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Source: (consider it) Thread: Bottled water, a product we should generally ban
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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The bottles are a big problem. Most western countries have decent municipal water supplies which are safe to drink. The companies which bottle water are exploitative.

This one particularly makes no sense: Nestle Water Use In B.C. Under Fire Again Amid Drought, Wildfires

I understand California has similar troubles.

I'd like to know: do you drink bottles of water? How can you justify it? I'm not even very sensitive in situations where there's a "boil water advisory", because that's what you do when there's one of those, boil it. Or filter it, or use refillable containers, which you take to a filling station which I do. We have 23 L (5 imp gallon) reusable bottles which we refill for drinking, 7 of them. Refilling costs between $1 and 2 for 5 gals.

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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
romanlion
editorial comment
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:


I'd like to know: do you drink bottles of water? How can you justify it?

We drink hundreds of them each month.

I justify it on the basis of cost, convenience, health, and taste.

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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman

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Nicolemr
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# 28

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Generally I agree with no prophet. Bottled water is rather pointless and the bottles are an ecological disaster.

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Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
PilgrimVagrant
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# 18442

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I admit it! I drink bottled water, despite the condemnations of my greener leaning contemporaries. I spend about 15p per 2 litre bottle, for the fizzy stuff. I find it far more economic to buy sugar-free squash and cordials, and make fizzy squash, than buy carbonated, pre-flavoured multi-national mega-brand-name sugar-intense drinks. So that is my justification. I hope you like it.

Cheers, PV.

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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

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rolyn
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# 16840

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We drink water out of a filter jug that comes from the hot tap. We have to draw a lot of water through before it comes hot which would otherwise go to waste.

So it's copper rich, and hopefully not laced with a dead something from the header tank. No ill effects so far......

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LeRoc

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# 3216

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In Brazil we have 20l bottles and they refill them. It's brilliant!

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Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
PilgrimVagrant
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# 18442

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Forgot to mention. I put the bottles out for recycling. Whether the council actually does recycle them, I couldn't say. But I think I'd know about it by now if they aren't keeping up to their side of the bargain.

More cheers, PV.

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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

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Kelly Alves

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# 2522

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I drink tap water. I have a couple refillable jug sort of things in the house that I refill. When that is not available, I get a damn glass and fill it from the damn tap, or drink it from a damn public fountain.. Our water is from the Hetch-Hetchy dam and was tested as one of the best quality water sources in the nation--I have no excuse to buy anybody's bottled water, in my mind.

I got a drink from a cooler in an antique store yesterday and was pissed off to see it was being filled by Nestle water. I felt like I had just drank a big cup of bad karma.

That said, in this north bay town I was visiting, all of the public drinking fountains had been turned off due to the drought. I won't buy bottled myself, but it is hard to judge a very thirsty person who ducks into a 7-11 to buy a bottle of whatever because nothing else is on hand. I just won't do it myself.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
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Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Stetson
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# 9597

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quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:


I'd like to know: do you drink bottles of water? How can you justify it?

We drink hundreds of them each month.

I justify it on the basis of cost, convenience, health, and taste.

When I moved to Korea, my doctor advised me not to drink water from the tap, because it might wreak havoc on my stomach. So I switched exclusively to bottled water, and purified water when drikning in a restaurant.

I suppose I COULD just boil the water, but I don't, because I hate the taste, and anyway I'm too lazy. Just like zillions of people drive cars to work because it's more comfortable and convenient, even though a bike would get them there just as easily and emit zero pollution.

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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644

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Damn...now I have to start drinking bottled water.

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-Og: King of Bashan

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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047

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I only use bottled water if our mains supply fails and the water company delivers bottles to tide us over. This happens once a year or so.

If you want your water fizzy I suggest you invest in a soda stream. Shifting water around by lorry in plastic bottles is incredibly wasteful. Recycling the bottles is all fine and well but it should be a last resort after reducing the amount you use and reusing them for other things.

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PilgrimVagrant
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# 18442

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quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I only use bottled water if our mains supply fails and the water company delivers bottles to tide us over. This happens once a year or so.

If you want your water fizzy I suggest you invest in a soda stream. Shifting water around by lorry in plastic bottles is incredibly wasteful. Recycling the bottles is all fine and well but it should be a last resort after reducing the amount you use and reusing them for other things.

Yeah, I have a similar issue. I live in a large block of council flats. Maybe once every so often the water gets cut off. I've never been offered bottled water to tide me over, and have tended to supply my own, buying a couple of extra bottles with each monthly shop.

That's an ordinary sort of 'emergency' discipline. For serious prepping purposes, I have 25 litre jerry cans, which I intend to fill with tap water should there ever be a zombie-attack warning.

Best, PV.

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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

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Fineline
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# 12143

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When I was in Canada, some of the supermarkets had osmosis filtered water that came out of a tap - it was regular water passed through a filter - and you could fill a container with it and buy it, and reuse your container. It was cheaper to reuse your container than get a new one each time. I bought that water because the water from the taps tasted horrible. I've not come across that in the UK.

Here in the UK, I used to live in an area where the tap water also tasted horrible, even with a Brita filter, so I did buy bottled mineral water, and drank a 30p 2-litre bottle every day. Now I live in an area where the tap water tastes nice (well, it doesn't have a taste as such, but it tastes clear - not like chlorine), so I don't buy bottled water. I have a bottle that I refill from the tap, and I take it with me to work, and to the gym, and when I go for a walk, so I always have water to drink. Clear-tasting water is important to me, because water is the main thing I drink.

I personally wouldn't advocate banning bottled water - for some people, it does serve a purpose, and if you are going to ban it, by the same logic you'd have to ban an awful lot of other things. What about soft drinks like lemonade and Coke, for instance, which are worse than bottled water because they contain sugar/sweeteners and additives, as well as being totally unnecessary and in plastic bottles. And junk food in general. Seems a bit daft to target bottled water - when drinking water is good for you, and plenty of people live in areas where tap water doesn't taste good, and different people have different taste sensitivities, and bottled water may be the only water some people drink.

Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Ariel
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# 58

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I grew up drinking boiled or bottled water and still don't feel happy with what comes out of the tap. These days I filter it before I drink it - it does make a difference but I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, sometimes it tastes brackish and there are traces of god-knows-what in it.

I do notice the difference when making tea: using ordinary tap water there's usually some kind of thin muck clinging to the insides of the cup, but if you filter the water, you don't get that - or the chalk sediment. Filtering then boiling is the best option but mostly I'm too lazy to do more than one at a time.

I buy bottles of fizzy water from time to time so I can mix them with fruit juice. The bottles are plastic and easily recycled, or can be used for other purposes. Also the small ones are quite useful for taking on journeys when you don't want to take a flask along.

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PilgrimVagrant
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# 18442

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Yeah, I agree with that, Fineline. I'm not generally in favour of banning things unless a significant harm can be demonstrated, and before my beloved, affordable, fizzy water went, I'd much rather see colas go, in an attempt to tackle obesity. But hey, then we'd be tackling corporates, and they might not like that, and fund the people who make the banning laws, anymore.

Cheers, PV.

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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

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Polly

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# 1107

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I drink bottled water when I am out and in cafe's because of health issues:

fizzy drinks irritate my condition

most fruit juices are acidic and don't help either

I don't drink tea and coffee has to be restricted.

That only leaves bottled water.

Posts: 560 | From: St Albans | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Enoch
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# 14322

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I've always drunk tap-water. I resent two things.

1. Being charged for something that comes out of the tap for nothing; and

2. Any suggestion that water companies should be let off maintaining the standards of tap-water they've had to meet hitherto because people can always buy expensive water from bottles.


Fortunately, hitherto, the standard of tap-water in this country has been such that no one has needed to buy bottled water. It's a con.

When I was growing up bottled water was unknown here. It was something one only found in those foreign countries that didn't have proper standards for the public supply.

I've not though thought of it as the sort of issue that could involve the unco guid campaigning to ban bottled water. I'm definitely not proposing to join them in this.

If meetings etc provide bottled water, I'll cheerfully drink it provided nobody expects me to pay for it.

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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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The bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET plastic, generally containing antimony and various endocrine hormone disrupters which leach into the water if stored a long time, or into the environment.

How on earth did we all survive before they bottled water? I do not recall bottles of water for sale before the 1980s. We have successfully banned them in schools, along with bottled sugar drinks.

Here's a nice picture of some bottles in the Great Pacific trash vortex, which is where a lot of the bottles end up.

I'm reflecting on the rich Christian thread when I consider some of the responses. I think the ethics and morality of this are more important than some of you.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
Beeswax Altar
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# 11644

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Obviously you do.

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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
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Stetson
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# 9597

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No prophet wrote:

quote:
How on earth did we all survive before they bottled water?
I dunno. How did we survive before cars? And long-distance air travel? If we all agreed to take our holidays within biking distance of our houses, just think of how much better that would be for the ecosystem.

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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Obviously you do.

Yes, I know. People want to do whatever they feel like they want to, effects on anything or anyone else be damned. Humanity sucks.

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
How did we survive before cars? And long-distance air travel? If we all agreed to take our holidays within biking distance of our houses, just think of how much better that would be for the ecosystem.

These are good questions. I have essentially stopped driving for within city trips. Not trivial in the winter to bicycle 12 km to work when you're 60ish, but I am unwilling to complain about things if I'm not willing to do something about it. Air travel is a problem, I don't believe that carbon offsets are an answer. We don't have a passenger rail system, and alternative power sources for transportation is a joke.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
W Hyatt
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# 14250

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For me, tap water is just as different compared to spring water as spring water is to seltzer water. I'm fine with tap water for everything other than drinking straight, but I'm trying to move away from sweetened drinks and I'm using both spring water and flavored seltzer water to help make it easier. Almost all urban/suburban tap water I've tried just doesn't taste good enough compared to spring water to be something I'd actually drink. (I think it's probably because of the very low levels of chlorine in tap water because it tastes much better to me if it sits in an open container for long enough.)

Given that I want to drink spring and seltzer water, I purchase them using the best options I have available: larger plastic jugs for spring water (and some bottles for when I need a smaller size) and recyclable aluminum cans for seltzer water. Per LeRoc's post, I will use better alternatives when they become available to me.

Personally, I think the long-term solution should be to tax all goods and packaging to account for all environmental costs, i.e. to pay for all costs of sustainable waste management associated with the purchased product.

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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.

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PilgrimVagrant
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# 18442

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So, are we to ban all soft bottled drinks then?

Leaving only alcoholic drinks, since these clearly have a point and purpose that justifies the expense of bottling and transporting?

I can just hear the health fascists gnashing their chops over that, and getting ready to ban any drink at all, other than tap water, for our own benefit.

And then the deep green fanatics would get to have their say, and we would be reduced to drinking our own recycled urine, so we wouldn't need pipes, or sewerage plants, or pumping stations, anymore.

I think even cavemen drank better than that.

I'm generally in favour of environmental causes, and public health initiatives, but I can see this getting a little out of hand.

Cheers (hic), and down the hatch, and bottoms up, PV.

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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost

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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644

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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
No prophet wrote:

quote:
How on earth did we all survive before they bottled water?
I dunno. How did we survive before cars? And long-distance air travel? If we all agreed to take our holidays within biking distance of our houses, just think of how much better that would be for the ecosystem.
The Amish don't even use electricity.

Well...officially...

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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

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Albertus
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# 13356

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I don't think (Kingshley) Amish used bottled water- or anything else that might have diluted his whisky...
Taxi for Albertus

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Moo

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# 107

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I use bottled water only when I'm on a trip and want to have some water available if I get thirsty. I have never had a problem with bottled water leaking, and I have had trouble with water I brought from home in my own container.

Moo

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Huia
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# 3473

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I drank bottled water when the infrastructure was damaged after the quakes and it was disgusting. So was the chlorine laced stuff that came through the taps after that.

Now untreated tap water here is fine.

Before the quakes Christchurch had a lot of public drinking fountains, so there was no need for me to carry a water bottle, now I use a stainless steel one refilled from the tap.

Huia

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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.

Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
mousethief

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# 953

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I can understand the concerns about bottled water, both for the bottles and the personal and environmental damage they do, and the cost of transporting a bunch of water when tap water is already right there.

I also can understand how useful it can be -- if I'm off somewhere and need something to drink, and it's either bottled water or some sugary shit that will poke holes in my liver and pile fat on my middle, I'm grateful that there is water.

What I don't understand are buffoons who say, "Oooh, this is bad for the environment? Sign me up!" I just can't see how that's a Christian attitude.

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Graven Image
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I have from time to time bought a bottle of water at some event when it is hot and they have cold water. I also have used it when we had no water for several days because of a water delivery system failure. Otherwise, no.
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Lamb Chopped
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# 5528

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Tap water. Historically the big beer companies made darn sure our city had a great water supply.

My mother drinks bottled water, but that is by doctor's orders, I believe. She has kidney failure and lives in another state.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Curiosity killed ...

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# 11770

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London Underground has notices everywhere telling passengers to carry a bottle of water in the hot weather, to try and prevent overheating and dehydration on the Tube. Most commuters do carry plastic bottles, but I suspect, like mine, many of them contain tap water because I refill and reuse those bottles until they fall to pieces or start leaking and then I recycle them. Permanent drinking bottles aren't such a great deal as they get musty and contaminated.

Before plastic water bottles drinks came in glass bottles which often cost a few pence which could be reclaimed when the glass bottles were returned for recycling. That had pretty much died out by my childhood, but you can read about children earning money by recycling bottles in the Just William books, for example. Or there were drinking fountains, or you begged a glass of water from a neighbour.

Then there were pouches and cartons of drinks on the move, which really were single use.

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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RuthW

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I drink tap water. It's far cheaper than bottled water, it meets much higher safety standards, and it doesn't have as bad an impact on the environment. The people running companies bottling California water to ship all over the country when we are in the fourth year of drought should be ashamed of themselves.
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Dafyd
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# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
But hey, then we'd be tackling corporates, and they might not like that, and fund the people who make the banning laws, anymore.

Er... aren't Coca-Cola and Nestle et al behind many brands of bottled water? Bottled water aiui is just as corporate as any other form of beverage in plastic bottles.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644

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Sounds like a Tory plot to further enrich the evil water bottling corporations while destroying the environment.

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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

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Soror Magna
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quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:


I'd like to know: do you drink bottles of water? How can you justify it?

We drink hundreds of them each month.

I justify it on the basis of cost, convenience, health, and taste.

How much do hundreds of bottles of water per month cost?

(I'm fortunate to have excellent tap water which is convenient, safe and delicious, so I only buy bottled water when I can't take my own metal bottle or hydration pack.)

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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"

Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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No, it's not a Tory plot. And it is not neutral as you seem to think. It's merely a way to market something useless and create a cachet to it, such that people think it is better that the same substance coming from a tap.

The plot was to lie to people. The adverts I recall at the start of bottled water showed a person drinking a glass of tap water, then a toilet flushing, and then a fade to someone drinking water from a bottle, with the voice over discussing how it was disgusting to drink from where you flush, or how dare we poo in the same water we'd drink, coming from the same supply. The implication being about health and safety. Absolute balderdash.

A parallel to tobacco doesn't hold because bottles of water don't cause personal health problems, but there is an environmental clean-up cost that I suspect one day will have to be paid.

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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325

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quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:


I'd like to know: do you drink bottles of water? How can you justify it?

We drink hundreds of them each month.

I justify it on the basis of cost, convenience, health, and taste.

How much do hundreds of bottles of water per month cost?

(I'm fortunate to have excellent tap water which is convenient, safe and delicious, so I only buy bottled water when I can't take my own metal bottle or hydration pack.)

We get cases of 35 or 40 bottles for $3.50 or so. 20 ounce, purified drinking water. Two a week is probably average. During the school year more than that.

"We" are three adults and five chaps, ages 6 to 14.

We don't refrigerate it though cause no one likes it cold, so we aren't complete a**holes.

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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman

Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
ldjjd
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# 17390

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What is "purified" water? I should hope that tap water is "purified".

Since I have only one kidney, I followed my urologist's ultra cautious suggestion and installed a top grade water filtration system in my kitchen. For necessary outside use, I carry a refillable bottle. Filter replacement costs about $150 a year.

I think that's considerably cheaper than piles of plastic "purified" water.

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Gee D
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# 13815

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There are an awful lot of assumptions in the original post, and opinions expressed as facts. OK, where there is advice to boil water before drinking, often you can do that - but not always. If the choice then is a soft drink (which I don't like, too much sugar for my taste), a fruit juice or bottled water, I'd take the water.

Then there are places where the water is safe to drink, but none too pleasant. Not always small and remote country towns, but sometimes large cities. Adelaide is one such place, where you simply can't get a decent cup of tea because the basic taste of the water is so unpleasant, safe though the water may be.

OK, be careful if you like about the amount of bottled water you buy, but like so many things, to express opinions in such absolutes basically puts a bar on any half-sensible discussion.

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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican

Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008  |  IP: Logged
Enoch
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# 14322

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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
... Before plastic water bottles drinks came in glass bottles which often cost a few pence which could be reclaimed when the glass bottles were returned for recycling. That had pretty much died out by my childhood, but you can read about children earning money by recycling bottles in the Just William books, for example. Or there were drinking fountains, or you begged a glass of water from a neighbour. ...

In that era, there was no bottled water industry. The bottles that there was money back on were bottles of pop (1950s word for fizzy drinks). Corona came in bottles with rather superior stoppers like this.


Gee D I agree with what you say about expressing opinions as absolutes.

[ 20. July 2015, 08:43: Message edited by: Enoch ]

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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson

Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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This still happens with beer bottles in Germany - we buy Weißbier in Heidelberg one trip, bring it back to the UK for consumption then return the bottles next trip!

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Garden. Room. Walk

Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008  |  IP: Logged
romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325

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quote:
Originally posted by ldjjd:
What is "purified" water? I should hope that tap water is "purified".

Of course it is! A sand filter and chlorine do the trick for our city water.

The water we buy is carbon filtered, ozonated, and UV disinfected.

You could taste test any of my kids with water from the tap and the water that they regularly drink and I would bet that they could tell you which was which without even putting it to their lips.

I know I could.

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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman

Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:

You could taste test any of my kids with water from the tap and the water that they regularly drink and I would bet that they could tell you which was which without even putting it to their lips.

I know I could.

Yes, so can I. But we have a built in filter in the fridge and that completely removes the tap water taste [Smile]

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Garden. Room. Walk

Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008  |  IP: Logged
BroJames
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# 9636

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All water has a 'flavour' which differs according to its source, however 'pure' it is. Even distilled water (which is not particularly nice to drink) has a flavour.

The advice I have seen to remove the chlorine taste is simply to put tap water into a jug with a lid into the fridge for a short period to cool it.

Our local water provider has quite a useful guide.

Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
romanlion: We get cases of 35 or 40 bottles for $3.50 or so. 20 ounce, purified drinking water. Two a week is probably average. During the school year more than that.
If you're consuming so much of it, isn't there a more efficient way they can get it to you? Brazil can refill 20l bottles ...

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
L'organist
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# 17338

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I only ever buy bottled water if I'm away from home and need a drink.

I bring the bottles home to be re-filled and used as/when needed.

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012  |  IP: Logged
chris stiles
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# 12641

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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
romanlion: We get cases of 35 or 40 bottles for $3.50 or so. 20 ounce, purified drinking water. Two a week is probably average. During the school year more than that.
If you're consuming so much of it, isn't there a more efficient way they can get it to you? Brazil can refill 20l bottles ...
There are different scaling models in countries where bottled water is essential, as opposed to ones where it is largely optional (and where bottled water suppliers play up the 'natural' or 'pure' aspects).

I imagine if you are having to pack meals then smaller quantities are more convenient also.

Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged
chris stiles
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# 12641

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quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:

You could taste test any of my kids with water from the tap and the water that they regularly drink and I would bet that they could tell you which was which without even putting it to their lips.

I know I could.

Which is as mostly to do with the relative impurities in each sample and which ones you can taste - and is not necessarily indicative of safety (though I can understand why you may choose not to drink water tasting of chlorine - however safe).

I'm sure I could tell the differences between some types of water also - though am lucky that the local water company is one of the best in the country when it comes to water purification. Because of local geography it contains large amounts of limestone - but I've never even got faint tastes of anything else.

Absent bad tap water I suspect a lot of issues are caused by people who lived in a hard-water area moving to a soft-water area and vice versa.

I even read some research a while back that suggested that hard-water was probably better for making tea with - which might explain some of the complaints Brits moving to Europe often make.

[ 20. July 2015, 13:32: Message edited by: chris stiles ]

Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged
Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128

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To what extent is a lot of this "kidology"? How many of you, for instance, remember the Coca-Cola Dasani scandal?

There is no good reason (apart, perhaps, from taste) why the vast majority of us living in developed countries can't drink tap water. (And we can filter it to change the taste or protect our kettles). But - quite apart from the environmental issues caused by the transporting and bottling process - isn't it a scandal that the many people in the world who really could do with pure bottled water (because their other sources are polluted and contaminated) are unable to get it because it's expensive and they are poor?

[ 20. July 2015, 13:42: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009  |  IP: Logged
Humble Servant
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# 18391

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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The adverts I recall at the start of bottled water showed a person drinking a glass of tap water, then a toilet flushing, and then a fade to someone drinking water from a bottle, with the voice over discussing how it was disgusting to drink from where you flush, or how dare we poo in the same water we'd drink, coming from the same supply.

I read somewhere (might have been on these boards) that the definition of extravagance is to take a bowl of fresh, treated drinking water - and shit in it.

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

1. Being charged for something that comes out of the tap for nothing;

I pay about 2.5p per litre for my tap water. That includes disposing of it once I've finished with it. doesn't sound much, but it adds up to £600 per year for the whole family.
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