The water cooler at work has a dirty environmental secret.

Not to mention the production of coffee, paper towels, printer toner cartridges and many other household products. Understanding exactly where the largest energy drains come from was left up to Royal Roads University students as they examined the production, shipping and disposal impacts. What they found was what waste consumers see is very little of the actual negative impact products have on the environment.

For 18-litre water bottles typically found in offices, producing the bottle creates significant emissions, but it’s when the bottle is attached to a stand that heats or cools the water the real energy draw is seen, said RRU student Dan Karran.

“The perception is that bottled water is better. (But it’s) about 800 times more expensive than tap water,” he said.

Plugged into the wall, units that heat and cool water consume way more energy than placing a jug of water in a refrigerator would, he said.

“When you think about the cost of these things ... for what?” he asked. “For the perception of drinking cleaner water?”

The production of coffee beans from the bush to the cup brewed up surprises as well. The bulk of the environmental impact comes from shipping the beans on freighters to Canada from countries such as Brazil. There are also impacts from land clearing for production, and whether or not the companies use hand tools or machines for harvesting, said RRU student Matthew LaCarte.

A single coffee bush produces one to two pounds of beans a year, after its fifth year. Roughly two billion pounds of coffee are consumed worldwide annually, said RRU student Luke Holdstock. Take into account that the beans must be roasted and brewed at high temperatures and the energy drains are enormous, he said.

Perhaps surprisingly, the packaging coffee comes in has the smallest impact environmentally.

The students are now tasked with finding viable alternatives to the products they studied. For bottled water, people need to understand that tap water is no different than bottled and consumes far less energy from source to consumer, Karran said.

In the case of coffee, finding beans grown and produced closer to home would make a difference. The farther away a product is produced, the harder it was to find information on its energy impacts, said RRU student Shauna Francis.

reporter@goldstreamgazette.com