Buy a bottle!

[blamebrampton]

As a genteel environmentalist, I am sometimes accused of wanting to destroy industry. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I could not live without my stompy boots and red lipsticks, which industry provides reliably. But there are a few industries that I think we could happily do without*. The major one of these is bottled water.

I loathe the stuff. It uses an enormous amount of precious water to make bottles that are most often single-use, then fills them up with H2O that is usually no better than what I can get from my tap (and in some cases IS what I get from my tap), then carts them about the countryside using up more water and fuel, then the empties end up scattered about public areas like the square outside my house, or floating in the sea.

Today I have been thinking about it more than usual as I was incensed by this story. Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands of NSW banned bottled water a year ago and instead put in more council taps and bubblers. Rather than needing to pay a few dollars per bottle to satisfy their thirst, people could stop at a bubbler, or refill their own bottles at a council tap.

In response, the bottled water companies (Coca-Cola Amatil being the main one in Australia) have launched campaigns on Facebook and YouTube to accuse Bundanoon of 'a PR spin campaign'.

How does that make sense? Bundanoon has done the sensible thing of providing locals with free, clean water when they're out and about. Would that more of Australia did likewise! Out in the country it's usually pretty easy to fill up a bottle, but in Sydney it's nearly impossible – unlike much of Europe where public taps and fountains are still commonplace. I have been forced to buy bottled water on a few occasions because I couldn't find a tap with potable water. In a first world city!

The bottled water industry says that it is just providing a healthy option: and I fully agree that bottled water is better than sugary fizz. However, in almost all of the developed world, tap water in your own bottle is a cheaper, more eco-friendly, and every bit as healthy an option. And for people whose water tastes as manky as Adelaide's, home filters provide an economically sensible option.

As for bottles, I love my Siggs, but there are a load of other good re-usable options available from most department and camping shops. Old glass bottles make good refillable options at home, and you can keep a few in the fridge.


* And for anyone happy to make a case that indicates I am necessarily against capitalism, I point you to the thriving legal opium trade of the 19th century, which was destroyed via successive legal edicts. Public good often outweighs corporate desire, and I think this is one of the cases where it should. And now off to write to Clover Moore and ask her where all the taps are.

Comments

[chantefable.livejournal.com]

I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree that bottled water, in most cases, is a fancy corporate way of making more money. Unless it is indeed coming from a one-of-a-kind, mineral-bubbling, unicorn-frothing spring, it is merely (hopefully) filtered water. Moreover, if it is sold in plastic bottles in lieu of glass bottles, it gets that extra-harmful plastic something.

The thing is, you can drink tap water if the pipe system is in fine condition and municipal filtering systems are working. In other words, if what is coming from your tap is drinkable without boiling.

If the pipes are rusty, old, and generally awful, and the cleaning systems at the nearest water facility are going from dead to worse, you just cannot drink tap water without risking your health unless you boil it first. And, well, if it's coming in that no-longer-fashionable, dirty reddish brown rust colour, you are unlikely to be tempted to drink it even boiled.

Bad filtering and bad pipes mean (even more) microorganisms, bacteria, and parasites in your tap water; depending on the level of dreadful, drinking 'raw' tap water can lead to your intestines rebelling against your stupidity and launching a Che Guevara campaign to crawl out of your body (not funny) or full-on extreme poisoning.

Don't let anyone convince you that worms in drinking water are all right. Because they are, most emphatically, not.

Conclusion: sometimes bottled water is not a luxury. It's a necessity.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes, and in those cases, I can come at it quite easily. I've purchased water myself in just such situations, though usually in the big 10L plastic containers, which will see you through a few days. But people feeling they need to drink several 600mL plastic bottles-worth a day for 'health' in most developed cities is simply crazy.

Though I must say that those worms are fine! I've drunk worse! It's the microbial sized ones you really need to worry about. The ones you can see are a bit gross, but generally just extra protein in the diet.

When I shattered my foot in Sydney, there was a ban on drinking the tap water unboiled for a week or so, because the levels of cryptosporidium and giardia were too high in the samples. I was on crutches with a heavy cast, and the idea of hopping about trying to boil water was just horrific, so I rang my friend the microbiologist who assured me that there was actually very little difference to the usual at all, just new far more sensitive testing equipment. He was right, and I was fine.

Which was a relief as I have had both of those parasites in my travels, and there is nothing worse than rushing to the loo on crutches!

[chantefable.livejournal.com]

nothing worse than rushing to the loo on crutches!

Oh, poor darling! Yes, I reckon you have to be quite an acrobat. Or a ninja.

I prefer to keep large bottles/cans at home, just in case I open my tap and see that drinking is a no-go today. Because of new worms or otherwise. ;)