Ship of Fools: Bottled water

Thread: Bottled water Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

There is a move to ban the selling of bottled water at a local university. The tap water is tested as fine. Personally, I don't ever buy water in a bottle and support the ban. Do you use bottled water? Why? and is it ethical? And if you do, have you checked out the testing on your local tap water?

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

It comes in a handy plastic bottle that you can carry round and throw away when you've finished. It's often cheaper and much healthier than anything else you could buy in a bottle. I don't understand the problem with bottled water. Is this a peculiarly British obsession, or do other countries suffer from demands to ban perfectly innocuous substances? I'd rather see a ban on fizzy pop myself - save me a fortune in pocket money for my children and countless arguments about what they spend it on.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

It's the throwing away of the bottle that is the problem. I carry a water bottle myself, and it's sturdy so that I don't throw it away. Cheaper than pop or bottled water, and it's better for the environment to boot. I'd rather see bottled water made more inconvenient (I think we tax it in Chicago) than illegal. It's a convenience, and if people are willing to pay enough for that convenience that it's sustainable that's fine.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

I do occasionally get a bottle on the go. I probably would do better to invest in a sport bottle and fill it from my Pur pitcher. But in CA you are asking for trouble if you don't have a hefty supply of bottled water on hand for earthquake preparedness. Which reminds me: I ought to get some new cases for my father and me.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

no prophet: It seems to me that if the university big shots are wanting to ban plastic bottles because of pollution, their hearts are in the right place but maybe they're not thinking this through. It IS easier to have bottled water with one. Am I going to get up and go find a water fountain every single time I get thirsty? Can you imagine a class with fifty students all getting up at various times during the lecture to go find water? Maybe we ought to come up with a biodegradable bottle of some sort? Maybe there's a way to make a bottle out of corn or something.

Also, is there really going to be that dramatic an impact on pollution to have one university ban plastic bottles? For health reasons, I always carry around a plastic bottle--sometimes the bottle previously held a diet soft drink, sometimes water. But I always keep one handy so I can refill it with non-tap water from somewhere. Ha! The mayor of Atlanta is always going on about how the tap water is perfectly fine and tastes great. That's a load. I can't remember the last time I drank water from our kitchen tap, or anyone's kitchen/bath tap. No, banning plastic bottles is not the way to go, IMHO.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Am I unusual in that I don't need a drink more often than once every few hours? I'm old enough to have grown up before bottled water existed and I can't every recall thinking "hey, I wish it was possible to carry water around all day so I don't have to keep on going to the water fountain".

I don't buy bottled water. I mean if people want to, then sure, banning it seems silly, but I also think there's a manufactured need here.

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
It's the throwing away of the bottle that is the problem. I carry a water bottle myself, and it's sturdy so that I don't throw it away. Cheaper than pop or bottled water, and it's better for the environment to boot. I'd rather see bottled water made more inconvenient (I think we tax it in Chicago) than illegal. It's a convenience, and if people are willing to pay enough for that convenience that it's sustainable that's fine.

But the disposables are so flimsy, compared with a refillable bottle. How many disposables could you make from the same amount of plastic, and how long does a refillable bottle really last? Then there's the waste water to wash and rinse it between fillings. Yes it's just my laziness not wanting to carry the empty bottle round with me all day. And do we know that the current price of disposable water is not sustainable?
(In fact sustainability is a red herring here, because if we run out of PET then we can make the bottles out of a whole slew of different materials, so we'll never run out of disposable containers. It's the funding of waste management that needs some thought.)

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

The thrown away plastic is definitely why the current model is not sustainable. And yes that doesn't mean it can't ever be. Just that it isn't currently.

You're right that my water bottle probably took much more plastic than a disposable one, but my water bottle's plastic does not go into a landfill for one thing, and it doesn't have to be remade into another water bottle I've had it for years now. I am sure that no matter how much more plastic it has in it, I would have used many many times its weight in plastic if I used disposable water bottles.

(Agreed though about the bother. It took me years to carry a bottle for that reason. I had to make it convenient before I was willing to do that rather than just be thirsty.)

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

We do occasionally buy bottled water - and the kids buy other bottled drinks too. But we normally keep the bottles and reuse them, filling them with tap water.

Banning it seems unreasonable. Making sure there are plenty of free water available makes more sense, and on a university campus, that should not be a problem surely?

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

I understand the thinking behind this. The thing is that people don't tend to buy a bottle of water because they want a drink specifically of water. They buy it because they don't have a drink on them and they want one and water is fine for that purpose. If you make bottled water unavailable, you're not going to have a lot more people filling up a bottle from the tap at home and walking around with it - you're going to have the same people who would have bought bottles of water buying bottles of something else instead. And pretty much anything else is less healthy.

Then I suppose you have the people who don't like the taste of tap water. Personally I'm fine with tap water but again, if people don't like the taste of tap water then banning bottled water won't get them to drink it from the tap. It'll just get them to drink something else that also isn't tap water.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

There's a pond thing here. For whatever reason, people in the US seem to carry around drinks of one form or another far more than in Europe, though the trend is spreading.

Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :

There's a town in Oz that has banned the sale of bottled after. About two years ago I think. I drive though occasionally, and everything still seems normal. The people look as though they have survived.

But you never can tell from the outside.
Cue creepy music.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

People carry water around in the US because they've bought into the myth that we all need to drink 6 or 8 glasses of water every day, and they're not actually going to do that if they don't make a conscious effort.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I can't stand tap water - I can taste the chemicals in it. I have one of those fridges which filters the water and that tastes fine. I always fill up my bottle from there - I don't buy bottled water.

There is a LOT of money in it. My son's partner worked as PA for a couple out in Gran Canaria, they owned bottling plants all over the world. They had an apartment block across the road where they housed their household staff - 12 people. My son's GF had her own driver!

[ 30. January 2014, 16:02: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

If bottled water is not available, most people who now buy bottled water will buy bottled tea or bottled soda.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
no prophet: It seems to me that if the university big shots are wanting to ban plastic bottles because of pollution, their hearts are in the right place but maybe they're not thinking this through.

I doubt it's the "big shots" - more likely it's a bunch of right-on student campaigners.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Echoing the comment upthread, I lived on a Uni campus as a kid, and then attended Uni in the early '60s, and no-one seemed to be uncomfortable without their sippy-cup.

The key point is that the bottling companies have done a massive selling job to persuade people that tap water is not fit to drink (see comment upthread) despite tap water being tested in many ways that bottling companies would not want to afford

AND, even so, tap water costs small fractions of a cent per liter delivered to the place where you can refill your sippy-cup. But you pay more than the cost of gasoline/petrol for the convenience of throwing away another bit of plastic.

It is only quite recently that bottled water has dropped in price so that it is now less costly than pop, which tells something.

There has been controversy about this for more than ten years. AFAICR, the United Church of Canada debated awareness campaigns about the issue in about 2006 - admittedly, all the moronic voices made fun of people who actually thought about the issue at that time.

But does it make sense to steal spring water (or pay minimum amounts for it) to put in bottles and sell at huge mark-ups while creating public unease about a cheap source of an essential part of you actually staying alive?

The Bible preaches about the necessity of water for all. The provision of this water used to be seen as a common public enterprise, not an excuse to milk as much as possible out of the gullible public, which the privatisation of public water does.

And, just to ad insult to injury, the bottled water often comes from the same water lines that you use to get the plain unbottled stuff, paying over 1000 times as much.

What is the good point about bottled water?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

Most universities in the UK have recycling bins on campus so properly disposing of water bottles isn't an issue.

If you live somewhere with very hard water, it may be safe to drink but it tastes disgusting. No issue with bottled water IMO.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
no prophet: It seems to me that if the university big shots are wanting to ban plastic bottles because of pollution, their hearts are in the right place but maybe they're not thinking this through.
I doubt it's the "big shots" - more likely it's a bunch of right-on student campaigners.

Yes, of course, it's more likely to be the student body. In a related topic, I know that Seattle has banned all plastic grocery bags. Well, at most stores. I went to a Target in downtown Seattle and was able to get a Target plastic bag. At first I thought to myself, "Oh, geez, there goes the wacky Left coast again, making people change or else!" but I'm not sure that would go over here in the Atlanta area... although now Atlanta does the curbside recycling thing--one bin for glass, one bin for paper, etc. Took 'em long enough.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

In very hot weather (which may even be experienced in the UK, once or twice a year) it probably is a good idea to carry around a bottle of water. But why throw the bottle away after just one use? These 'disposable' drinks bottles are about the only type of bottle I've found that doesn't leak - I've tried all sorts of non-disposable bottles and they all leak, except for the Thermos which has been thoroughly contaminated by Husband's coffee and is now useless for transporting plain water...

So I do buy small drinks in bottles, but I reuse the bottles half-a-dozen times at least before recycling them.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

It might be better to work on banning cars and their emissions first before tackling plastic bottles. Seems the bigger hurdle to get across to me.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

I see that, for instance, Jean Hill of Concord, Mass. agrees with me and you will find quite a lot of environmentally-concerned and of religious sites that will argue the case against bottled water.

OTOH, banning on one campus is only worthwhile for the attention it brings to the issue, not for any significant waste-control effect.

But the issue does highlight our totally-casual interest in things environmental.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

Horseman Bree: Go taste the tap water in rural Pennsylvania and tell me about your experience. Go drink tap water in Atlanta, GA, where the majority of pipes are very old and the water often smells and looks weird. I agree with you that the beverage companies inundate the gullible public about how pure and fresh bottled water is--maybe some of it does come right from the tap but it doesn't TASTE that way. It would be wonderful if everyone in the world had a Brita or Pur water filter on their kitchen tap or in their water pitcher. I have a Brita pitcher now and we only use that for our drinking water. However, when we're out and about, I sometimes have to buy bottled water or a diet soda. That's just the way it is. The "authorities" can swear on a stack of bibles that the municipal water supply is delicious and sparkling clean but it's not and it certainly doesn't taste the way water does when run through a filter.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

If you are reusing the plastic bottle you are being reasonably pale green about it. If not, the environmental impact of the lactic vastly exceeds that of the water you are drinking from it. Though its not that high compared with, say, driving a car.

If you really can't drink the tap water in a rich-country city then you need a new city council who will bring you up to 19th century standards of hygiene.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Water taste is something one gets accustomed to. Seriously, we are pansies. "Ooh our clean, treated, purified and plentiful water tastes ever so slightly less than perfect."
Bottled water most often comes from the same source as your tap water. It might receive extra filtration, but it could as easily come from a less regulated source. Bottled water is generally less controlled than tap.
The real concerns with drinking water are how well the processes are controlled and maintained. And how the water gets from plant to your tap. The pipes in older homes/areas might leach contaminants.
If one must carry a water bottle, a good quality reusable bottle can last a decade or better. Add a carbon filtre to improve taste, if desired.
And yes, the 8 glasses of water thing is a myth. It is highly dependent on climate, activity and what you eat. What you eat contains water. Anything you drink contributes as well. Coffee, tea and fizzy drinks do not dehydrate you, they are just less efficient at hydration.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

It is indeed a student initiative. And it is about the bottles. They do now charge between 5 and 40¢ extra for all bottles, cans, and drink containers, which is refunded when you return to a recycling depot, and this has resulted in good recycling, but the volume of plastic being recycled is high. The water here is rated excellent in the taste and contaminant tests they conduct across country.

I personally make tea every morning and take a thermos with me, and I make it with tap water.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

To my mind, the bottles are only part of the problem. The bigger issue is the global shipping of water and the huge fuel usage involved. Shipping Evian from France to a global marketplace is utter insanity. I drink a fair amount of squash and reuse the bottles from that as water bottles (I drink about 3 litres at work due to talking a lot and cycling to and from work). Not perfect but better than buying bottled water.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I use it only at the gym.

And the bottle goes to recycling.

I refill it with tap water once - twice or more and the plastic contaminates it.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

If you live somewhere with very hard water, it may be safe to drink but it tastes disgusting.

You mean of course "tastes wonderful".

I've never experienced water that tasted as good as the ordinary tap water in Brighton when I was a child. And that was as hard as water could be. Literally, if you put some in a glass and left it for a while chalk precipitated out. Can't get more calcium in water than that.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

I'm not keen on reusing plastic bottles, but I do keep some glass bottles for the purpose of carrying water or squash around with me when I'm out and about.

It's a shame that there aren't more water fountains in public spaces. But of course, there's no money in that. Retailers and local councils want us to buy bottled water and other expensive drinks if we need to be re-hydrated.

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

There was a bit of a flap here a while ago (but not that long ago if memory serves) about an unusually high sodium content in the two biggest sellers of bottled water here. As a result of this flap, it emerged through the press that Europe only demands that spring sourced bottled only needs to be tested monthly for the presence of contaminants and bacteria*. That might sound ok, but the press were keen to point out that tap water here is tested every day; in some cases regularly throughout the day. They also talked about risks of cancer from water in plastic bottles, but I think that was debunked somewhat and the risk is only there in certain types of plastics that degrade over time from continuous use....or something.

*Not sure of this is in fact true, but the press said it at the time, so must be true [Biased]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Am I unusual in that I don't need a drink more often than once every few hours? I'm old enough to have grown up before bottled water existed and I can't every recall thinking "hey, I wish it was possible to carry water around all day so I don't have to keep on going to the water fountain".

I don't buy bottled water. I mean if people want to, then sure, banning it seems silly, but I also think there's a manufactured need here.

That gets three of these,
[Overused]

If you're out for the day and need to take liquid with you, keep a clean bottle and fill it from the tap. The plastic ones you can buy milk in are quite useful because they are square designed to fit in the door-shelf in a refrigerator. They are also moulded with a handle.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I don't drink bottled still mineral water, but one of my favourite drinks is sparkling mineral water, which I much prefer to lemonade, or pretty much any drink except wine and cider. So I hope this continues to be available as an option in most places.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I buy it for the bubbles. We have quite nice tap water here, but somehow, when I'm thirsty, I want the bite of carbon dioxide. But I hate flavoured waters. I don't want a Twist of Lime or a Hint of Stawberry, I want water that tastes of water dammit. Just fizzy, that's all.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I don't drink bottled still mineral water, but one of my favourite drinks is sparkling mineral water, which I much prefer to lemonade, or pretty much any drink except wine and cider. So I hope this continues to be available as an option in most places.

Best place for sparkling mineral water is Aldi/Lidl. About 25p for 2l.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It might be better to work on banning cars and their emissions first before tackling plastic bottles. Seems the bigger hurdle to get across to me.

Creating that kind of priority list is fallacious reasoning.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

One thing that would make me avoid bottled water at any cost: the fact that multi-national corporations are buying huge tracts of aquifers from governments in order to sell the water bottled, while the local people (eg farmers depending on it to feed their families) lose access to it.
I think it was Nestlé that tried to do such a deal in Canada but local outcry prevented it. People in India and Africa haven't been so successful.
Details of water-grabbing are found in the last paragraph on the theme of this Christmas's Christian World Service appeal. Drinking bottled water can mean drinking stolen water (though I'm comfortable with local suppliers).
I'm lucky in that there's an aquifer that can be accessed locally; you find people with all sorts of containers at the taps any day stocking up.

Did anyone see an episode of Myth Busters in which diners at a restaurant were offered a choice of bottled water from various made-up sources, and chose with as much care as if they were at a wine tasting – only to learn that all the water came from a tap behind the restaurant?

GG

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

The tap water here tastes far better than most of the bottled water that I have tasted as it comes from local acquifers. Before the quakes there were quite a few drinking fountains within the CBD which I hope will be fixed as part of the rebuilding of Christchurch.

My favourite cafe has chilled tap water available free and I have been known to stop off there just for a glass or to refill a bottle,especially when biking ona hot day.

As for how much liquid a person requires I think this varies - for example people like me on diuretics need more than most, and as a diabetic water is definitely my first choice.

Huia

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I buy it for the bubbles. We have quite nice tap water here, but somehow, when I'm thirsty, I want the bite of carbon dioxide. But I hate flavoured waters. I don't want a Twist of Lime or a Hint of Stawberry, I want water that tastes of water dammit. Just fizzy, that's all.

Amen to that! Just once, by mistake I got a Dasani brand bottled water out of a vending machine and didn't realize it said "flavored with raspberry" on the label. After I took a huge gulp of it and spit it out, I vowed never to drink flavored water again. However, I do enjoy flavored carbonated water. Lemon and lime help my digestion. Raspberry? Bleccch!

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It's a shame that there aren't more water fountains in public spaces. But of course, there's no money in that. Retailers and local councils want us to buy bottled water and other expensive drinks if we need to be re-hydrated.

When I was a school governor we reluctantly decided to get rid of the drinking fountain. Kids would put a thumb over the top and spray water everywhere which was messy, annoying to those who go sprayed and probably didn't leave the nozzle very hygienic. Plastic bottles did reduce those problems somewhat.

There is a saying in Bristol that our tap water must be safe - it's already been drunk by six people in Wales and before that by their sheep. Works for me.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

On very rare occasions I'll buy bottled water - if I'm out at meal time (for example) and water is the best option.

Keep the bottle, of course: take it home to rinse out, fill with tap water and then keep in the fridge for another time...

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
There is a saying in Bristol that our tap water must be safe - it's already been drunk by six people in Wales and before that by their sheep. Works for me.

As Terry Pratchett wrote about the River Ankh - any water that's been filtered through that many kidneys must be clean.

Posted by Lilac (# 17979) on :

I drink water while exercising, and tap water tastes bad to me under those circumstances. I tried putting fruit juice in, and found that made me feel sick. Fruit juice is acid so I went for alkaline, and tried it with some bicarb. That tastes slightly chemical if I use too much, but for hydration it works.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I don't buy bottled water. I mean if people want to, then sure, banning it seems silly, but I also think there's a manufactured need here.

I would completely agree about manufactured need re most people who do not have medical reasons to drink tons of water. Though not always manufactured in the way you would think. For instance, I drink tons of water at work despite having a desk job. Why, because they keep the air VERY dry for some reason, so I discovered the hard way that if I don't keep a cup near and remember to use it, I suffer.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I don't hydrate. I drink.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I don't hydrate. I drink.

But if you say of someone 'He drinks like a fish', you are implying does not drink water. Which is odd, given how few fish you find in gin.

Posted by cheesymarzipan (# 9442) on :

about not wanting to carry around a big empty bottle, you can get folding ones which are pretty useful. I used to have one of these ones, and it was pretty useful ( though I have since lost it I know not where and I miss it).
Especially useful if you are flying somewhere and they make you get rid of all your liquids. I used to go to the pub after security, ask for a pint of tap water and hey presto a free bottle of water for my plane journey. (the wide neck meant it's easy to fill from a pint glass though makes it a bit awkward to drink from sometimes).

You could say it's kind of odd to worry about disposable water bottles when on a plane journey, but actually it saves money (as here tap water is free in pubs) and space in my bag (as I can concertina the bottle back when it's half empty).

I used to have a thermos mug to take my morning cup of tea to the bus with as well but I lost it. (ok I lose a lot of things)

Posted by Alicïa (# 7668) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

If you live somewhere with very hard water, it may be safe to drink but it tastes disgusting.

You mean of course "tastes wonderful".

I've never experienced water that tasted as good as the ordinary tap water in Brighton when I was a child. And that was as hard as water could be. Literally, if you put some in a glass and left it for a while chalk precipitated out. Can't get more calcium in water than that.

Southerners are strange. ^^ Here is actual proof. [Biased]

Seriously though whenever I spend any time down south the water actually does make me ill, (and yes I do realise that it probably has the same effect in reverse when people from hard water areas drink softer water. )

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
There is a saying in Bristol that our tap water must be safe - it's already been drunk by six people in Wales and before that by their sheep. Works for me.
As Terry Pratchett wrote about the River Ankh - any water that's been filtered through that many kidneys must be clean.

And Terry Pratchett used to work in Bristol. Did we give him the joke or did he give it to us?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

If you live somewhere with very hard water, it may be safe to drink but it tastes disgusting.

You mean of course "tastes wonderful".

I've never experienced water that tasted as good as the ordinary tap water in Brighton when I was a child. And that was as hard as water could be. Literally, if you put some in a glass and left it for a while chalk precipitated out. Can't get more calcium in water than that.

Hard water actually upsets my stomach. I have IBS so it might be related. Forgive me for not enjoying water that makes me ill!

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

The real concerns with drinking water are how well the processes are controlled and maintained. And how the water gets from plant to your tap. The pipes in older homes/areas might leach contaminants.

Our water main is lead. [Ultra confused]

We have a Brita filter mounted to our drinking faucet and large filters on the showerheads also. I probably would never have thought about it before having kids, but apparently young children are especially sensitive to lead because of their developing brains...

Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Hard water actually upsets my stomach. I have IBS so it might be related. Forgive me for not enjoying water that makes me ill!

I drink a lot of water and am lucky enough to live in an area where the tap water quality is excellent, but I find if I travel to other areas the water affects my IBS so I tend to drink bottles water when away from home

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

Bottled water is, with rare exceptions, just someone else's stolen tap water. And here in the Western world, we have a habit of PEEING and SHITTING into large bowls of drinkable water. And what's all this about drinking fountains? Can't anybody operate a faucet?

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Bottled water is, with rare exceptions, just someone else's stolen tap water.

Can you unpack that thought for me?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
And here in the Western world, we have a habit of PEEING and SHITTING into large bowls of drinkable water.

And we have fewer disease epidemics because of this.
However, using tap water is ridiculous, especially in dry areas. Water recycling should be more prevalent.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I grew up in houses with lead plumbing, as did my older siblings; only the youngest got to live in a house without lead plumbing before the age of 21. When we weren't at home school plumbing was also lead. Dammit, not only were the pipes lead but most of the paintwork too - I have very clear memories of some gloss paint being attacked with a blow-torch in the late 1960s and seeing small droplets of something dark (I suspect lead) bubbling out of the hot paint.

So you'd expect us to show some sign of the lead having got to us ... well, the youngest jumped through the fewest (and only the lowest) paper hoops. And only the youngest has suffered from anaemia.

Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
And here in the Western world, we have a habit of PEEING and SHITTING into large bowls of drinkable water.
And we have fewer disease epidemics because of this.
However, using tap water is ridiculous, especially in dry areas. Water recycling should be more prevalent.

Well this is kinda true. Sewers and sewage works are a way to purify drinking water, although this is something of a happy coincidence given that the original designers of the Victorian systems knew nothing of the reality of sanitation.

The problem is several-fold. First, the infrastructure is very old and very expensive to maintain (in most industrialised cities with victorian sewers). Second the sewers are often not water-tight. Third, the systems for treatment are not foolproof, particularly in situations of abnormally high rainfall. Finally, the industrialised sewer mentality means that we find it very difficult to imagine any other system that could work at an appropriate level of sanitation treatment without that infrastructure. Hence many hundreds of expensive projects around the world which are not maintained and do not work.

The largest problem with industrialised and centralised systems is that when they fail, they fail spectacularly. If we ever get to a situation where the funding for such infrastructure is not in place, we're screwed.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

People don’t just buy bottled water to drink when they’re out and about, in some places a lot of people also use it at home. It’s very common here. Paris tap water is *nasty* - very hard and full of chlorine. (Apparently there is some public health reason for this like we’d all die of cholera or something otherwise, but anyway our tap water tastes disgusting and wrecks my skin.*) Apparently there’s still quite a lot of lead pipes about as well. For that reason a lot of people here don’t drink water straight from the tap.

Nonetheless, if your response to tap water = nasty is to drink bottled water all the time, cue massive plastic waste. The bottles are recycled, but this still involves a vast amount of energy expenditure. I use a Brita-type filter, which is a much more ecologically sound solution (one plastic filter per month for the household rather than however many bottles to recycle). I have also been known to use a shower filter (filters chlorine which hurts your skin, not limescale, which doesn’t) but those things are kind of pricy so I don’t use them all the time.

*Seriously – if I don’t anoint myself at least once and sometimes twice a day with gargantuan amounts of moisturising goop, my skin gets so dry it cracks and bleeds. When I splash out on the shower filters, I don’t need any moisturisers at all. Paris tap water is vile.

Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :

Whereas I'm not certain of his sources, a Swedish journalist had a look at a similar situation in Sweden and did some maths on the carbon dioxide emissions of a bottle of water. Apparently, a sleeping person breathes out the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide of 167 bottles of 330 ml per minute. A regular jogger breathes out the equivalent of 2000 bottles per minute. Thus, holding your breath for 0.35 seconds means you've covered your bases for the carbon dioxide emissions of the water transports and the bottle.

So I somehow think there are better things to cut down on. With that said, of course it's one way of saving money and the world, but mind you, the time and energy we spent talking about it probably evened it out and put us at a negative. Hold your breath, everyone!

Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :

Ok, I returned to do the maths myself because it seemed unreasonable.

In 2006, the bottles for water in America emitted about 2,5 billion kg of carbon dioxide in production - not assuming any recycling. Divided by the 300 million citizens of the US (more or less), this means each citizen emitted 8,33 kg of carbon dioxide.

Supposedly, a human being exhales about 525 kg carbon dioxide/year. Thus, each citizen increases his or her carbon footprint by about 1,5 % compared to just breathing. However, with the same amount of carbon dioxide, we could sustain 5 more million citizens (breathwise) in the US.

I have not included water transports because transporting water by pipe, by human or by truck shouldn't make that much of a difference, it's still relatively inefficient but necessary systems.

I'm not sure whether or not this means it's a battle worth fighting or not, but I'm leaning towards the latter. It seems to be an issue of easing conscience rather than maximizing effect, especially given that a university could easily cut down paperwork to a tenth or so if there was a slightly higher tax on printing ink and paper. Still, I maintain that the best way to save bottles at universities would be to install beer pipelines straight from local breweries.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Bottles are made from petroleum. Recycling is better than not recycling, but not making bottles in the first is better still.

Water filtration wastes water. Reverese osmosis itself uses water to flush contaminate from the filtres and send it along out to disposal. Said contaminate, now concentrated, needs to be disposed of. Not a further burden if tap water is simply bottled. But if it is filtred again, more water wasted, more waste generated.

Much bottled water is demineralised. Whilst the jury have not completely reached a verdict, the balance of evidence indicates is this is not good.

Water filtration waste.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JFH:
Whereas I'm not certain of his sources, a Swedish journalist had a look at a similar situation in Sweden and did some maths on the carbon dioxide emissions of a bottle of water. Apparently, a sleeping person breathes out the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide of 167 bottles of 330 ml per minute. A regular jogger breathes out the equivalent of 2000 bottles per minute. Thus, holding your breath for 0.35 seconds means you've covered your bases for the carbon dioxide emissions of the water transports and the bottle....

If you hold your breath, doesn't the same amount of breath come out when you stop holding it as would have done anyway? Isn't the only difference that it comes out in a great rush?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JFH:
I'm not sure whether or not this means it's a battle worth fighting or not, but I'm leaning towards the latter.

If carbon were the only issue, this might or might not be true; but another issue is what plastic pollution is doing to the oceans and ocean wildlife, which, even if you don't care for other species for their own sake, feeds a lot of people.

Posted by Mama Thomas (# 10170) on :

Also, I wish I could link to some studies I read years ago about the fuel it takes and the wear and tear on the roads the transport of bottled water takes. Being out of the US for many years, I've noticed upon coming back how everyone seems to carry liquid around. In my youth, it would have been inconceivable that people would bring bottled water or pricy vacuum flasks to church.

People carry around 128 oz. kegs of insulated sugar water with them all the time. Some people carry around "coffee." It's just weird.

But bottled water IS a problem for people in areas that have clean water. I understand that in places where environmental protection is sketchy, like West Virginia, people need imported bottled water.

I shudder at the cost it takes to transport water from Fiji to convenience stores in the US heart land, from the plastic bottles made in China and transported to Fiji and then to the US, the fuel and labour of ship and container and other transport workers to get something most people in the developed world can get by turning on a tap and draining what comes out through a carbon filled bit of plastic from China/Germany/Sweden.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I'm with ken, here. I can't really be doing with water that isn't out of the Chalk.* It has a flinty taste that I miss when in soft areas, and some of the soft stuff has an almost slimy mouthfeel. And I think I have read somewhere that the harder waters are better for the heart. At Dover, the water barely needed any treatment before piping out to the taps, it was so pure. Definitely not the Ankh. I suspect that Folkestone was similar - there's no sign of a treatment works at the source.

As Kipling said of Sussex clay, we yearn for the stuff we are wrought from. It's what we are used to.

*Or, failing that, limestone**. There's a spring along the road from my sister's house in the Cotswolds which is nice. And I found someone filling bottles from a pipe in the Kent marshes near Sheppey. When I asked, she confirmed it was drinkable - "it comes from Essex". I really need to confirm how it gets there and why. It tasted as if it was from the chalk aquifer.

**When I was in summer school at Nottingham, the Sherwood Sandstone stuff wasn't bad. I've never been ill from water. Even the peaty stuff, which I don't like.

There is an exception with regard to the limestone - the spring at the foot of Malham Cove has a distinct metallic tang - being downstream of the old lead mines. Bit of a mistake, drinking that.

[ 04. February 2014, 20:07: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I get the argument about bad water and therefore bottles of water are required, but never the single serving size. We have a cabin where the well water is not okay, iron sulphide, and the lake water is probably questionable due to the 300 cabins around the lake. So we have refillable 60 litre carboys. A carboy is a bottle, typically like the ones you see on water coolers. In fact, we have a stand and take water out of it like with a water cooler, but we don't cool it.

It costs $2 per 60L fill with the reuseable bottles. The get a blast of ozone-containing water to clean them before refilling. So we're getting only reverse osmosis water and not buying the disposable bottles. And not using wee little 500 ml or 1L bottles. Shouldn't places with bad water do things like this and avoid single use bottles?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I'm with ken, here. I can't really be doing with water that isn't out of the Chalk.* It has a flinty taste that I miss when in soft areas, and some of the soft stuff has an almost slimy mouthfeel. And I think I have read somewhere that the harder waters are better for the heart. At Dover, the water barely needed any treatment before piping out to the taps, it was so pure. Definitely not the Ankh. I suspect that Folkestone was similar - there's no sign of a treatment works at the source.

As Kipling said of Sussex clay, we yearn for the stuff we are wrought from. It's what we are used to.

*Or, failing that, limestone**. There's a spring along the road from my sister's house in the Cotswolds which is nice. And I found someone filling bottles from a pipe in the Kent marshes near Sheppey. When I asked, she confirmed it was drinkable - "it comes from Essex". I really need to confirm how it gets there and why. It tasted as if it was from the chalk aquifer.

**When I was in summer school at Nottingham, the Sherwood Sandstone stuff wasn't bad. I've never been ill from water. Even the peaty stuff, which I don't like.

There is an exception with regard to the limestone - the spring at the foot of Malham Cove has a distinct metallic tang - being downstream of the old lead mines. Bit of a mistake, drinking that.

Hmm I don't really remember what the water is like in Coventry. However, I would prefer to drink tap water, even harder stuff that I get here - but my IBS just cannot tolerate it I'm afraid.

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