What is it with people who buy bottled water? I don’t’ get it. Americans drank more than 31 billion gallons of the stuff in 2006 – nearly 28 gallons per person. And only God knows how many more gallons went to hydrate their pets. Environmentalists would argue that manufacturing all that bottled H2O required 900,000 tons of plastic and added as much greenhouse gas to the atmosphere as 500,000 cars, but I’m not an environmentalist. I just don’t see any point in buying bottled water when you can get the same substance from a household faucet; it’s essentially free and as safe to drink as pre-washed spinach is to eat.
But what do I know? I rarely drink water, anyway. My liquid of choice is aqua vitae, the water of life: anything from the good folks Portland’s Clear Creek Distillery, or beer with lots of hops (preferably Hair of the Dog, Fred), or Pacific Northwest wine.
By the way, if you want to break your bottled-water habit check in at newdream.org.
2 responses so far ↓
Nick // October 29, 2007 at 8:36 am
thanks for blogging about the problems with bottled water. i wanted to point you to Corporate Accountability International’s Think Outside The Bottle campaign. They have a website, pledge, and online activism kit to encourage people to stop drinking bottled water and to support public water systems. You can sign the pledge and find more info at http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org/campaign/think_outside_the_bottle_pledge
geulincx // October 29, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Thanks for the information, Nick. I’ll pass the information on to my friends and coworkers.
Ellis