water, there is a social norm around it, that it is the best option for drinking water, that you go for tap water. But these are also usually environmentally very aware countries where the drinking of tap water is part of the school curricula. I think these countries are certainly leading in that regard, and there are things we can learn from them.

[00:25:41.580] - Elena Berg

Well, Dr. Sosen, as we start to wrap up, I want to ask if there's anything else you think we would be remiss not to mention in this conversation on tap water.

[00:25:51.380] - Dr Jale Tosun

We touched upon this very briefly, but to me, it's just important to emphasize that climate change may be a game changer, unfortunately. As I explained already, with climate change, there's going to be a heat, literally a heated debate over who is going to have access to water, what the quality of the water should be like. In many European countries, for example, we don't use reused water for drinking water. So these are different things. But as we experience climate change, this may change. And water which has been previously used for irrigation, for example, may become a component of drinking water. And that, of course, would result in a situation where people become more skeptical or are skeptical about the safety and quality of the drinking water. But that's something that may eventually come up if the climate heats up as it's currently doing. So climate change, from my perspective, is an important variable here, and we definitely need to keep an eye out how it is going to affect drinking water.

[00:26:58.880] - Elena Berg

We'll definitely keep our on it. Thank you so much for your time today and for coming on the show.

[00:27:03.900] - Dr Jale Tosun

Great.

[00:27:12.530] - Elena Berg

Well, I guess one of the big takeaways from this conversation, for me at least, is that the antidote to mistrust in tap water is awareness and education. I remember from talking to Dr. Sherry Mason in episode 2, that the reason we in the United States know about a problem with our tap water is because our municipalities are required to report and publish frequent water testing results. But a recent study found that 55% of Americans don't know where their tap water comes from. If you're not sure where yours comes from, it's worth looking. Dr. Thosen explained how governments across Europe seem to be taking on the responsibility of education campaigns. I also found in the Journal of Water Policy that Pearson-Gonzales published that community-based environmental justice organizations are some of the most effective stakeholders in rebuilding public trust in the tap. I guess this makes sense for two reasons. Perhaps the government will have more of an uphill battle to reverse mistrust in itself. But also tap water safety is at heart an issue of environmental justice. Total reliance on bottled water is both environmentally and economically costly. But the heart of the matter is that clean water is a public good that we all have a right to, but only some of us have.

[00:28:32.280] - Elena Berg

Thank you for listening to this episode of Something in the Water. Don't forget to check the show notes for information and links about this episode's guest. Please join us back here wherever you're listening to this in one week's time for our next episode. Today, we talked about trust in tapwater. Next time, we'll speak with my colleague, Dr. Oleg Kopsev from the American University of Paris, where we'll have the big public-private debate about who be responsible for maintaining our tapwater systems. I am your host, Elaina Berg. This podcast was produced and written by myself and Clark Markezi. This episode's guest was Jaal Itosen, and we've put some information about her in our show notes. The music you're listening to was produced by Joseph Salva, my friend, and past guest on the show. Cover art was made by Sarah Glaven, and the show was edited by Clark Markezi. This is a Pine Forest Media production, and full transcripts can be found at pineforestpods. Com. And we've already got two other shows for you to check out. We've got Plastic Podcast that tells the story of plastic on our planet. And we've got South Pole, all about the science of Antarctica.

[00:29:45.950] - Elena Berg

You can look for these wherever you stream and keep a look out for some other shows we've got coming out this year. Finally, thank you to the American University of Paris for making this podcast possible. If you feel called, writing a review and giving us a five-star rating is thing you can do to help us out so we can keep making more sciencey podcasts in the future. So until next time. Bye.