Splash!

[nerdanel]

So, about competitive swimming...just kidding!

The New York Times featured an editorial today entitled, "In Praise of Tap Water," urging consumers to rethink their choice to pay for billions of gallons of bottled water. Here is this argument. A few thoughts of mine below.

On the streets of New York or Denver or San Mateo this summer, it seems the telltale cap of a water bottle is sticking out of every other satchel. Americans are increasingly thirsty for what is billed as the healthiest, and often most expensive, water on the grocery shelf. But this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world. Instead of consuming four billion gallons of water a year in individual-sized bottles, we need to start thinking about what all those bottles are doing to the planet’s health.

Here are the hard, dry facts: Yes, drinking water is a good thing, far better than buying soft drinks, or liquid candy, as nutritionists like to call it. And almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands. Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents.

Next, there’s the environment. Water bottles, like other containers, are made from natural gas and petroleum. The Earth Policy Institute in Washington has estimated that it takes about 1.5 million barrels of oil to make the water bottles Americans use each year. That could fuel 100,000 cars a year instead. And, only about 23 percent of those bottles are recycled, in part because water bottles are often not included in local redemption plans that accept beer and soda cans. Add in the substantial amount of fuel used in transporting water, which is extremely heavy, and the impact on the environment is anything but refreshing.

Tap water may now be the equal of bottled water, but that could change. The more the wealthy opt out of drinking tap water, the less political support there will be for investing in maintaining America’s public water supply. That would be a serious loss. Access to cheap, clean water is basic to the nation’s health.

Some local governments have begun to fight back. Earlier this summer, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom prohibited his city’s departments and agencies from buying bottled water, noting that San Francisco water is “some of the most pristine on the planet.” Salt Lake City has issued a similar decree, and New York City recently began an advertising campaign that touted its water as “clean,” “zero sugar” and even “stain free.”

The real change, though, will come when millions of ordinary consumers realize that they can save money, and save the planet, by turning in their water bottles and turning on the tap.

I recently stopped drinking bottled water myself, based on a similar plea from a San Francisco restaurant whose philosophy I greatly respect.

WHERE’S THE BOTTLED WATER?

As part of our efforts to do good for the environment, we have decided to stop carrying bottled water for two reasons (and we hope you support us and help spread the word):

1. Every year, Americans drink more bottles of water than there are people in China (1.2 billion bottles of water). By our decision alone, [restaurant] is removing nearly 10,000 bottles from recycling and landfill. And, we are also removing our part of the 22 million gallons of oil used to transport bottled water.

2. There is a current heated debate about “...what’s in your bottled water.” Because the ingredients in bottled water need not be published it has been found that much of the bottled water out there is actually low-grade tap water! At [restaurant], we filter our water several times. So, if you do want water, please just ask for tap!

We apologize for any inconvenience, and hope you understand our stance on bottled water, and support us in our environmental efforts. Spread the word, and drink filtered water at home, and request it when you go out.

I immediately stopped buying bottled water and went out and bought a Brita filter (San Francisco tap water may be "pristine," but San Jose's can be sketchy.) Never let it be said that I am not a sheep.

Since I've educated myself on this topic, it seems blatantly obvious that filtered tap water is cheaper, more consistently likely to remove impurities, more environmentally friendly, and even politically savvy from a liberal perspective (see the Times' point with respect to the integrity of the public water supply being linked to the wealthy (and middle-class) not opting out; also, obviously anything that reduces dependency on foreign oil continues to be a good thing.) Plus? Filtered tap water tastes MUCH better - in my subjective, and probably placebo-mentality judgment - than any bottled water I've ever had. I'm drinking far more water than before, which is a good thing.

Another concern of mine is related to fluoride. I know that controversy rages whether fluoride in water is desirable or safe. I don't know who is right - but I know that I grew up drinking tap water without a single cavity, and have had three or four while drinking bottled water. For right now, I feel good about Brita not filtering out fluoride...but we'll see if that stays true if an extra halogenic arm grows out of the back of my head.

I am concerned that bottled water is here to stay, however. It's the fad that won't die. People think they are being virtuous by purchasing water rather than soda, and for those on the go, it is much easier to grab a bottle and run, rather than filling a reused bottle with tap water the day before. I am certain that many, if not most, consumers of bottled water haven't given too much thought to the fluoride debate one way or another. I've also encountered many people who erroneously assume that the number of plastic bottles they consume is nearly irrelevant so long as they recycle them. More than anything, I think bottled water will stick around because people don't really have reason to think about it; on the surface, it seems healthy, convenient, and tasty.

I'm starting to wonder whether some anti-bottled water evangelism is necessary, however. Thoughts?

[Frelga]

Thoughts.

1. We have lovely tap water here, it comes from the Sierras and tasted just fine. However, it is disinfected with chloramine and Brita won't take it out. It takes a reverse osmosis filter, which BTW I am seriously considering.
2. In fluoride controversy, I come on less is better side. You can't avoid fluoride. It's in processed foods, juices from concentrate... many many places. Enough is too much (just Google)
3. Small single-use plastic bottles do present a serious environmental problem. As does transporting water around the globe and depleting local water supply to sell fancy water to wealthy foreigners.
4. There is also a concern about potentially carcinogenic compounds that leak into the bottled water from plastic. Of course, plenty of stuff leaks into the tap water that nothing short of distillation would remove.
5. Any water labeled "purified" or "drinking" or whatever is tap water. Don't buy it. Unless it says that it comes from some spring shaded by the fragrant cedar branches high in the snow-peaked mountains. And even then they could be lying.

More later.

[axordil]

Even if the water actually does come from some unsullied location--Fiji, for example--the direct and indirect cost to society of collecting it, bottling it, and flying it thousands of miles to market is fundamentally offensive to me, when there is a perfectly reasonable alternative in the kitchen sink (especially with a Brita filter, or in worse case scenarios a RO setup such as Frelga describes).

I can grit my teeth and occasionally rationalize fresh produce from overseas in winter, since it's unavailable locally. But for most Americans, decent, clean water is there 24/7.

I want to throttle the marketing people responsible.

[Primula Baggins]

I haven't bought bottled water since we left L.A. in 1986 (the tap water in the student housing ran brown fairly regularly). I think all your points are compelling, Nel. We've got delicious and quite pure tap water where we live now; I don't filter it, I've read the reports on it and it's clean and safe without it. For travel and going out, we all have polycarbonate bottles that don't break and give no plastic taste to the water. (I'm very sensitive to off tastes in water, and I taste nothing.) I'm sure we save a ton.

No fluoride, though, which is for me a problem, but from their infancy on, I gave my kids fluoride tabs our doctor prescribed. (You don't get a therapeutic level from processed foods alone.) I grew up without fluoride and have about three unfilled teeth and constant problems with the repairs, so that choice seemed right to me. And none of my kids have ever had a single cavity.

There is a lot of alarmism (and a lot of clever marketing) about water. I have lived in places where I preferred not to drink tap water, but if you trust the source of yours and and like the taste, I say count yourself lucky and drink up.

[Athrabeth]

We've had a water cooler for a number of years now, ever since the yearly testing of our well started to show some dicey numbers. The underground source of the well has always been a bit "sluggish", and it doesn't take much of a dry spell before we're "pulling from the bottom", and evidence of silt begins to cloud the water coming from our taps. We're also "downhill" from a number of fields and pastures, and the thought of fertilizers or pesticides or sheep poop leaching into the groundwater is far from comforting. I guess it was the Walkerton, Ontario tragedy that cinched our decision to not drink our well water any more - we didn't want the hassle of having to test it with increasing frequency, but knew that this would be only way to have any kind of peace of mind about its on-going safety.

The 20 litre bottles of water that we heave onto the cooler are provided by a local company that has tapped into a "gusher" - an artesian spring up on one of the highest and most remote areas of the island that is surrounded by land protected from any kind of development. I fill up a 1.5 litre stainless steel thermos to take to work with me.....I generally don't like drinking anything from plastic containers, even the "non-leaching" kind. I refuse to drink the water that our school gets from a small waterworks company that draws water from a local lake. It tastes like algae mixed with bleach, and it's usually tepid - not exactly a cool, refreshing treat for the body! This past school year, the parents of my students opted to pay for a cooler and local bottled water because their kids were complaining so much about the tap water. It looks like every class might have the same arrangement next year.

I do notice, on my trips to either Victoria or Vancouver, that the tap water smells suspiciously like a swimming pool. I'm sure that it's quite safe and clean, but that ever-present chlorine taste really puts me off. Victoria used to have delicious tap water, but several years ago, construction/development caused a lot of damage to the watershed that surrounds the reservoir, and to this day they're still fighting algae blooms and other problems. Several people we know who live there have put filtration/purification systems in their homes now, and lament the degradation in taste and purity that necessitated the extra expense.

I agree with Prim that people should really learn more about the sources of their drinking water, and if the information tells them that they can trust it, then by all means, !

[Frelga]

Came across this bit when reading about the Minneapolis bridge tragedy:

A 2005 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country's infrastructure an unacceptable D grade -- almost failing. The group estimated the United States needed to spend $1.6 trillion over five years to put its infrastructure into good shape.

[...]

Bridges actually received comparatively high marks in the civil engineering report: an acceptable C grade, compared with D notes for the country's aviation system, dams, drinking water, electric power grid and hazardous waste system.

I wonder what it is about the drinking water that's so near failing grade!

[themary]

I live in Long Beach CA and it's not very pretty so I wouldn't image what comes out of the tap as being delicious with the nasty smelly ocean port just over yonder. Having said that, tap water is a very mental thing for me. Is it clean? If it has any odor at all I get werided out and won't drink it, but I have had tap filters put on and then I'm A-Ok drinking from a tap.

It also concerns me that Prim only started drinking tap water after she left L.A. which for the moment is another reason I'm gonna hang on to my bottled water. I really need to find the missing Pur filter that is somewhere between hal's apartment and my own.

I think Dasani and Aqafina are complete rip off since they are purified tap water and it tastes funky too! Even some spring water has a funktacular taste but I learned early on the difference between spring water and purified tap water. I'd really like to stop buy bottles of water as it is costly and they fly out of the fridge like world is gonna run out of water.

[nerdanel]

The New York Times continues with the anti-bottled water crusade, with the following article appearing in their August 12 paper.

Although I'm glad that the Times (and other sources) are aggressively calling attention to this one issue, I'm curious why THIS issue has been chosen when there are so many. I can't help but wonder whether there are factors behind its selection of which I'm unaware.

ON a recent family vacation in Cape Cod, Jenny Pollack, 40, a novelist and public relations associate from Brooklyn, did something she knew she would come to regret. She did it on the spur of the moment. She did it because she felt desperate.

Besides, the giant illuminated Dasani vending machine was just standing there, like a beacon.

So, with her reusable plastic Nalgene bottles dry and her son Charlie working up a thirst in an indoor playground, she broke down and bought a bottle of water. To most people it would be a simple act of self-refreshment, but to Ms. Pollack it was also a minor offense against the planet — think of all the oil used to package, transport and refrigerate that water.

“Something about it felt like a betrayal,” said Ms. Pollack, who otherwise does not consider herself an ardent environmentalist. She said she decided to stop buying water after hearing friends talk about the impact of America’s bottled water habit. And now she is doing what she can to spread the word.

“I’ve pretty much said to every single one of my friends, ‘Can I tell you my spiel about bottled water?’ ”

How unlikely, that at the peak of a sweltering summer, people on playgrounds, in parks, and on beaches are suddenly wondering if an ice-cold bottle of fresh water might be a bad thing.

In the last few months, bottled water — generally considered a benign, even beneficial, product — has been increasingly portrayed as an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media. The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.

The issue took a major stride into mainstream dialogue earlier this summer, after the mayors of San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and New York began urging people to opt for tap water instead of bottled.

This added momentum to efforts by environmental groups like Corporate Accountability International and Food & Water Watch, which have been lobbying citizens to dump the bottle; environmental organizations had banded together in several states to pressure governments to extend bottle bills to include bottled water. Several prominent restaurateurs, like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., made much-publicized moves to drop bottled water from their menus.

AND so people who had come to consider bottled water a great convenience, or even a mark of good taste, are now casting guilty glances at their frosty drinks.

Daphne Domingo Johnson, a life coach who also works for a nonprofit organization in Seattle, said she used to keep a case of bottled water “in my trunk for all times, just because I know the importance of water.” Ms. Johnson, 35, said she thought of reusable plastic Nalgene bottles — recently reborn as urban status symbols — as “just for backpackers or athletes.”

Now, after reading news reports about the debate over bottled water, Ms. Johnson said, the rare bottles she buys feel “like a guilty pleasure.” She helped mount an antibottled water campaign at work, posting fliers trumpeting environmental reasons why people should drink tap water instead of the free Crystal Geyser her employer provides.

She is not alone. In interviews last week with dozens of people on sun-baked streets around the country, former and current bottled water devotees showed a new awareness of the issue’s complexities.

Some have already changed their ways.

Melissa Frawley, 38, a banker in Atlanta, said she recently broke her Evian habit after news reports altered her thinking. Environmentalism, she concluded, “is sometimes an inconvenience to us all, but it is something I think we all need to do.”

Others who had not changed their habits were nevertheless feeling a new sense of guilt.

Barry Eskandani, 31, an administrative assistant in San Francisco who considers himself a connoisseur of water brands, said that lately his fellow Bay Area residents act as if “you just killed their puppy” if you dare throw a bottle in the garbage.

Bottled water has now overtaken coffee and milk in sales nationally, and is catching up with beer. To some, it’s an affordable luxury. To others, a healthy alternative to sugary drinks.

Regardless, many consider it a staple.

The remainder of the article is found here. Water, Water Everywhere, but Guilt by the Bottleful

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

What the obsession with bottled water from Fiji?

It seems to have come up in the discussion more than once.

BrianIs AtYou

[anthriel]

I suppose it's just a long way away, Brian. Seems wasteful to spend all that money getting water to your door that is probably not too different from the water from your tap.

I'm kind of glad to see this come up, because with my Master's in Public Health, I spent one summer class studying water treatment plants, and have had (until now, I guess) always had a bit of an unpopular opinion about tap water. That being: it's fine. There are many regulations in place to standardize the quality of the water we get from the county.

My big guilt is using it on the plants. So much effort to make it potable, and I'm wasting all that purity on the plants! But as I have no access to "brown water", I guess the highly treated, highly tested, wholesome water from the tap is what I have. Oh well.

I grew up drinking well water. Tasted strongly of sulphur. Yikes. I'm not sure how my parents have addressed that, but their well now supplies all their water without a treatment plant involved, and the sulfur taste is gone. THAT was tough water to drink.

I also drank out of the hose, quite often. We were outside all day, and we were too dirty to come inside for a glass from the kitchen. Yep, well water from the hose.

And I made it to adulthood without that halogenic arm growing out the back of my head. Go figure!

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

One other point that many might not realize is that the water quality we take for granted in the U.S. is not true of many (most?) places in the world.

In such places, bottled water might be the only reasonable choice.

I have two 16 oz plastic bottles that were originally for Pepsi or Iced Tea (or whatever) that I refill from the tap every morning and use on bike rides etc.

If the bottles get grungy, I replace them.

BrianIs AtYou

[Primula Baggins]

We've actually got a well in our suburban yard, and if/when we get a new sprinkler/soaker system put in, we'll probably hook it up: free water, and watering our plants with it will mean that a lot of it goes right back down where it came from (eight whole feet down in our neighborhood; no basements around here!).

Anthy, I think I got my own attitude from being a lab rat: rather than being suspicious of the tests, I tend to believe in them, run as they are by my fellow lab rats. I was always earnest and scrupulous, and I think that's the common type.

Maybe it helps with that faith that our water system is a public utility.

[Inanna]

One other point that many might not realize is that the water quality we take for granted in the U.S. is not true of many (most?) places in the world.

In such places, bottled water might be the only reasonable choice.

Not necessarily Brian - in India, you cannot drink water straight from the tap. But reasonable filters and expensive filters - both are available to purify the tap water. The filter industry is huge in India (as is the bottled water industry).

[Erunáme]

Another evil: plastic bags.

Also the medical industry (human and animal) is horribly wasteful.

[Primula Baggins]

Well, a lot of medical wastefulness, at least in hospitals, is in the interest of keeping nosocomial infections from spreading—something that can lead to a lot of waste of other kinds, including human life, and the consumption of a lot of medical resources. So it's a trade-off, I think.

(Sorry—I'm in the middle of editing a 2,000-page illustrated manual on infectious disease for emergency-room physicians—bleahghhghgh! )

[Griffon64]

*shudders a little at Prim's current assignment*



( I would say one place where waste has justification is probably the medical industry - although I know next to nothing of it, of course. But I appreciate seeing them open something fresh before sticking it in my vein / mouth / wherever )

Plastic anything is probably pretty much evil. It takes ages for plastic to degenerate ( it does, eventually, right? ).

The irony is that we advanced cultures need to import or fiddle with our basic stuff - water, food to prevent our modern, advanced lifestyles from poisoning us.

[Erunáme]

The amount of trash a small vet clinic produces...all the plastic and paper products it goes through...it's truly staggering. Multiply that by thousands of other offices and then add in all the human offices/hospitals...it's absolutely horrifying. Surely melting the plastic down would create hot enough temperatures to destroy any bad stuff. I'm not so sure the mass amount of waste is totally justifiable. We're killing the earth and if there's no food/water/etc, then what's the point of saving lives?

Another thing that annoys me is all the one-time-use cleaning products. Sure it's easier to use them, but again, what's the final cost? There's also to go containers at fast food and casual dining restaurants.

[anthriel]

My big guilt is having my groceries put into those plastic bags, using them to carry the groceries home, and then throwing them away. Sure, we use a few for kitty litter cleanups and such, but most of them are trashed. They won't even accept them for recycling, anymore.

I want to invest in a number of canvas bags, with handles, to use instead. Does anyone know where I might find those?




Eru, when I worked at a vet clinic, we did reuse our syringes. We had to sharpen the needles on a grinder, because sharp needles are good needles, but often they would develop a little hook-kind of burl on the very end. These were difficult to see until you pulled the needle out of the animal and saw the little chunk of flesh on the end. <OUCH!>

I was VERY glad to see disposables become common. I agree with Prim and Griffy... the medical industry has my full permission to use as many disposables as they would like.

Prim, how interesting your editing sounds!!! Does it address the pathogenicity of hospital-acquired vs. "wild strain" MRSA? I've always wondered how much those ER doctors know about this stuff...

[Alatar]

Ireland recently introduced a Tax on plastic bags, and its one that the Supermarkets are not allowed to pass on. As a result we get charged for every plastic bag we use. Paper bags are allowed. As a result, most shops sell reusable canvas bags for about €1 or €2 each and people just buy them once and re-use them. Like the smoking ban, I can't believe how quickly people got used to it. Every now and then I get stuck and have to buy a plastic bag for 22c or whatever, but its a small price to pay.

[axordil]

A lot of (but not all) medical supply product waste could be recycled as safely as it is currently disposed of. The temps required for reprocessing plastic are not much lower than those in incinerators (and don't emit mercury, or dioxin, or other nasty byproducts). They might have to change some protocols--but that's what modern medicine is all about.

Anthy, the easiest way to find reusable canvas or mesh bags would be to wander by a Whole Foods/Wild Oats. The cheapest would be online, where a Google search will drown you in them.