Bottled Water
Concerning bottle water. Yeah, it's bad for the environment. I think that's pretty much a given and everyone knows that. Or maybe you didn't. But now you do. I've been thinking/reading a lot about it and the reality is that it is pretty stupid to pay tons of money for something that is provided for free. Especially considering the fact that the bottling/transport is dangerous to the environment and it's corporate profit making in all its greed. People being willing to pay for water actually deters the quality of what's provided for free from our tap (which kind of makes me think of Total Recall when they had to pay for air). I recycle everything religiously, bring reusable bags to the grocery store and pack my lunch in reusable tupperware because I genuinely care about the earth. Even so, I could eliminate my bottle waste by cutting back.
I never bought bottled water until I moved to LA. In plain terms, our drinking water is shitty. I used to use tap water when I was in my first apartment until the morning I filled the coffee pot and the water that came out was brown. In fact, we always had to run the shower for a few seconds to get all the brown water out. Needless to say, I wasn't going to drink that. That's when I started buying bottled water and have ever since. Most of the apartments in LA (at least all the ones I've lived in) always post 'Warning: This Area Contains Chemicals Known to Cause Birth Defects' signs. I always read that as 'Don't Drink the Water.'
A 24 pack of water is around 5 dollars (6 if you include the 5 cent per bottle tax). One pack a week is 312 dollars a year. Not terrible but still that's 312 dollars worth of money saved. There's no guarantee that bottled water is fresher/healthier than tap water since there are no real regulations for it. But tap water tastes disgusting. Yes, I can taste the difference. I always said Aquafina and Dasani taste like tap water because they do. It was no surprise to me when I found out they are, in fact, actually tap water bottled and sold to you at 1000 the cost. I usually drink Crystal Geyser or Arrowhead. I tried to drink the tap water in my apartment when I first moved in and didn't have a fridge but it was gross. It straight up tastes disgusting.
We are not going to run out of water. The earth has been recycling the same water for millions of years. I guess the real problem is running out of clean drinking water. And since bottled water companies are overtapping ground water in the most beautiful places in America, their lakes and springs are drying up. That's what they say anyway. I don't know if that's actually true.
Either way, to take a stand against corporate greed and for the environment, I've decided to try and give up bottled water. I'm planning on getting a filter for my tap. Hopefully, that will help the water not taste like shit, save me money and save the environment from fossil fuels used on plastic and transport.
http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/5-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water
http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/bottled_water/
http://www.adventure-journal.com/2010/04/the-evils-of-bottled-water-communicated-nicely/
I also saw the documentary 'Tapped' which presents a lot of good arguments against bottled water. Most notably that because of all the plastic trash we are turning our ocean into a "plastic soup."
I never bought bottled water until I moved to LA. In plain terms, our drinking water is shitty. I used to use tap water when I was in my first apartment until the morning I filled the coffee pot and the water that came out was brown. In fact, we always had to run the shower for a few seconds to get all the brown water out. Needless to say, I wasn't going to drink that. That's when I started buying bottled water and have ever since. Most of the apartments in LA (at least all the ones I've lived in) always post 'Warning: This Area Contains Chemicals Known to Cause Birth Defects' signs. I always read that as 'Don't Drink the Water.'
A 24 pack of water is around 5 dollars (6 if you include the 5 cent per bottle tax). One pack a week is 312 dollars a year. Not terrible but still that's 312 dollars worth of money saved. There's no guarantee that bottled water is fresher/healthier than tap water since there are no real regulations for it. But tap water tastes disgusting. Yes, I can taste the difference. I always said Aquafina and Dasani taste like tap water because they do. It was no surprise to me when I found out they are, in fact, actually tap water bottled and sold to you at 1000 the cost. I usually drink Crystal Geyser or Arrowhead. I tried to drink the tap water in my apartment when I first moved in and didn't have a fridge but it was gross. It straight up tastes disgusting.
We are not going to run out of water. The earth has been recycling the same water for millions of years. I guess the real problem is running out of clean drinking water. And since bottled water companies are overtapping ground water in the most beautiful places in America, their lakes and springs are drying up. That's what they say anyway. I don't know if that's actually true.
Either way, to take a stand against corporate greed and for the environment, I've decided to try and give up bottled water. I'm planning on getting a filter for my tap. Hopefully, that will help the water not taste like shit, save me money and save the environment from fossil fuels used on plastic and transport.
http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/5-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water
http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/bottled_water/
http://www.adventure-journal.com/2010/04/the-evils-of-bottled-water-communicated-nicely/
I also saw the documentary 'Tapped' which presents a lot of good arguments against bottled water. Most notably that because of all the plastic trash we are turning our ocean into a "plastic soup."