Jan 3, 2009
Is That Bottled Water You’re Sipping Really Worth You’re Hard Earned Dollar?
Are you drinking bottled drinking water? If you do you're not unique. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), more than half of all the population purchase bottled drinking water, to the tune of $4,000,000,000 yearly. More...
Jan 1, 2009
My New Year's Resolution is to Lose my Bottle
By the time you read this, my head will be thump-thumping - but this is not a standard-issue New Year's Day hangover. No. My New Year's resolution is to finally give up my addiction to two liquids that are trashing the lives of some of the poorest people on earth: bottled water, and Coke. In 2009, I am determined to lose my bottle.
There's nothing more tempting than to imagine our luxuries appear fully-formed on the supermarket shelf. It seems they come from nowhere, and when we toss them away, they disappear back to nowhere. It's disconcerting to break through this haze and trace them back to their origins. How can something so ordinary and omnipresent - something we all glug down daily - be destructive? But I have finally forced myself to read two new book-length exposes of my favourite drinks. More...
Dec 30, 2008
* Email this * Share this * Print this * Comments (Be the first to comment) Digg Yahoo! Del.icio.us Facebook Reddit Drudge Google Fark logo Fark Stumble It! Bottled water may be all wet
An expert at Baylor University warns that a lot of bottled water is simply tap water.
"There is no guarantee that bottled water is any better than tap water. Twenty-five percent of bottled water is actually just repackaged tap water," says Dr. Jane Sadler, family medicine physician on the medical staff at Baylor Medical Center at Garland, Texas.
Bottled water is regulated by the FDA, but when it's packaged and sold in the same state — which is the case with around 60 percent of bottled waters — it becomes exempt from FDA regulations. More...
Dec 18, 2008
Should Milwaukee act to ban the (water) bottle?
Here is an urban battle you do not hear about too often -- especially in Milwaukee -- banning the sale of bottled water. Toronto last week announced a ban on the sale and distribution of bottled water on city premises. In return, the city promised to make tap water available in all city facilities. More...
Dec 13, 2008
Bottled water ban's time has come
ap water is the new blue box.
Twenty years ago, nobody thought about recycling. They just tossed the newspaper in the garbage (after reading it, of course) and threw those empty pop cans out with the rest of the garbage. Recycling, of course, has caught on. Most people embrace it as a small, meaningful task they can do to help the environment.
That's why Niagara Falls city council has to stop pussy-footing around and just go for a ban on the sale of bottled water at city-owned facilities, including city hall, arenas, parks and the community centre. Toronto and London led the charge this year. More...
Dec 11, 2008
Toronto stood up to bottled water industry
Toronto's decision last week to ban the sale and distribution of bottled water on city premises was a watershed moment for water justice advocates the world over. What was truly significant about Toronto's action was not that it banned an environmentally destructive product, but that it included a commitment to ensuring access to tap water in all city facilities.
Toronto is now the largest city in the world to pass such far-reaching regulations controlling the distribution of bottled water on municipal property and promoting the use of publicly delivered tap water. Other Canadian and American municipalities have enacted policies encouraging the consumption of tap water and limiting the distribution of bottled water using taxpayer money, but none as large as Toronto has taken such a comprehensive approach. More...
Dec 9, 2008
Class pushes city’s own water
Benjamin Vail doesn't hesitate when asked why people shouldn't drink bottled water.
“Don't waste your money,” says the University of North Texas student. “You're talking about $1.30 for a liter of water, and it costs four-tenths of a cent for [a gallon of] Denton municipal water. Municipal water is cleaner. It's safer. It's healthier. And it's a myth that would have you believe that disposable water is somehow better for you.” More...
Nov 30, 2008
Text size: increase text sizedecrease text size Is Bottled Binge Over?
I remember when the name of the game at my gym was pump 'n' swig. Weightlifters and treadmill sloggers routinely carried expensive water in plastic bottles with their sweat towels.
Drinking commercial water was the cool thing. In 2006, Americans bought 32.6 billion single-serving bottles of water, and another 34.6 billion larger bottles.
With a slew of brands for basically the same product, image marketers have pushed the envelope — the bottle itself. My favorite absurdity: "Bling H2O," with the motto "More Than A Pretty Taste." You can buy this water in a "Limited Edition" frosted-glass bottle encrusted with crystals for $40.
The surprising truth is that an estimated 25 to 40 percent of bottled water comes from public drinking reservoirs. More...
Nov 29, 2008
Troubled waters: Why we fell out of love with bottled water (and how the industry plans to win us back)
Bottled water. We all hate it now, don't we? Few products can rival its spectacular fall from grace. Government ministers rail against it ("morally unacceptable" in the pleasingly direct words of the environment minister, Phil Woolas) and shoppers no longer think it is fashionable.
You only have to remember how cool Perrier was in the late 1990s to appreciate how low mineral water has sunk. A few years ago, to clutch a bottle of mineral water was a statement of wealth and vitality; a marker of metropolitan sophistication. It was clean, cool and fresh – and often stylishly French, too. More...
Nov 26, 2008
Bottled Water: The Distinction May Be In the Ad Campaign
Bottled water is convenient and has gained a reputation for being especially pure and healthy. But a lot of research indicates that bottled water may not be as special as people think.
For example, by some accounts, up to 40 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States is merely filtered and packaged tap water. Some marketing experts say it is hard to distinguish one kind of bottled water from another. As a result, the marketing experts say, sales become mostly a matter of who thinks up the best slogans and spends the most money getting out their message.
The sellers of bottled water say they are providing a public service. Environmentalists acknowledge the convenience factor, but they say that the quality of tap water is fine in most of the United States. More...
