the bottled water confessional - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 06-30-2008, 04:42 AM

preamble:

you see these claims that capitalism is somehow rational because of the relation of supply to demand. you see these claims that demand, somehow, runs the show.

but sometimes you look around.
you're wandering the aisles in a convenience store.
in the refrigerator between the wall of budweiser and the wall of processed cheese and meat-like products, you see 5 different kinds of bottled water.
what is this? you wonder.
why are there bottles of tap water for sale?
some of them even make fun of me--evian spelled backward.

o, but it's so much bigger than you think:

Quote:

What's Colorless and Tasteless And Smells Like . . . Money?

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008; A01

In Tokyo and Paris, you can now spend $5 a glass on special beverages selected by a professional sommelier.

Nothing surprising there, except the beverages being served are different brands of bottled water -- with various "flavors" supposedly matched to different foods.

Desalinated seawater from Hawaii, meanwhile, is being sold as "concentrated water" -- at $33.50 for a two-ounce bottle. Like any concentrated beverage, it is supposed to be diluted before drinking, except that in this case, that means adding water to . . . water.

And from Tennessee, a company named BlingH2O -- whose marketing imagery features a mostly nude model improbably balancing a bottle of water between her heel and her hip -- is retailing its water at $40 for 750 milliliters, with special-edition bottles going for $480 -- more than a million times the price of the liquid that comes from your tap.

The push to turn water into the new wine is a marketing phenomenon: The bottled-water industry is engaged in an intense effort to convince Americans that the stuff in bottles is substantially different from the stuff out of the tap.

But empirical tests have repeatedly shown that they are generally the same. In blind taste tests, many people who swear they can differentiate between bottled-water brands and tap water fail to spot the differences, and studies have shown that both are fine to drink, and both occasionally can have quality problems.

Experts who study bottled water as a cultural phenomenon say differences between the two are largely marketing inventions.

"Taste for water is as much an effort of imagination as it is an objective fact," said Richard Wilk, a professor of anthropology and gender studies at Indiana University who studies the phenomenon. "The labels have springs and waterfalls and mountains. The latest waters are from Antarctica and Iceland; there is glacier water and iceberg water and water that is a million years old and water from 3,000 feet down off Hawaii. All of these things promise an untouched nature far from human beings."

There is abundant irony in such marketing: The supply of clean drinking water across America and in many other countries is an underappreciated scientific and technological achievement that in many ways rivals putting a man on the moon. Trillions of dollars have been spent to get clean drinking water to people at virtually no cost -- and it is people in precisely these countries who seem willing to pay premiums of 1,000 percent to 10,000 percent for bottled water.

As the wealthiest billion people on the planet increasingly turn to bottled water, moreover, the poorest billion have no little or access to clean water.

On its face, the bottled-water trade makes selling snow to Eskimos sound like a reasonable business proposition: Tons of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere each year to produce and transport a product thousands of miles from Place A to Place B, when an identical product is already available in Place B in a form that is typically much cheaper, rigorously tested and sometimes safer. And afterward, millions of plastic bottles end up in landfills.

A considerable volume of the bottled water that Americans buy each year, moreover, is tap water. Popular brands such as Aquafina and Dasani, for example, may feature mountain peaks and the word "pure" on their labels, but the products are actually tap water that has been put through additional filtration and purification -- techniques aimed at making water that is already clean . . . clean.

An additional irony in buying water shipped thousands of miles from places such as Fiji is that large numbers of people who live in those places would give anything to have water of the quality that comes out of American taps.

Fiji Water Co. ships its distinctive square bottles from the South Pacific island nation to Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif.; Philadelphia; Miami; and Savannah, Ga., and then by road to the rest of the United States. In 2007, it shipped the equivalent of 12 million cases of 12-liter bottles -- 200 million bottles in all, or about 1 percent of the U.S. market. The company's Web site prominently says that its water is "untouched by man."

Thomas Mooney, senior vice president for sustainable growth at Fiji, said that as of Jan. 1 this year, every bottle of Fiji water is carbon-negative -- meaning that the company offsets the greenhouse gases it creates in production and shipping by helping to grow forests and participating in other green initiatives. He said the company is also working to improve drinking water in Fijian villages by helping to drill and maintain wells.

"The fact our business exists is why 100 villages this year in Fiji will have clean water," Mooney said. "The underlying assumption is people do not drink Fiji water when they used to drink tap water. People drink Fiji when they used to drink Coke -- so this is a move away from other packaged beverages to a healthier one."

Mooney said Fiji water is different from other brands because it has a different "mouthfeel" -- a term being popularized by the bottled-water industry as it encourages water connoisseurship along the lines of wine connoisseurship.

"Fiji has a smooth, silky mouthfeel," Mooney said as he encouraged a reporter to try a bottle. "Most other water from Europe has calcium, which is good for your bones but bad for the palate. Water in Fiji is volcanic, so it has less calcium."

Under pressure from environmental groups, however, many institutions and governments are starting to balk at such pitches.

Last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution urging the jurisdictions of the mayors in its membership to limit bottled water to emergency situations, such as outbreaks of contamination, accidents or disasters, and to rely on tap water for everyday use.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez, who helped spearhead the initiative, said in an interview that it was triggered by a combination of cost and environmental concerns.

"It has a 1,000 to 10,000 percent markup over tap water," Chávez said of bottled water. "Most taxpayers would be outraged if we paid $1,000 for a pen when it is available for a dollar."

But Chávez said he also wants to combat the notion at the heart of the bottled-water industry's marketing efforts: "The subtext of the bottled-water industry is the suggestion that tap water is unsafe or unhealthy, or that bottled water is better or healthier. America's mayors have no problems with the industry marketing the convenience of bottled water. In a free-enterprise system, consumers may want to spend more on a product that they can get from the tap, but we resist any suggestion that bottled water is healthier than water that comes out of the tap."

The bottled-water industry strenuously fought the resolution, Chávez said, backed by mayors of cities where the industry is an important part of the economy.

"The resolution is not in the public interest and could discourage consumers from drinking bottled water, which is a safe, healthy, conveniently-available food product," the International Bottled Water Association said in a statement. The industry group cited Shirley Franklin, mayor of Atlanta -- home to Coca-Cola Co., which sells Dasani -- who "expressed concern that even a non-binding resolution might hamper public comfort at civic events such as marathons, concerts and other public gatherings."

By undermining confidence in public drinking water, the bottled-water industry has helped reduce support for repairs and upgrades to the nation's public water infrastructure, said environmentalist Elizabeth Royte, author of "Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It."

"People who drank bottled water first drank it because it was chic," Royte said. "But then it went from fashion to fear, and most of the time the fear of water is not well founded."

People who are worried about the quality of their home and office water supplies can get their water tested and install filters at a small fraction of the financial and environmental costs of bottled water, Royte said.

"There are hundreds of millions spent marketing bottled water as pure and clean and better, and that implies the tap water is not pure and clean and better," she said. "Public utilities do not have PR budgets and do not have money to advertise their wares and tell us their water is pure."

Wilk, the Indiana University anthropologist, said water has always been an unusual product. From ancient times, it has been deeply entwined with cultural beliefs; many civilizations have had notions of "holy water."

Decades ago, European colonialists in Africa had water from their homelands shipped to them because they believed that it was the only water that could keep them healthy. Today, many people believe that water from distant places is better than water that is locally produced, and the result is that a large portion of the bottled-water trade is reciprocal: There are people in Mexico, for example, who want bottled water from the United States, while some Americans prize bottled Peñafiel water from Mexico. And in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," a 1964 comedy about nuclear war, Gen. Jack D. Ripper launches a war of mutual annihilation on the Soviet Union because he thinks Communists have undermined the water supply.

What the bottled-water industry has done, Wilk argues, is capitalize on two age-old magical beliefs -- that contact with "impure water" can harm you, and that contact with "pure water" can heal you.

"People pay thousands of dollars for hundred-year-old wine that tastes like vinegar," Wilk said, citing other examples of human beliefs that may seem irrational. "People pay several thousand dollars for a cow that is cut in half and suspended in formaldehyde, but we call it art so you pay thousands for it.

"In that sense," he said, "water is a quintessentially magical substance."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

becoming a water sommelier is my new alternate identity project.
i like the efforts to explain bottled water as magic.
magic is a little park erected in the center of downtown chumpville.

we want what we are told we want.

but i buy bottles of sparkling water.
i like the bubbles.
i say to myself: there are no bubbles in tapwater.
and that is what keeps me from recognizing the extent to which i, too, am a chump.
it is the sense of superiority enjoyed by the vast alliance of those of us who like bubbles relative to those of you who do not that explains this thread

are you a chump for bottled water as well?

little_tippler · 06-30-2008, 05:05 AM

I drink a special kind of water - the brand is Del Cano

Tap water here is pretty great so that's what I do. I buy some bottled water at work, but it only costs me 21 cents a bottle (1.5 l) at the very cheap supermarket on our doorstep. That would be 33 cents in the States.

I'll drink water from the tap if it tastes good...water does have a taste, sometimes it is more noticeable than others. I think for people who are very sensitive to the taste of water and have the money to spend, I don't see why they shouldn't at least be helped by a water list that describes each one. A sommelier...that's taking it a little too far. Certain waters don't agree with people also, sensitive stomachs and all that.

I have friends living in London who tell me the tap water in certain areas gives them weird symptoms later, and also it tastes funny. So they don't drink tap water.

There's also the case of being poisoned by tap water, which has occurred ocasionally in some places (some toxic product being discharged into the water supply or water that hasn't been duly processed getting to taps in peoples' homes), but then I have also heard cases with tap water of a similar nature.

I think it's silly to pay ridiculous amounts of money for "special" water. I'm happy with tap water. But I also think that in the future we may have to pay to be able to obtain it...and that's a far more serious situation.

pig · 06-30-2008, 05:28 AM

I typically buy a big ass bottle of water, and then refill it for as long as I can manage not to lose it. I think it's hilarious that people buy scads and pallets of bottled water to bring home and take up 1/3 of the fridge, when they can just get a glass and some ice and have a nice cold drink of water.

And I agree with you rb: water sommelier has a nice ring to it. I think I might have to use that at the next "getting to know you" type of dinner I go to - with the addition of discussing the "mouthfeel" of the different waters.

BadNick · 06-30-2008, 05:49 AM

One of the aspects of the bottled water industry that pisses me off is giving rights to the bottled water company to pump large amounts of water out of natural aquafirs, which I consider to be a publically owned resource in most cases...even if the pumping is on private property, to me it's like a river flowing through your property that you usually don't have right to stop, use up, etc.

In the U.S. I noticed the bottled water industry growing rapidly after stories about pathogens and harmful chemicals being in the water supply became more of a publically discussed issue. In other parts of the world, the utility water supply is so bad that the water is not even safe to drink, so logically bottled water and filtering systems were more in demand in those areas even before the more recent growth of the bottled water industry.

I have no doubt that the utility water supply in a lot of areas of the world can at least have a very bad taste, and at worst chemicals or pathogens. Where I live the tap water is quite good, tastes smooth due to low mineral content, so I often drink it right from the tap; we also have an appropriate filter on the water feeding our refrigerator ice maker and water dispenser. I'm sure some mineral content can be good for you, but most high mineral waters taste horrible to me. Like where I work the water tastes horrible due to very high mineral content...I don't know if it's harmful but it tastes really bad, so we have filtered water going to water coolers and ice makers.

In most municipalities it seems that there is already a charge for tap water in one of the taxes we pay. Where I live it is specifically charged by the utility water company; other places it's included in some other kind of tax. But it costs a lot of money to maintain the infrastructure to deliver clean water, as well as to treat and/or get rid of wastewater/sewage, and that has to be paid for one way or another.

In my family we buy some bottled water on a regular basis. When we're in the car and stop at a convenience store and the kids are thirsty, and we didn't plan ahead to carry water with us, they often buy bottled water. One of my boys thinks Fuji water tastes the best so I let him buy it, though I haven't noted much difference in my casual sampling.

dlish · 06-30-2008, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pig

I typically buy a big ass bottle of water, and then refill it for as long as I can manage not to lose it. I think it's hilarious that people buy scads and pallets of bottled water to bring home and take up 1/3 of the fridge, when they can just get a glass and some ice and have a nice cold drink of water.

And I agree with you rb: water sommelier has a nice ring to it. I think I might have to use that at the next "getting to know you" type of dinner I go to - with the addition of discussing the "mouthfeel" of the different waters.

pig id be careful if i was you..

i do recall reading somewhere that the pvc in water bottles break down releasing some cancer causing agents or something along those lines.

im sure of it. i read it a year ago. ill see if i can dig it up. maybe some googlefreak here could find it

ratbastid · 06-30-2008, 06:09 AM

Fiji water is one particularly glaring example of the absurdity of this. The brand is built around cleanliness, stylishness, and environmentalism. But the bottles are made in China and shipped to the beautiful island of Fiji (where locals routinely suffer from a lack of clean drinking water). The source water is drawn from a volcanic artesian well that is not renewable. Then it's shipped to the US (mainly) for sale.

A finished product--a one liter bottle of Fiji Water takes 26 liters of water and a kilogram of fossil fuel to make, and creates over one pound of CO2.

By ounce, certain beer is now cheaper than certain water OR gasoline. So screw driving to work--let's just drink beer all day!

Redlemon · 06-30-2008, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

pig id be careful if i was you..

i do recall reading somewhere that the pvc in water bottles break down releasing some cancer causing agents or something along those lines.

im sure of it. i read it a year ago. ill see if i can dig it up. maybe some googlefreak here could find it

Did somebody mention my title?

Snopes says false. http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/petbottles.asp

Psycho Dad · 06-30-2008, 06:12 AM

People claim that the tap water where I live is pretty nasty. Nevertheless, I can't tell much difference between it and most bottled water. I'd suspect in blind taste tests, those willing to pay up to have some schmuck pair the water they are drinking with their meal can't either.

Leto · 06-30-2008, 06:16 AM

We have a supply of bottled water in our basement, primarily for the use as a travel convenience, in the car, as an option to purchasing over-priced drinks in convenience stores. Also, since pop is not a drink that our family favours, there is no other portable option with the exception of coffee.

Our second reason for the supply of bottle water is for emergency preparedness. There's always a certain level of Litres/person on supply for the 72 hour recommendation in the event that we have an emergency situation. So anytime a flat of 24 bottles goes on sale, we top up our supply.

The tap water in Toronto, is fairly decent. I like it, but definitely prefer the taste from the bathroom faucet versus the kitchen faucet. And on a hot day, cold water right out of the garden hose... magical!

dlish · 06-30-2008, 08:42 AM

well played lemon.. i knew you'd come through

Lasereth · 06-30-2008, 09:00 AM

I absolutely cannot drink the tap water where I live. It tastes like rot and death and minerals combined. It's undrinkable to me. So I confess that I......

....DO NOT BUY BOTTLED WATER BECAUSE IT'S A FUCKING RIPOFF!!!! I have a Brita water dispenser in my refrigerator that we fill up every 2 days with the rotten tap water and it comes out tasting like Zeus shared his cup with us. It's super cold and super fresh and super clean. My wife fills up a bottle with this filtered tap water.

There is no excuse to buying bottled water unless you're at a convenience store dying of thirst and you don't want to buy a soft drink. And even then you're getting ripped off because diet mountain dew doesn't come out of a faucet.

ubertuber · 06-30-2008, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FTA

Desalinated seawater from Hawaii, meanwhile, is being sold as "concentrated water" -- at $33.50 for a two-ounce bottle. Like any concentrated beverage, it is supposed to be diluted before drinking, except that in this case, that means adding water to . . . water.

That's sublimely hilarious. It's like a scenario from a Joseph Heller novel.

lotsofmagnets · 06-30-2008, 09:37 AM

the water here smells like fart (well ok, the cold water doesn´t) but i don´t see much demand for bottled water (there are people who may correct me on this.) there are a couple of "iceland" brand waters for sale but i think they sell for extremely cheap.

abaya · 06-30-2008, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lotsofmagnets

the water here smells like fart (well ok, the cold water doesn´t) but i don´t see much demand for bottled water (there are people who may correct me on this.) there are a couple of "iceland" brand waters for sale but i think they sell for extremely cheap.

Well come on now, you can't talk about Icelandic hot water like everyone goes around drinking that sulfur-smelling crap all day. I love the Icelandic phrase, "It will come with the cold water," which means (I think) that it will take a while, as long as it takes for the cold water to flush out the hot when you change temps in the taps.

Anyway, the cold water here is fantastic, and I must say I've never tasted anything better from a tap elsewhere in the world. I grew up drinking well water from our property at home, have always drank from the tap through college and grad school, and have never bought bottled water except when I'm traveling in countries where the water might kill me.

I will admit to preferring Brita-filtered water when I'm drinking from city taps in the US, though. But otherwise, Icelandic water can't be beat!

PonyPotato · 06-30-2008, 10:03 AM

I don't buy bottled water. I buy generic powerade/gatorade and refill the bottles with water when I need it, or (gasp!) use my 3 nalgene water bottles for the same purpose.

Yes, I like filtered water better than tap water.. but mostly because it's colder since I have a filter jug that goes in the fridge. I still drink tap water a lot.. at least a cup every time I brush my teeth or use the toilet, and more to take my vitamins and such.

I drink out of the garden hose during the summer, so I'm not one to be snobby about water taste.

lotsofmagnets · 06-30-2008, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaya

Well come on now, you can't talk about Icelandic hot water like everyone goes around drinking that sulfur-smelling crap all day. I love the Icelandic phrase, "It will come with the cold water," which means (I think) that it will take a while, as long as it takes for the cold water to flush out the hot when you change temps in the taps.

Anyway, the cold water here is fantastic, and I must say I've never tasted anything better from a tap elsewhere in the world. I grew up drinking well water from our property at home, have always drank from the tap through college and grad school, and have never bought bottled water except when I'm traveling in countries where the water might kill me.

I will admit to preferring Brita-filtered water when I'm drinking from city taps in the US, though. But otherwise, Icelandic water can't be beat!

heh that was actually the point of my post, which i somehow actually managed to leave out

Plan9 · 06-30-2008, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

By ounce, certain beer is now cheaper than certain water OR gasoline. So screw driving to work--let's just drink beer all day!

Pabst Blue Ribbon at every meal? To save the planet, you say? We're on it.

...

My general feeling is that bottled water is for dumbasses and deployed soldiers...

How about the amount of bottled water the US Army consumes in Iraq and Afghanistan? I killed about six 1.5L bottles a day per deployment. The "landfills" we loaded over there will topped with bottles like some kinda see-through pyramid complex.

Mmm, I should research some statistics on this.

Willravel · 06-30-2008, 10:42 AM

I used to use Fiji, but I've recently simply used my reverse osmisisizd water in a water bottle instead. It's bigger and it's reusable. And I can be sure of the quality of water.

Leto · 06-30-2008, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merleniau

I drink out of the garden hose during the summer, so I'm not one to be snobby about water taste.

some of the best tasting water comes out of the garden hose!

Plan9 · 06-30-2008, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

I used to use Fiji.

WHY!?

...

Admission is the first step.

Willravel · 06-30-2008, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crompsin

WHY!?

It's tasty and I'm a slave to trends?

CinnamonGirl · 06-30-2008, 10:58 AM

I used to buy bottled water pretty often. I didn't like the taste of our tap water, and I didn't want to buy soda or juice at school/gas stations/wherever.

Then I realized how much I was spending. Not only that, but the number of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills instead of being recycled was disgusting (to me, anyway.)

Soooo...I bought a Brita pitcher. It's absolutely wonderful, and like lasereth said, it makes the yucky tapwater taste like awesome (well, I'm paraphrasing a bit

) Then I bought a hard plastic water bottle that I carry with me all the time. I save money, I don't have to go on a scavenger hunt for a recycling bin, and I get cold, yummy water. Everybody wins. (and by everybody, I mean me.)

blahblah454 · 06-30-2008, 12:53 PM

The tap water where I live tastes absolutely disgusting and it smells terrible.

I generally will buy a huge 40 pack of 500ml water bottles from Costco for about $5.00. Its handy and it has no fluoride in it. Then when I run out of water I simply fill them all back up from filtered tap water and keep using them! Mind you the bottles are only for when I am out, when I am at home I use my water filter.

Paying more than about 40 cents per bottle of water sounds outlandishly expensive to me.

BadNick · 06-30-2008, 01:08 PM

Don't fret about filling up the landfills with clear plastic water bottles...a new trend is emerging.

JumpinJesus · 06-30-2008, 01:09 PM

I too like bubbles in my water, but I also like a bit of fruit juice in it as well.

As for pretentiousness? Well, that's just an ugly, ugly mode of operation.

Hain · 06-30-2008, 01:14 PM

I had a plant that I watered with some of the water I had in my bottles. When I started using tap, the plant started dying. Did I keep buying bottled water? No, I bought a purifier... easy as that.

lotsofmagnets · 06-30-2008, 01:38 PM

that´s one fussy plant you have there. did you only water it with evian water?

shesus · 06-30-2008, 01:40 PM

We used to buy bottled water and the gallon jugs of water when we lived in Phoenix. The water there is horrible or at least it was in our apartment. I hated spending money for water and creating the extra garbage so we bought a Brita water filter and 36 oz sport water bottles. We saved a ton of money and a ton of bottles going to the landfill.

Penn and Teller did a Bullshit show on bottled water. It was hilarious. They got a bunch of pretentious people in a Water Bar and offered a water menu with descriptions, much like a wine list. People were sipping and commenting on the different undertones of each sample. The dumb asses were drinking glasses of hose water that a guy was filling up in the alley.

Water bottles are a convenience, but an overpriced one. I always grab the cheapest one when I'm out and no other options are available.

noodle · 06-30-2008, 03:10 PM

i'll buy bottled water if i'm out and have forgotten to fill up my 64 oz gigundo-mug that i drink daily. however, in college i caught c. diff (unaffectionately known as "swamp ass" in the medical community) from the refiller thing at Publix where you can take your 5 gallon containers. some show swabbed all those dispensers one time and i was horrified at what grows inside the spout. so now i'm really, really careful about reusing bottles and where stuff comes from in the first place because no Brita or the like catches that stuff.

m0rpheus · 06-30-2008, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shesus

We used to buy bottled water and the gallon jugs of water when we lived in Phoenix. The water there is horrible or at least it was in our apartment. I hated spending money for water and creating the extra garbage so we bought a Brita water filter and 36 oz sport water bottles. We saved a ton of money and a ton of bottles going to the landfill.

Penn and Teller did a Bullshit show on bottled water. It was hilarious. They got a bunch of pretentious people in a Water Bar and offered a water menu with descriptions, much like a wine list. People were sipping and commenting on the different undertones of each sample. The dumb asses were drinking glasses of hose water that a guy was filling up in the alley.

We use the big jugs too, at least they are refillable. The main reason behind that was because the tap water in the apartment building tastes like ass. Now that we have bought a house it probably wont be used anymore.

BTW Here's the Bullshit episode.

ring · 06-30-2008, 04:26 PM

I bought a gallon of distilled water for use in my iron,
but I've found I never iron any clothing.

I think it must be a few years old.

I do like the fizzy fruit flavored mineral water mixed with juice,
but it's right up there as rare a treat as a lobster dinner.

blahblah454 · 06-30-2008, 04:26 PM

Just watched that. That was hilarious!

Charlatan · 06-30-2008, 04:34 PM

Bottled water is not only a ripoff, it's environmentally unsound. Between the plastic in the bottles and the draining of aquifers in one region and transporting it elsewhere, it isn't sustainable.

And this doesn't even get into the cost of purchasing what is essentially free (granted your tax dollars pay for municipal supply).

As for the water bottles... those of you using Nalgene, or similar products, should be aware of the possible health risk associated with certain types of plastics. The hard, clear, polycarbonate plastics like those found in many Nalgene bottles has been labelled as, "toxic to human health" by Health Canada. The thing to look for is the #7 in the recycling symbol on the bottom of your plastic bottles (most off the shelf water bottles are #1 type plastic).

Quote:

Originally Posted by wikipedia

In recent years, studies[3][4] have suggested that polycarbonate plastics such as the ones Nalgene used may leach endocrine disruptors. Nalgene denies that the quantity leached from their products posed a significant threat to health.[5] Among the secreted chemicals, Bisphenol A (BPA) is an area of concern as it binds to estrogen receptors, thus altering gene expression.[6] Other research has found that fixatives in polycarbonate plastics can cause chromosomal error in cell division called aneuploidy. Nalgene claims these chemicals are only potentially released from Nalgene products when used at temperatures outside of the designed range.

In November 2007, Mountain Equipment Co-op removed all hard, clear polycarbonate plastic water bottles (including Nalgene-branded product) from their shelves and no longer offers these items for sale. In December 2007, Lululemon made a similar move. In May 2008, REI removed Nalgene-branded polycarbonate water bottles and replaced them with BP-A free Nalgene bottles.

An alternative is available in the polyethylene versions of these products (made out of HDPE, Nalgene's traditional material), which are free of these chemicals. They can be identified by their greater flexibility, by their translucent, "milky" appearance, and by the number 2 triangular plastic recycling symbol on the bottom, rather than the number 7 on a polycarbonate bottle.

On April 18, 2008, Health Canada announced that Bisphenol A is "'toxic' to human health".[7] Canada is the first nation to make this designation.[8] On the same date Nalgene announced it would phase out production of its Outdoor line of polycarbonate containers containing the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA). Nalgene’s current product mix, includes the recently launched Everyday line and the original polycarbonate bottles made from materials that do not contain BPA.

abaya · 06-30-2008, 04:53 PM

Yeah, that whole Nalgene thing is alarming. I was one of the first wave of users, back when all they sold were the grey bottles with blue tops--that was 10+ years ago in college, and I used Nalgenes pretty much consistently since then, up until now. However, I think I only used hot water in mine once, so the temperatures were probably in the safe range most of the time... but one can't be too sure.

When we were in the US in May, ktspktsp got one of the new BPA-free bottles at REI, and I'll be getting one of those as well soon, now that I've lost my last polycarbonate Nalgene in Iceland. Hopefully nothing in there will kill us.

How many of you baby-parents out there avoid using plastic bottles for the same reason? I have some friends here who are adamant about using glass-only, because they're so afraid of what boiling the clear plastic baby bottles will do to their children (one woman goes so far as to claim that the stuff leaching out of the plastic is making boys more feminine?!?!?!).

canuckguy · 06-30-2008, 05:17 PM

I personally drink tap water at home, not filtered. I think my water tastes great but we recently had a lead water scare that the city investigated in my neighbourhood. My office is just down the road and our ceo hired a private company to come in test our water which passed.

I keep bottled water in my fridge for company but use it occasionally when i go out and don't want to carry around a reusable bottle i use if i am going out with my backpack.

edit: it just clicked that my water probably tastes good because of the lead....

I refuse to drink Dansai or Aquafina but love Fiji bottle water if I can find it (rare here).

another edit sorry: I also worry about the Nalgene bottle issue like Abaya I have used them for years.

host · 06-30-2008, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

preamble:

you see these claims that capitalism is somehow rational because of the relation of supply to demand. you see these claims that demand, somehow, runs the show.

but sometimes you look around.
you're wandering the aisles in a convenience store.
in the refrigerator between the wall of budweiser and the wall of processed cheese and meat-like products, you see 5 different kinds of bottled water.
what is this? you wonder.
why are there bottles of tap water for sale?
some of them even make fun of me--evian spelled backward.

o, but it's so much bigger than you think:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

becoming a water sommelier is my new alternate identity project.
i like the efforts to explain bottled water as magic.
magic is a little park erected in the center of downtown chumpville.

we want what we are told we want.

but i buy bottles of sparkling water.
i like the bubbles.
i say to myself: there are no bubbles in tapwater.
and that is what keeps me from recognizing the extent to which i, too, am a chump.
it is the sense of superiority enjoyed by the vast alliance of those of us who like bubbles relative to those of you who do not that explains this thread

are you a chump for bottled water as well?

roachboy, corporation dictate how we live, who we fight, who leads us, and who gets the water and the fuel, and for how much, because, even if they were to wake up:

Quote:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/0...americans.html
June 19, 2008
Most Americans are afraid to feel outrage

By Joe Bageant

....The majority of Americans do not feel a thing about these state orchestrated persecutions of their fellow citizens. They do not feel anything because they are afraid to allow themselves to feel outrage. And because their government has conditioned them not to feel public anger. There are social consequences (being an outcast) for speaking such things aloud. There are even more consequences for acting upon those feelings. The citizenry is deeply afraid of those consequences. The bottom line is that they are afraid of their government.

But as long as these citizens pretend nothing is happening, they believe they are safe. Safety, they believe, is being below the radar of officialdom, whether it be that of the IRS, immigration, or the cop in the rear view mirror. Unfortunately, both the radar and the officialdom are those of an expanding punitive surveillance state. So staying below the radar means increased cringing all your life.

Then one day it becomes impossible to cringe any lower. The boot comes down as far as possible upon the unforgiving earth. The boot begins to grind upon the people for the simple sake of grinding despotism. Much as people tend to give despotism a face and a name, despotism is not a man, not a woman, not a government. It is an atmosphere, an environment, a world granted permission to exist by people whose culture and spirit has become necrotic through fear. One whose capability for compassion, respect, reverence even, for the freedom of others, and therefore liberty, has been extinguished....

The" marketing" of water is only a symptom of a much deeper, dysfunction and denial:

Quote:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/0...ling.html#more

....After a while, the gentleman sitting next to me (to whom we had not directed any conversation) got up, started walking out, and peered at us saying, "“If we don’t fight them there, we'’ll have to fight them here."” Same old. Same old. I didn’'t reply.

Back to the bartender. Next, the only other two people there, a young couple, walked by to leave the establishment. The bartender was probably figuring at that point that we might be driving business away, but he didn'’t stop arguing with us. The young man looked our way as he was leaving, saying something (I can’'t remember exactly what) about Iraq and his having been in Iraq four times. Although I knew better, I replied with some comment about the immorality of the invasion and occupation. His wife at that point angrily kept repeating the fact that her husband had been in Iraq four times.– I guess she expected that we should thank him for that, and when we didn'’t, she was upset. The couple ended up staying in the pub, and the four of us argued debated.

Now, a few days later, I remember only three things the vet said: The old, "“If you don'’t like it here, just leave."” And, "“I hope you die before I do."” I couldn'’t– and still can'’t figure that one out. If he would have just said "“I hope you die"” I would have “gotten it.” But why is it a good thing that I die before he does?

But, then he said incredible thing and this is really why I am writing this to you. My brother and I kept asking the bartender and the couple, "Why? Why? Why are we there? Why are we doing this?" And, of course, we chimed in oil, empire, Israel. And this is what he said:

“"BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT WE DO. THAT’S WHAT AMERICA DOES. WE KILL PEOPLE.”"

I know it’s a cliché to say it, but I almost fell off my bar seat. I told him another cliché, "“You hit the nail on the head. I agree with you completely.”" I didn'’t get the feeling he was mocking us. In fact, he seemed satisfied that he came up with a reason.

He then quizzed me about the number of deaths in Iraq, Vietnam and World War Two. At first I didn'’t understand where this was going, but his point was, "Hey, only 4,000 some Americans have been killed compared to 50,000 in Vietnam." And, of course, there was absolutely no mention of the Vietnamese or Iraqi dead.

I don'’t know why this exchange continues to haunt me. I never really “talk politics” in redneck country. I even hate that we use the word “politics” to describe the concept. As you know, a lot of people like to say, "“Oh, I don'’t do politics.”" To me, that’s like saying “I don’t do life.”

At any rate, that was days ago and I am still thinking about what he said. I'’m not even angry. I never got hateful with him or his wife. I never “attacked” him personally. Maybe this stays with me because I realize my alienation from most Americans (including and especially my "liberal" friends) and my culture has reached grotesque proportions. I had already lost all hope, which I think is rational so I don'’t know why this is staying with me. Do you believe it? THAT’S WHAT WE DO. AMERICA KILLS PEOPLE.

Thanks for listening. I wanted to go to Belize before I die, but now I figure I'’ll be lucky to make it to West Virginia. I need to find a cave near a stream. I love to read emails from your fans. One email from a fan of yours stays with me. This one I have saved:

“"As a weirdo and a life-long contrarian, I can say that it isn't easy to go against the herd, and the pay and hours suck. You lose much of your social interaction since you don't have much to talk about with other people once you stop believing in the collective mass-hypnosis."”

Best to you.

Paulette

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/0..._from_ame.html

...There are rumors that Aljazeera may yet come to American television. Hard to imagine, but let's hope so. It may not even be possible to hold the jack rabbit attention spans of most Americans with full context news, or full context anything for that matter. Yet I'd be willing to bet that if more of Americans were exposed to AJ's world coverage, especially the second and third worlds, people would respond. Not a majority of Americans, mind you, because most of us are too poorly read and uneducated to care. Even so, we're not completely heartless, just kept blind and ignorant through the media's relentless strip mining of our culture.

When you are among the Garibano, a people whose culture is relatively intact, the American marketplace's stripping of culture and it's commoditization of human experience is glaring. Even more so for the fact that it goes unnoticed by our citizens. Try to rally Americans against corporations and all you get is a blank, flat response. Their entire lives have been spent watching smiley face media presentations of giant corporations. They constitute our entire cultural landscape and average Americans cannot imagine the corporations that provide them with goods, services and jobs as being bad in any way. With particular thanks to television and the capitalist state's ethos, corporations are now seamlessly interwoven into our deepest identities, both personal and national. Consequently, while I was watching Howard Zinn, back in the states the National Geographic channel was running television specials on the Harley Davidson factory and the Peterbuilt truck plant, narrated in patriotic tones very much resembling the old Soviet Russian domestic propaganda and Chinese "people's films." In the U.S. television industry, these shows are categorized as "educational," though their purpose is the same as the Reich's 1930s productions -- to attach the people's identity to the "ingenuity and raw power" of the American fatherland to create pride in the accomplishments of the corporate state, and ultimately, to perceive consumption as triumphal......

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/1...plentiful.html
Dear Dermot,

Thank you for the link to the solar stills. Actually, I may have given the wrong impression about water there. There's plenty of water. The village well, with proper upgrade and conscientious maintenance, would probably serve residents' needs for some time to come. But it doesn't seem to get that from the couple of guys in charge, neither of whom has any training in such matters, according to the best newspaper in Belize, the Liberator, published by political and cultural activist Michael Flores of Hopkins Village. While I was there a couple thousand dollars of public money was spent on very misguided repairs, whether purposefully misguided or simple ignorance, I do not know. I cannot pretend to understand the intricate subtleties of village life and politics.

But I do understand capitalism. And I do know that now that the bottled water people have their hooks into the locals, they are not likely to let go easily of those with the money to pay for it. And those who've learned to depend upon bottled water deliveries cannot unlearn their dependency very easily. Hell, look at what we have become in this country.

At any rate, with Hopkins being developed by first worlders, demands for water are bound to increase. And with the privatization of water nearly everywhere in the third world, how long can it be until the public well becomes a prize for a developer, or whatever? Especially if it is currently being neglected, with regard to the future. I don't think people there understand the pressure that will be put on water resources in the future by development. No matter. It is not my business to interfere with their lives and community. But I cannot help but think about these things, having seen them happen elsewhere in similar situations.

On the other hand, individual collection of rainwater from rooftops into standing tanks and cisterns has served many in Belize for over 100 years, and still does. And there is certainly plently of rain during certain parts of the year to be collected, provided one has the roof area to collect enough. Just like here, people do not favor it, but it does work well if done properly.

So, with Luke and Marzy's permission, I will hopefully install rainwater collection to capitalize on the metal roofing of existing structures. For now it can be used for showers, if nothing else. Or watering a small garden, or whatever. But at least it will be there when and if it is needed, requiring no pumps, no electricity, just gravity and god's goodwill toward man in the form of rain. At the same time, Luke may have very good reasons why it's not worth doing, or shouldn't be done. They know their world by the sea far better than I can ever hope to.

In brotherhood,

Joe

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/0...the_blue_.html

There are superficial people everywhere, but a whole section of the human soul is simply missing in Americans. Most foreigners can never understand it unless they have lived inside America's total dominance of the material slave-state -- Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
-- Gui Rochat

By Joe Bageant

Once one becomes aware of that babies die in the third world as an indirect result of our simplest choices such as buying Ziploc plastic bags or bottled water or driving a car, life changes for any approximately moral American. Restlessness sets in, a nagging guilt that only swells with time until finally night thoughts grow so damned anxious that something has to be done. It's been that way with me for a long time. About a year ago I decided to do something more about it than pat myself on the back for recycling the mountain of bottles and unread magazines our household seems to generate. So last fall I vowed to find a decent third world family and put up the money to do something together to better their lives and my own. The issue was so unbearable by spring this year that, by god, I was determined to get it done....

...Rommel drives on deep into Hopkins

Fortunately for my quest in Belize, fate is sometimes expedient. It was on the balcony of the Belcove that I found family I had come looking for. A Garifuna (also known as Black Carib) couple sat in the darkness. And as I listened to them talk I actually had tears in my eyes, such was their plain honesty and dignity in their obvious poverty and mutual love. An hour later I knew they were the people I'd come to meet -- Luke and Marzlyn Castillo.

A couple of days later I was in their home village of Hopkins, originally settled by descendents of escapees from a West African slave ship run aground in 1635. Having escaped, the Garifuna people have never been slaves and are proud of it. Soon I was sleeping in their 600-square foot house with ten other family members, six children, a cousin and a friend who met up with me at the hotel, and enjoying every minute of it, every human sound and smell of a natural boisterous native Caribbean household. Roosters crowed outside and pots rattled and kids squalled inside.

The next couple of weeks showed the village life to be both inspiring and somewhat heartbreaking at times. Days are sleepy and blissful. Time for the most part vanishes and only the hard bright sun and the sea prevail. Chickens wander the lanes and the babies roll and play with one another amicably. It is well-known here that children nursed by ganja smoking mothers are more easygoing and socially adjusted. And why shouldn't they be? It's hard to imagine anything better than a toke and a tit rolled into one. (Obvious as this is to anyone with common sense, it has nevertheless been supported in a study by Dean of the University of Massachusetts College of Nursing, Dr. Melanie Dreher, as well as a research by United Nations health workers.)

Life revolves around the kitchen table and the blue mango tree in the back yard. During the day when it is hot we sit under the "beeg mongo" where a stiff sea breeze always blows. So there are almost no insects. The skeeters can't grab any skin as they blow by on their way inland to Belmopan. In the evening we wash the sand off the kids with a hose and soap and go inside to cook coco root (which is rather like a potato and also known as arrowroot) in coconut milk with sweet pepper and onion. And of course fish of every imaginable kind.

Getting back to get back to that project I came to accomplish, it turned out to be a dwelling. With some cash on my part, Luke is building a traditional Belizean cabana. It sits six feet up on strong posts facing the ocean so it can catch the breeze at night, and has a bath and a balcony from which one can look across Hopkins or down on the children playing under the fruit trees. Luke and Marzy will rent it out to eco-tourists for extra income. We've agreed that he not charge more than $15 a night. That way students and retired folks on small budgets can afford to stay there. This may sound like small bucks but it will more than double the family income. And if this old fat gringo comes to visit, he can stay in it as long as he wants, sleep late, write, and play guitar on the balcony. If it happens to be rented at the time, then I sleep on the family couch until it is available. And if I choose to retire in Hopkins or am driven there by the upcoming US economic collapse, then I build them a second one to replace the lost income of the first.

No paperwork is involved. Luke Castillo owns the house. Period. No legal stuff, no bullshit lawyers. We looked each other in then eye from two different worlds and shook on it. At some point good men the world over must trust one another. It only takes one look at both our faces to know which one of us has the most corrupted soul. I am lucky to have his trust, not the other way around.

In any money relationship there is power involved when one party has all the dough. For the first week I worked hard at trying to convince them that I am not rich, which was ridiculous because any American is rich by village standards. So I finally said, "Just think of me as a rich American uncle then." This is more comprehensible since many Belizeans have relatives in the US sending back money. So now I am Uncle Joey and we call what we do a partnership. For me though, it is more like having a new son and daughter and best of all, grandkids at last.

To be perfectly straight with you, what I get out of it is a feeling of direct accomplishment that a man can never have in this country. We just picked something and did it. And it got done for a mere $5,000 US. First the posts, then the floor. Being a working man in America means that, no matter how much you earn or how hard you work, it is never enough and the job is never done. Never do you feel the immediate satisfaction, much less security, from your labors as a citizen of the empire. Pay and work and grind and pay some more as everything drags on forever extracting ever increasing sums of money just to hang onto what you've already paid for. And always there is the specter of retirement and all the geet that is supposed to require. When I was a kid I read an article that said a person needed $50,000 in savings to be safe in retirement. Not long ago I read a money magazine column that said a million was not quite enough. I have no doubt that I could easily live in Hopkins for about $400 a month -- double what Luke supports a family of eight on -- and manage to have some left over for rum, guitar strings and a little ganja. ....

.....Not that shopping is a leisure activity as it is in the States. There is little work left fishing and employment at the resort is a tainted blessing. On one hand it feeds the family, but barely so at $1 to $1.50 an hour US. Groceries and commodities are no cheaper here than in the US because they are shipped from the US. So Luke cares for his family of eight on about $50 a week US. Electricity alone takes one week's pay and drinking water takes nearly another, and telephone takes another, a telephone being a necessity when you have a boss at the resort, no car, etc. So that leaves $50-$60 US for food for eight. It also leaves nothing for clothing, soap etc. Somehow though, they manage to come up with the things they need. They remain proud enough, and even with so little they are generous to a fault.

Said generosity does not come easy when you pay proportionately as much of your income for mere drinking water as Americans do for major utilities. As in much if the third world, drinking water here is controlled by foreign criminal syndicates incorporated in Canada, France or the US. It costs about two dollars for five gallons, now that water has been effectively privatized by the very companies that sell you and me bottled water in the States. Crystal, is the big one here and none of Luke's six children can so much as wet their lips without paying Crystal for it. Washing and bathing are done with raunchy water from the village well, which suspiciously has been allowed to become fetid. The heavy concrete cap has been left open for ages so the bugs, dead mice and slime could accumulate. The town's three water maintenance guys, who, besides having not one lick of training, are lackeys of the rotten PUP political party now in power. Wanna bet that Crystal is a contributor to PUP? Still, political corruption is not as bad in the US, just more obvious, and is not institutionalized as it is in America. Belizian democracy, sloppy though it be, is still effective. Belizians have kicked crooked administrations out on their asses before and PUP will be thrown out in the next election. This ain't Ohio. Votes still count here.

Luke and Marzy are among the finest young couples in the village, moreover middle class by local standards. They have a TV, a small Commie-chink-made washing machine that amounts to a sloshing plastic bucket with an electric motor. They own a small fridge and a microwave. Such displays of wealth are sure signs of connivance to some of the village's old farts.

Unarguably Garifuna culture is being destroyed by these small luxuries, particularly processed foods from "the Chinaman's store" down the road, especially television, which the kids watch in the mornings before school. Television surely has something to do with the Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret magazine ads clipped out and pasted on the Castillo family's cottage walls. And in the background of everything there are the village's practitioners of the Dugu religion, which is fascinating and scary African stuff whose ceremonies are conducted in long dark thatched buildings wherein pigs are sacrificed at night amid smoke and drumming as the dead come back to instruct the living. Some Dugu practitioners believe the whites are stealing the soul of the Garifuna and they are right. I have seen it myself in Luke's children as the television spins its pornographic consumer holograms in their minds. Already they understand deep inside that without an X-box they are nothing. .......

....The little old man makes his living going for cigarettes, beer or anything else tourists are seeking (except whores.) Locals call him The Gentleman of Principle. "Because he is a man of the old school?" I asked the Hindu grocer on the corner. "No, my brother" the Hindu answers. "He is called that because he will always return with your beer and the right change." The Gentleman of Principal, Mr. Harris is a Creole man of the old school who has seen governments rise and fall, chopped banana stalks, picked oranges and waited on the tables of diplomats. He knows plenty. Enough that, out of respect, I felt obliged to share a drink with him and buy him a pack of smokes. Thus we sat on the wooden steps talking and after his initial gentlemanly reserve was lifted by a couple shots of Old Masters overproof rum the conversation turned to my people, the Americans.

"Americans hab only one eye," he said.

"One eye?"

"Jah. Dey see only what anudda man do not own. And dey look upon demselves wid great pride because dey own so many things. Den dey go on to de next man to see what he does not own dat dey own. Americans here got big pride in demselves cause most of us got nothing."

"Someday the other eye is going to open."

"Maybe in hebben. Maybe when dey die and God pry dey eye open wid his own finger. But right now dey living in de false light."

On my first day back at work I proudly showed the pictures of my new Belizian family to a co-worker, pictures of the children playing under the blue mango tree, Marzy with the baby of the family, Little Luke, on her hip by the tiny cottage in the sand. The co-worker looked at them carefully, then looked up at me and said, "I just don't see how people can live like that!"

Perhaps one day, if she is very lucky, God will pry her eye open "wid his own finger."

Joe Bageant is one of the few lucky ones, he is living in Belize now. I am not that far from retirement age, and more and more, I'm thinking of joining him...

snowy · 06-30-2008, 07:55 PM

I don't drink bottled water. To tell you the truth, I don't often drink straight-up water unless it has bubbles in it. When I do drink it's out of the bottle for my bicycle, and it comes from the tap. My city just won a local award for best tasting water, competing against other cities in the area. But I have definitely been places--like Nevada and Arizona--where I wouldn't drink the tap water. It just tastes gross. I've been spoiled by good water my entire life; I grew up in an area with a community well, and even in the suburbs of Portland the water is quite tasty. Where I live now the water is 60% pumped out of the Willamette River (it's still clean where my town is on it), 40% from a creek in the Coast Range. Sometimes I run it through the Brita pitcher, but that's mostly just to have super cold water waiting for me in the fridge on a hot hot day.

smoore · 06-30-2008, 09:06 PM

Bottled water should only be used for emergencies. If you are stockpiling for your own emergencies you can use 2 drops/gal of tap water to stabilize the stuff so it'll store 3-4 months easy. Doesn't even taste bad after a month.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

pig id be careful if i was you..

i do recall reading somewhere that the pvc in water bottles break down releasing some cancer causing agents or something along those lines.

im sure of it. i read it a year ago. ill see if i can dig it up. maybe some googlefreak here could find it

The problem with those store-bought water bottles isn't the plastic, it's the shape. Specifically the corrugations. They can trap bacteria and allow nasty stuff to grow inside. Simple cleanliness should work for a couple months. Backwash is bad, basically.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lasereth

I absolutely cannot drink the tap water where I live. It tastes like rot and death and minerals combined. It's undrinkable to me. So I confess that I......

....DO NOT BUY BOTTLED WATER BECAUSE IT'S A FUCKING RIPOFF!!!! I have a Brita water dispenser in my refrigerator that we fill up every 2 days with the rotten tap water and it comes out tasting like Zeus shared his cup with us. It's super cold and super fresh and super clean. My wife fills up a bottle with this filtered tap water.

There is no excuse to buying bottled water unless you're at a convenience store dying of thirst and you don't want to buy a soft drink. And even then you're getting ripped off because diet mountain dew doesn't come out of a faucet.

Arizona Iced Tea is my favorite. It's cheaper than water and has sugar in it. If I'm that hard up for a drink I usually need some sugar too.

re: the Nalgene scare: Oh please. BPE is a part of that plastic, no doubt. It comes out of the plastic when you boil water and put it in the bottles. Bottom line? You shouldn't let your Nalgene get hot in the car and then drink THAT water. On another note, if you're a serious climber you should use stainless steel bottles. But you already knew that, being a serious climber.

NALGENE IS FINE FOR GENERAL USE. Too bad the Nalgene company jumped on the BPE bandwagon and discontinued the manufacture of that bottle. I know 40 year male users who haven't grown tits yet.

Oh yeah, don't use bottles containing BPE to microwave your baby's formula in, either.

If anyone has any of these "banned" Nalgene bottles (1L preferably but 0.5L might be cool too) who wants to send it to me for the price of shipping, I will gladly receive it. I only have two of them and would like a lifetime supply.

06-30-2008, 05:05 AM	#2 (permalink)
little_tippler Leaning against the -Sun- Super Moderator Location: on the other side	I drink a special kind of water - the brand is Del Cano Tap water here is pretty great so that's what I do. I buy some bottled water at work, but it only costs me 21 cents a bottle (1.5 l) at the very cheap supermarket on our doorstep. That would be 33 cents in the States. I'll drink water from the tap if it tastes good...water does have a taste, sometimes it is more noticeable than others. I think for people who are very sensitive to the taste of water and have the money to spend, I don't see why they shouldn't at least be helped by a water list that describes each one. A sommelier...that's taking it a little too far. Certain waters don't agree with people also, sensitive stomachs and all that. I have friends living in London who tell me the tap water in certain areas gives them weird symptoms later, and also it tastes funny. So they don't drink tap water. There's also the case of being poisoned by tap water, which has occurred ocasionally in some places (some toxic product being discharged into the water supply or water that hasn't been duly processed getting to taps in peoples' homes), but then I have also heard cases with tap water of a similar nature. I think it's silly to pay ridiculous amounts of money for "special" water. I'm happy with tap water. But I also think that in the future we may have to pay to be able to obtain it...and that's a far more serious situation. __________________ Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. Fernando Pessoa, 1918

06-30-2008, 05:28 AM	#3 (permalink)
pig pigglet pigglet Location: Locash	I typically buy a big ass bottle of water, and then refill it for as long as I can manage not to lose it. I think it's hilarious that people buy scads and pallets of bottled water to bring home and take up 1/3 of the fridge, when they can just get a glass and some ice and have a nice cold drink of water. And I agree with you rb: water sommelier has a nice ring to it. I think I might have to use that at the next "getting to know you" type of dinner I go to - with the addition of discussing the "mouthfeel" of the different waters. __________________ You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

06-30-2008, 06:12 AM	#8 (permalink)
Psycho Dad Mulletproof Location: Some nucking fut house.	People claim that the tap water where I live is pretty nasty. Nevertheless, I can't tell much difference between it and most bottled water. I'd suspect in blind taste tests, those willing to pay up to have some schmuck pair the water they are drinking with their meal can't either. __________________ Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

06-30-2008, 06:16 AM	#9 (permalink)
Leto Junkie Location: The Danforth	We have a supply of bottled water in our basement, primarily for the use as a travel convenience, in the car, as an option to purchasing over-priced drinks in convenience stores. Also, since pop is not a drink that our family favours, there is no other portable option with the exception of coffee. Our second reason for the supply of bottle water is for emergency preparedness. There's always a certain level of Litres/person on supply for the 72 hour recommendation in the event that we have an emergency situation. So anytime a flat of 24 bottles goes on sale, we top up our supply. The tap water in Toronto, is fairly decent. I like it, but definitely prefer the taste from the bathroom faucet versus the kitchen faucet. And on a hot day, cold water right out of the garden hose... magical! Last edited by Leto; 06-30-2008 at 06:17 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

06-30-2008, 08:42 AM	#10 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	well played lemon.. i knew you'd come through __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

06-30-2008, 05:49 AM	#4 (permalink)
BadNick Riding the Ocean Spray Location: S.E. PA in U Sofa	One of the aspects of the bottled water industry that pisses me off is giving rights to the bottled water company to pump large amounts of water out of natural aquafirs, which I consider to be a publically owned resource in most cases...even if the pumping is on private property, to me it's like a river flowing through your property that you usually don't have right to stop, use up, etc. In the U.S. I noticed the bottled water industry growing rapidly after stories about pathogens and harmful chemicals being in the water supply became more of a publically discussed issue. In other parts of the world, the utility water supply is so bad that the water is not even safe to drink, so logically bottled water and filtering systems were more in demand in those areas even before the more recent growth of the bottled water industry. I have no doubt that the utility water supply in a lot of areas of the world can at least have a very bad taste, and at worst chemicals or pathogens. Where I live the tap water is quite good, tastes smooth due to low mineral content, so I often drink it right from the tap; we also have an appropriate filter on the water feeding our refrigerator ice maker and water dispenser. I'm sure some mineral content can be good for you, but most high mineral waters taste horrible to me. Like where I work the water tastes horrible due to very high mineral content...I don't know if it's harmful but it tastes really bad, so we have filtered water going to water coolers and ice makers. In most municipalities it seems that there is already a charge for tap water in one of the taxes we pay. Where I live it is specifically charged by the utility water company; other places it's included in some other kind of tax. But it costs a lot of money to maintain the infrastructure to deliver clean water, as well as to treat and/or get rid of wastewater/sewage, and that has to be paid for one way or another. In my family we buy some bottled water on a regular basis. When we're in the car and stop at a convenience store and the kids are thirsty, and we didn't plan ahead to carry water with us, they often buy bottled water. One of my boys thinks Fuji water tastes the best so I let him buy it, though I haven't noted much difference in my casual sampling.

06-30-2008, 06:09 AM	#6 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Fiji water is one particularly glaring example of the absurdity of this. The brand is built around cleanliness, stylishness, and environmentalism. But the bottles are made in China and shipped to the beautiful island of Fiji (where locals routinely suffer from a lack of clean drinking water). The source water is drawn from a volcanic artesian well that is not renewable. Then it's shipped to the US (mainly) for sale. A finished product--a one liter bottle of Fiji Water takes 26 liters of water and a kilogram of fossil fuel to make, and creates over one pound of CO2. By ounce, certain beer is now cheaper than certain water OR gasoline. So screw driving to work--let's just drink beer all day!

06-30-2008, 09:00 AM	#11 (permalink)
Lasereth Knight of the Old Republic Location: Winston-Salem, NC	I absolutely cannot drink the tap water where I live. It tastes like rot and death and minerals combined. It's undrinkable to me. So I confess that I...... ....DO NOT BUY BOTTLED WATER BECAUSE IT'S A FUCKING RIPOFF!!!! I have a Brita water dispenser in my refrigerator that we fill up every 2 days with the rotten tap water and it comes out tasting like Zeus shared his cup with us. It's super cold and super fresh and super clean. My wife fills up a bottle with this filtered tap water. There is no excuse to buying bottled water unless you're at a convenience store dying of thirst and you don't want to buy a soft drink. And even then you're getting ripped off because diet mountain dew doesn't come out of a faucet.

06-30-2008, 09:37 AM	#13 (permalink)
lotsofmagnets Upright Location: reykjavík, iceland	the water here smells like fart (well ok, the cold water doesn´t) but i don´t see much demand for bottled water (there are people who may correct me on this.) there are a couple of "iceland" brand waters for sale but i think they sell for extremely cheap. __________________ mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor. she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron. physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

06-30-2008, 10:03 AM	#15 (permalink)
PonyPotato Soaring Location: Ohio!	I don't buy bottled water. I buy generic powerade/gatorade and refill the bottles with water when I need it, or (gasp!) use my 3 nalgene water bottles for the same purpose. Yes, I like filtered water better than tap water.. but mostly because it's colder since I have a filter jug that goes in the fridge. I still drink tap water a lot.. at least a cup every time I brush my teeth or use the toilet, and more to take my vitamins and such. I drink out of the garden hose during the summer, so I'm not one to be snobby about water taste. __________________ "Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark." — Henri-Frédéric Amiel

06-30-2008, 10:42 AM	#18 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I used to use Fiji, but I've recently simply used my reverse osmisisizd water in a water bottle instead. It's bigger and it's reusable. And I can be sure of the quality of water.

06-30-2008, 10:58 AM	#22 (permalink)
CinnamonGirl She's Actual Size Location: Central Republic of Where-in-the-Hell	I used to buy bottled water pretty often. I didn't like the taste of our tap water, and I didn't want to buy soda or juice at school/gas stations/wherever. Then I realized how much I was spending. Not only that, but the number of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills instead of being recycled was disgusting (to me, anyway.) Soooo...I bought a Brita pitcher. It's absolutely wonderful, and like lasereth said, it makes the yucky tapwater taste like awesome (well, I'm paraphrasing a bit ) Then I bought a hard plastic water bottle that I carry with me all the time. I save money, I don't have to go on a scavenger hunt for a recycling bin, and I get cold, yummy water. Everybody wins. (and by everybody, I mean me.) __________________ "...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world." "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

06-30-2008, 12:53 PM	#23 (permalink)
blahblah454 Let's put a smile on that face Location: On the road...	The tap water where I live tastes absolutely disgusting and it smells terrible. I generally will buy a huge 40 pack of 500ml water bottles from Costco for about $5.00. Its handy and it has no fluoride in it. Then when I run out of water I simply fill them all back up from filtered tap water and keep using them! Mind you the bottles are only for when I am out, when I am at home I use my water filter. Paying more than about 40 cents per bottle of water sounds outlandishly expensive to me.

06-30-2008, 01:08 PM	#24 (permalink)
BadNick Riding the Ocean Spray Location: S.E. PA in U Sofa	Don't fret about filling up the landfills with clear plastic water bottles...a new trend is emerging.

06-30-2008, 01:09 PM	#25 (permalink)
JumpinJesus Junkie Location: Chicago	I too like bubbles in my water, but I also like a bit of fruit juice in it as well. As for pretentiousness? Well, that's just an ugly, ugly mode of operation. __________________ "I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

06-30-2008, 01:14 PM	#26 (permalink)
Hain has a plan Location: middle of Whywouldanyonebethere	I had a plant that I watered with some of the water I had in my bottles. When I started using tap, the plant started dying. Did I keep buying bottled water? No, I bought a purifier... easy as that. __________________ ////\\// IRONSKY.NET \\//\\\\

06-30-2008, 01:38 PM	#27 (permalink)
lotsofmagnets Upright Location: reykjavík, iceland	that´s one fussy plant you have there. did you only water it with evian water? __________________ mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor. she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron. physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

06-30-2008, 01:40 PM	#28 (permalink)
shesus Fancy Location: Chicago	We used to buy bottled water and the gallon jugs of water when we lived in Phoenix. The water there is horrible or at least it was in our apartment. I hated spending money for water and creating the extra garbage so we bought a Brita water filter and 36 oz sport water bottles. We saved a ton of money and a ton of bottles going to the landfill. Penn and Teller did a Bullshit show on bottled water. It was hilarious. They got a bunch of pretentious people in a Water Bar and offered a water menu with descriptions, much like a wine list. People were sipping and commenting on the different undertones of each sample. The dumb asses were drinking glasses of hose water that a guy was filling up in the alley. Water bottles are a convenience, but an overpriced one. I always grab the cheapest one when I'm out and no other options are available. __________________ Whatever did happen to your soul? I heard you sold it Choose Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company

06-30-2008, 04:26 PM	#31 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	I bought a gallon of distilled water for use in my iron, but I've found I never iron any clothing. I think it must be a few years old. I do like the fizzy fruit flavored mineral water mixed with juice, but it's right up there as rare a treat as a lobster dinner.

06-30-2008, 04:26 PM	#32 (permalink)
blahblah454 Let's put a smile on that face Location: On the road...	Just watched that. That was hilarious!

06-30-2008, 04:53 PM	#34 (permalink)
abaya Location: Iceland	Yeah, that whole Nalgene thing is alarming. I was one of the first wave of users, back when all they sold were the grey bottles with blue tops--that was 10+ years ago in college, and I used Nalgenes pretty much consistently since then, up until now. However, I think I only used hot water in mine once, so the temperatures were probably in the safe range most of the time... but one can't be too sure. When we were in the US in May, ktspktsp got one of the new BPA-free bottles at REI, and I'll be getting one of those as well soon, now that I've lost my last polycarbonate Nalgene in Iceland. Hopefully nothing in there will kill us. How many of you baby-parents out there avoid using plastic bottles for the same reason? I have some friends here who are adamant about using glass-only, because they're so afraid of what boiling the clear plastic baby bottles will do to their children (one woman goes so far as to claim that the stuff leaching out of the plastic is making boys more feminine?!?!?!). __________________ And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran

06-30-2008, 05:17 PM	#35 (permalink)
canuckguy I read your emails. Location: earth	I personally drink tap water at home, not filtered. I think my water tastes great but we recently had a lead water scare that the city investigated in my neighbourhood. My office is just down the road and our ceo hired a private company to come in test our water which passed. I keep bottled water in my fridge for company but use it occasionally when i go out and don't want to carry around a reusable bottle i use if i am going out with my backpack. edit: it just clicked that my water probably tastes good because of the lead.... I refuse to drink Dansai or Aquafina but love Fiji bottle water if I can find it (rare here). another edit sorry: I also worry about the Nalgene bottle issue like Abaya I have used them for years. Last edited by canuckguy; 06-30-2008 at 05:21 PM..

06-30-2008, 07:55 PM	#37 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	I don't drink bottled water. To tell you the truth, I don't often drink straight-up water unless it has bubbles in it. When I do drink it's out of the bottle for my bicycle, and it comes from the tap. My city just won a local award for best tasting water, competing against other cities in the area. But I have definitely been places--like Nevada and Arizona--where I wouldn't drink the tap water. It just tastes gross. I've been spoiled by good water my entire life; I grew up in an area with a community well, and even in the suburbs of Portland the water is quite tasty. Where I live now the water is 60% pumped out of the Willamette River (it's still clean where my town is on it), 40% from a creek in the Coast Range. Sometimes I run it through the Brita pitcher, but that's mostly just to have super cold water waiting for me in the fridge on a hot hot day. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau