The showdown: To bottle or not to bottle
Often times, professors, crazy Greenpeace representatives who stand in front of McKeldin Library, friends who major in environmental science, random posters and articles in liberal newspapers can leave you feeling depressed and overwhelmed with the enormity of today’s environmental problems. I remember taking those classes, having those conversations with those Greenpeace people and reading those random posters hanging on a bulletin board that no one else read. That is why I am offering a few simple steps that can be taken to reduce your environmental footprint, prevent harmful chemicals from entering your body and help keep our water accessible and clean.
Here it is: Get a reusable water bottle and fill it up with tap water. Repeat. Then never buy bottled water again.
Some people I know spend $5 on a bottle of Fiji water. I see people all the time carrying these huge packs of water bottles across the campus. I also see all the water bottles that are lying on the grass, in the flower beds and on LaPlata Beach. Bottled water is one of the stupidest products ever created – worse than the pet rock and the Chia Obama – because it is purely a marketing value-added product that creates way too many environmental and health problems from cradle to grave.
But bottled water is so much healthier, isn’t it? The marketing campaigns for Dasani, Poland Spring, Deer Park and Fiji have done a great job getting people to believe bottled water is actually better than tap water. Think about the words used by advertisers and marketers to describe bottled water: healthy, crisp, clear, refreshing, pure, spring and natural. These words give the impression that bottled water is this glorious drink, while water from the tap is sub-par. Yet it is estimated that 70 percent of all bottled water goes unregulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This should be especially concerning because the inexpensive plastic used in the making of the disposable bottles can leach harmful chemicals into our bodies.
On a macro scale, bottled water companies are having an even bigger, potentially more harmful effect. Water is, according to some media outlets and scholars, the “blue gold” of the 21st century. In the last 20 years, bottled water companies have started buying water rights, acts which have raised prices and hurt farming regions in some countries. Many people believe clean and safe drinking water is the most basic of human rights – which makes it all the more absurd to let a handful of multinational corporations monopolize this most precious of resources.
So what can one do to save money, help the planet and stay healthy? Start off with a small step that has a major benefit – ditch bottled water and switch to resuseable water bottles. Your body, the Earth and billions of people around the globe will thank you.
http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinion/the-showdown-to-bottle-or-not-to-bottle-1.1650462
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