Battle over bottles.

• Position: TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS

Over the last few years, consumers across the country have started going green by recycling, driving hybrid vehicles and bagging their groceries in reusable sacks. What kind of beverage to drink and how it's bottled have also been a focus of consumers who are concerned about limiting their carbon footprint, as evidenced by the increasing sales of aluminum water bottles and the push to drink tap water.

Now, a new study by Quantis International shows drinking bottled water might not be that bad after all. The study, released earlier this year, compared the environmental impacts of water and other beverages, including filtered and unfiltered tap water and the use of reusable plastic, steel and aluminum containers. The overall conclusion of the study was that water, no matter how it is packaged, has the least environmental impact compared to the other beverages in the study, such as juice, beer and soda.

According to the study, water represents 41 percent of a consumer's total beverage consumption, but represents just 12 percent of a consumer's impact on climate change. On the other hand, the study showed that, all together, milk, coffee, beer, wine and juice make up 28 percent of a consumer's total beverage consumption, but represent 58 percent of climate change impact.

The difficulty in making these comparisons is that each type of beverage requires different kinds of containers...