Bottled water

SouthernN'Proud

SouthernN'Proud

Southern Discomfort
In our ever-increasing skepticism, I often wonder about this phenomenon. I know that once I was in Charlotte NC and bought a bottle of water to use in medical equipment that cannot use tap water. I noticed on the label that it was bottled "from the municipal water supply" of my very own hometown!

News story about water

So why do we do it?
 
I buy it on road trips when I'm thirsty and we have a couple of gallons in the cupboard for WWIII.
 
I drink at least two liters of "bottled" water daily. I reuse the same bottle and fill it up from the water dispenser at work. We have Britta water filters at home and reuse plastic bottles there too. If I know I'm going out for a while, I'll fill up a bottle from the filter and take it with me. When I'm done with the bottle, I recycle it.

If people would stop contaminating their ground water by dumping their crap down sewer drains and in the ocean or bombing their lawns and plants with chemicals, maybe our drinking water would taste better and be healthier. But we would find another way to contaminate it, I'm sure.
 
OK, fair enough.

But what about the portion of the article dealing with cost effectiveness to "clean up our act" as opposed to subsidizing a billion-dollar per year industry?
 
dealing with cost effectiveness to "clean up our act" as opposed to subsidizing a billion-dollar per year industry
Click to expand...
i think you answered your own question there.

personally, i dont like the taste of the tap water around here. even after filtering it, it still tastes metallic.
 
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against bottled water; I'm just curious about some things.

From the article:

At up to $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline in the United States.

For a fraction of that sum, everyone on the planet could have safe drinking water and proper sanitation, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said this week.

More fossil fuels are used in packaging the water. Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate, a plastic derived from crude oil. ''Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year,'' Arnold said.

Once it has been emptied, the bottle must be dumped. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter. Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals tied to a host of human and animal health problems. Buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

Of the bottles deposited for recycling in 2004, the United States exported roughly 40 percent to destinations as far away as China--meaning that even more fossil fuels were burned in the process.
Click to expand...

So does this, in your minds, fall into the catagory of yet more American self-centered conspicuous consumption, or is it a justified "necessary evil", or is it a legitimate, smart move by health conscious individuals? Again, I don't really care either way, just curious. Call it SnP keeping his finger on the pulse of the American consumer. :D
 
The people have been sold into believing that tap water is not as healthy as bottled. The convenience factor works, to a point. Refill what you have (my wife washes & refills several bottle a day) instead of purchasing new if you want portable. Very few actually go to the trouble. I ask my wife & kid why they don't just get a glass & they just shrug. I don't get it. It's overpriced & many of the nutrients of "natural" water that comes thru the tap has been filtered out, making botled water less healthy.
 
I don't think it's just one, it's more than that. It started out being a necessary evil, something I was exposed to in Florida over 10 years ago. The water down there was atrocious to drink, bathe in, etc. So much worse than NY. At the time, I drank NY water out of the tap without a second thought.

But as the industry grew, I started buying Poland Spring because it was a good alternative to soda or iced tea. I don't like carbonation and was trying to cut down on sugar. If I could buy bottled NY water, I would have too.

Then Rusty moved in with me and brought his Britta water filter with him. He agrees that Long Island tap tastes better than Brooklyn tap but we both agree that Britta tastes better than both.

So for me, it's not that I believe I'm doing something wonderful for the environment or that it's so much healthier than tap. It has everything to do with taste and avoiding sugar/caffeine.

Everyone has a level that they're willing to live with in regards to not furthering the destruction of the environment. You already know my thoughts on pesticides/insecticides and the lengths I'm willing to go to improve that situation on my little postage stamp of a lawn. I'm doing my small part to reduce/reuse/recycle my plastics and metals and find uses for non-biodegradable things like styrofoam that already exist instead of throwing them away.

It's all about what people choose to care about. I have no faith that the millions of largely lazy Americans will take heed and do something about it like reduce their consumption or learn if their drinking water is indeed safe to drink.
 
The basic difference of home tap water and municipal bottled water is that the stuff going into bottles is coming right out of the waterworks instead of going through 15 miles of 100 year old pipes. Someone living close to the plant would see no difference... but Spot with his miles of rust and sludge pipes would see 10 fold difference.
 
greenfreak said:
I was exposed to in Florida over 10 years ago. The water down there was atrocious to drink,
Click to expand...

The water near Cape Canaveral tasted like dirt. Literally. Worse stuff I've ever had & I'm from the desert.
 
The worst water I've encountered was Stone mountain park. It clogged the trailer's flow-through filter in minutes. Never seen the like, but people all about us were using it. He hit the nearest Krogers and bought a supply. One big bottle of drinking (read tap) water for cooking, and one of spring water for drinking.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
You're at a place called Stone Mountain, and you marvel that the minerals in the water clog a filter.






Tourist. :lloyd:
Click to expand...

Ab-so-fucking-lutely. I was pissed off too, because I'd asked after the water quality and they'd said it was drinkable. Otherwise I'd have installed the 2 stage.
 
I've no idea why it would be so bad. It's only a skip outside of the greater metro Atlanta area. I can only think that possibly certain sections of the park were fed by wells tapped into bad watersheds.
 
Professur said:
Ab-so-fucking-lutely. I was pissed off too, because I'd asked after the water quality and they'd said it was drinkable. Otherwise I'd have installed the 2 stage.
Click to expand...

It is drinkable. Especially when compared to Canadian whiskey.
 
There were three large hotels with miles of the campground, and I can't see hotels settling for the water quality we had. Personally, I think it may have been a local pump or pipe that was contaminating it. But when the water was still translucent with suspension after 3 minutes .....
 
The water in Louisiana was reddish brown...rather scary. I bought water by the gallon then.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top