Thinking outside the bottle
January 22nd, 2008 by adminI’ve never understood the desire to purchase plain old water in a plastic bottle, although I’ve had some interesting discussions with members of my family about this issue.
Unless you have really bad pipes in your house or you are on well with a bad liner, chances are your tap water is every bit as pure and safe as what you can buy in a store.
A Jan. 17 article in the Christian Science Monitor explores a growing environmental movement against bottled water and how the industry is responding by promoting a greener image:
After student groups at Boston College and Vermont’s Middlebury College persuaded their schools to terminate lucrative contracts with bottled water companies, their student newspapers received letters from the American Beverage Association (ABA) and Nestlé Waters North America, reminding a generation of new customers that they have worked to improve recycling while keeping an “on-the-go society” hydrated.
But for Tufts students like (Kate) Daniel, greener efforts may no longer be enough. When she learned that as much as 40 percent of bottled water comes from municipally managed water sources, and not the pristine springs she imagined, she decided to seal the cap once and for all.
“Clearly the ABA is threatened by this movement because they know how powerful college students are,” says Lizzie DeWan, a junior at Tufts and cofounder of its TOTB (Think Outside The Bottle) campaign.
The International Bottled Water Association shot back at critics in a press release, saying, “To single out this product as any more polluting or dangerous than the thousands of others packaged in plastic is to ignore the fact that today’s society demands and relies upon packaged food and drinks.”
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
I am a regular consumer of plain bottled water products. When my finances permit, (social security disability checks leave little for luxuries), I have rented a dispenser and had gallons of drinking water delivered. Daily, I would fill up personal size plastic bottles, re-using the ones I had, instead of buying water by the case pre-bottled.
When money is tight, I will purchase a gallon of water in plastic bottles here and there. I do not hassle with refilling these at the store. I do save the bottles but forget to grab them on my way out. So they end up in the recycle bin. WHY DO I PREFER BOTTLED WATER??? Because the water piped to my Bremerton home is awful!!! I am a neck cancer survivor, the radiation therapy to my face and neck, sensitized my tastebuds, and destroyed my salivary glands. I have to drink constantly, just as a normal person has to swallow. The water provided from the city of Bremerton emits the foul odor of chlorine, like a swimming pool . It also tastes like like one. If the water is allowed to sit out for a while,,,when the chlorine evaporates, the water tastes like metals and dirt. It always had tasted poorly, but now I taste it tenfold. If I can smell and taste the rotten quality of the water, can the city assure me that their product is safe after long term exposure? When my children had goldfish, we used to let the water sit overnight to allow the air bubbles,and the bleach to dissipate,as to not kill the little fishies. My laundry becomes more dingy and gray with each “washing”,unless I add more chemicals to clean the water, both hot and cold. .
If I feel, and truly believe that drinking, and cooking with bottled water is the safest option for our family, I have no problem adding more than my fair share of bottles to the landfills. If I was able to purchase enough for bathing I would do this as well!!
When I can’t afford clean water, I must drink the polluted tap water. I find that using it for iced tea helps me to forget the gallons of filth I am drinking. The boiling helps to clean it, killing the odor, but not the metallic taste. The tea covers the taste of the remaining toxins.
I am sure that there are millions of people in our country, who don’t drink bottled water because it is cool and hip..
People are buying plastic bottles of cleaner drinking water because their tap water is just as bad or worse. Many of us are being forced to choke down what must be “wastewater” for drinking, bathing and laundry…and we are forced to pay for it with our dollars and our health.
Which form of pollution is the greater evil?
Just a thought,
D.G. Strong