You know bottled water is bad, but are you doing enough to stop it?
Bottled water isn’t a new gripe of the environmental movement. Most of you probably don’t buy bottled water (and if you do, stop!) but what do you do when your kid’s school or soccer team is handing out bottled water? What about at charity walks when pallets and pallets of water are distributed? How do you deal with that parent who won’t let her kid drink tap water, or that friend of yours who seems to think tap water is dirty?
Let’s take it from micro to macro. When someone you know insists on buying bottled water remind them of a few facts:
- There is, statistically, less than one person at the FDA regulating the content of bottled water. There is a whole department in your city regulating the contents of your tap water. A recent study found rocket fuel in several brands of bottled water.
- Plastics are bad! Unlike glass, which can be recycled an infinite number of times, plastics are rarely recycled efficiently and almost never 100% recycled. There is a mass twice the size of Texas made up of plastics, much of which comes from water bottles.
- Water is heavy. Transporting bottled water uses millions of gallons of fossil fuels each year.
- Bottled water costs you approximately 10,000 times more money than tap water.
Perhaps most importantly (because if you can afford to buy bottled water you might not care how much of a rip off it is) is the fact that bottled water supports the privatization of water. Water is essential to life, it’s not something humans can do without. By supporting companies like Coca-Cola (Dasani), Evian, or Fiji you are supporting a privatized industry that moves into developing countries under the guise of “aid” and takes control of their water system. They then turn around and charge locals more than they can pay for the water they need. The two movies linked above are amazing and informative and will change the way anyone looks at bottled water. They’re both available on Netflix or at your local Blockbuster.
But what about the school, or the event that you’re attending where you know there will be bottled water available? What can a charity walk or soccer team do to avoid bottled water? Many people think that bottled water is simply an evil that teams and events must live with, but that’s not the case. Talk with the event organizers about creative solutions like the following:
- Rather than giving out t-shirts, give out reusable water bottles (many are now available even with built-in water filters) and provide water stations where people can fill them up.
- Hold events in places where there are already water fountains at which participants can fill their bottles.
- Advertise in advance the fact that this event will be bottled water-free; make sure everyone can plan ahead.
- Utilize the resources available and the example of past bottle-free events.
- If you’re in Canada, use the HTOtogo truck!
With planning and drive, a bottled-water-free event is most often cheaper than purchasing hundreds of bottles – not just monetarily but environmentally and socially as well. Water will most likely become the next oil, and we are running out faster than most people know. Many experts believe that water will be what the next wars are fought over, and we should all do our part to keep both plastics out of the environment, and water in the hands of people who need it most. Reject the privatization of an essential resource like water and spread the word: bottled water sucks!
Related: previously on altCon
(4.17.08) garbage island: a sea of floating toxicity
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Great article. Giving away re-usable water bottles is a fantastic idea. Businesses are tremendous consumers of bottled water (both 5 gallon and personal disposable bottles). Encourage your employer to switch to a sustainable technology and re-usable water bottles. See http://www.aquaprix.com
Learn more about the issues and benefits of sustainable water for your office at:
http://blog.aquaprix.com
Well. Bottled water does prove to be an asset in less-developed and developing countries because, quite frankly, tap water in these places swarm with harmful organisms.
Bravo! People need to get back to athetic reusable water bottles and Brita/tap filters. Buying “bottled water” is a waste of money and plastic and few cities enforce recycling.
Your article sites the evils of bottled water, and you have an ad for Fiji water on the same page!…is anybody home?
We run some contextural ads over which we have less control — these ads are keyword-related.
We are right here, right at home.
Richard: if you watch Flow or Blue Gold you’ll see how the bottled water being offered to people in those countries is a result of the privatization of water, and is actually harming them. In many places the water system was localized and totally self sufficient until the World Bank offered them a “development loan” in return for rights to their water system. The countries accepted to get the money they needed, and companies like Suez and Viola came in and started taking out all the clean water. This multi-national privatization takes clean water away from the people living there and then sells it back to them for more than they can afford. Thus they’re left with only two options: buy the bottled water or drink the dirty water. Ah the wonders of business!
We should be addressing the issue of why the water is contaminated in these places, not charging these people for bottled water that used to be theirs to take.