Bottles Problem

Don't buy bottled water. Don't drink bottled water. Now that we have that established we can move on.

I know all of the reasons why you are doing it. Just don't do it anymore.

Water is a finite resource contrary to what most of us were taught. They are likely still teaching kids that whole story of the rain falling and refreshing the soil and then evaporating and the cycle starts over.

It is not true anymore. We have diverted,dammed,  paved and otherwise blocked that process from working properly. We lose ground water sources regularly. The next time you hear about a sink hole opening and swallowing up a house ask what used to be where the sink hole was? That would be ground water.

To get all of that lovely water in the bottles they pump it from lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. When I say "they" I refer to Pepsi and Coke and the like. We went and got all conscious of what we were drinking so they moved to cover that need as well by selling us what we can pour from our own pipes at home. We are just lazy enough to follow them in a lemming line and pony up our dough for it.

This is the easiest form of water privatization for us to fight, and we NEED to fight corporate control of water. Watch "Water Wars" and "Thirst" for more reasons to worry about privatization.

Here are some practical considerations.

1. The water in the bottles is no different than your tap water. If yours needs filtering go get a Brita filter or a GE whole house filter setup from Home Depot. They take very little time to install and are less than $50 with filters being about $10 for a filter good for 90 days.

2. The plastic in the bottles and sometimes even the water is bad for you. BPA is often present in the plastic bottles as well as other chemicals that you likely don't want to consume or feed your kids. In some cases pathogens have been found in the water as well.

3. 2.5 Million extra pieces of trash in the US every year. That is how many bottles we are talking about. The landfills are full and they just pay lip service to recycling plastic. It can take as much as 7 times the amount of water to make the plastic bottle than the bottle can hold.

4. $$$$ Tap water costs $.0002 per gallon as opposed to up to $8.26 per gallon for bottled water.


What should you do? Go to REI or somewhere like that and buy a BPA free water bottle for everyone in the family. Other options include stainless bottles from Costco or wherever. Either add a home filtration system or use a filter pitcher setup if you don't like your tap water. Don't let our want of convenience override our sense of right and wrong.

More soon...