USA Water Filter Blog

“Why would we have to buy bottled water if it wasn’t better than tap water?” he said.

LIke many others, Pirolozzi said he thought botted water was healthier than tap water because it costs more. The bottled water industry has yearly sales ranging between $50 billion to $100 billion worldwide, according to mnn.com.

Advertisements represent it as being a healthy alternative to tap water. It is bottled to be aesthetically pleasing, with one brand’s bottle shaped like a drop of water with a gold cap.

But Michelle Van Dyke, a community relations coordinator for the Hillsborough County Public Utilities Department, said bottled water is “one of the biggest marketing scams of this past century.”

“Our water costs half a penny a gallon,” said Van Dyke of Hillsborough County tap water. “When I was out with my family the other weekend, I had to buy a 16 ounce bottle of water and it cost me $2.50.”

The nationwide average cost of tap water is 0.002 cents per gallon, though consumers spend around 1,900 times as much to drink bottled water, which is about $3.80 per gallon. Those who buy bottled water in 16 ounce containers, which cost an average of $1.50, spend around 6,000 times as much money, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The price of bottled water could be defendable if consumers gained something from the extra charge. But ConnieMizak, a USF professor in the department of Geography, Environment and Planning, said that has yet to be proven.

“There is no empirical evidence that bottled water is cleaner than tap water … There’s a lot of money being made on a resource that is available to all of us out of our faucets. It is a scheme, essentially,” she said. “The scary part is that, while municipal water is regulated by the EPA and has to meet the Safe Drinking Water Act standards, bottled water is regulated by the FDA and, under these rules, if bottled water is produced in a state and that product never crosses state boundaries to be sold, then it’s exempt from any regulations.”

http://www.usforacle.com/blowing-the-lid-off-bottled-water-1.2670234#.TtyfZGOVrUA

http://www.usforacle.com/blowing-the-lid-off-bottled-water-1.2670234#.TtyfZGOVrUA

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Eight Antioch University New England students are urging people to choose tap over bottled water as part of the national “Think Outside of the Bottle” campaign.

Nearly 400 Antioch faculty, staff and students have signed a pledge to do so.

 

The organizing students are asking that bottled water not be sold at Antioch or purchased for Antioch events and that access to tap water be made easier. Bottled water generates waste and is no better than tap water, according to tap advocates.

In support of the campaign, the university’s library hosted daily showings last week of the documentary “Tapped,” about bottled water’s effect on health, climate change, pollution, and oil dependance.

The national campaign is coordinated by Corporate Accountability International. At Antioch, it’s a service learning project for the fall’s Organizing for Social Change course taught by Steve Chase, Antioch’s director of advocacy for social justice and sustainability.

http://sentinelsource.com/features/education/antioch-students-campaign-against-bottled-water/article_e7b1261b-f93e-5fcf-9415-8a047a89e0a7.html

 

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The Health Ministry has designated this coming week ‘National Water Week’ and the question they want you to ask yourself each time you pick up a bottle of water, whether on the street or in a restaurant is, ‘How safe it it?”

Nowadays, water comes with a label and a price. With people caught in the constant rush of work, bottled water is sometimes seen as a quick and easy option to quench one’s thirst. So far, the SLS certification is considered the guarantee that the bottled water you buy is safe. The SLS mark is what you really have to look out for, and not the curves and contours of the bottle or the fancy label. Of the current 120 registered companies, 80 have received the SLS standard, which requires stringent quality practices.

In addition, consumers must look out for the Health Ministry registration number, the source of the product and obviously indicators such as date of manufacture and expiry. “Every bottled water manufacturer has to abide by our regulations, unconditionally,” says H. Tilakarathna, Assistant Director of the Food Control Administration Unit. “Before a company can start manufacture, they need to get the water source approved, a sample should be sent to the Water Board for testing, and a 100 feet perimeter around the source should be clear of any intervention such as human waste lines.”

 

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Starting January 1st you won’t be able to purchase bottled water at any of the city of Brandon’s facilities.

Council passed a resolution to that effect Monday. Councilor Stephen Montague was the one to present the motion after Brandon University stopped selling bottled water while he served as student union president a few years ago. He was asked if there was much discussion on this topic around the council table.

Montague adds with Brandon being the largest municipality in Manitoba to be bottle water free, along with BU to be the third university in Canada to impose the same rule, it puts Manitoba as a leader in this initiative and an area the whole country can look to for examples of progressive leadership.

http://www.portageonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24834&Itemid=468

 

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Garbage in Ontario is a mess.

Durham and York are building a controversial incinerator to burn 140,000 tonnes of garbage a year.

On Nov. 7, the provincial Ministry of the Environment gave the go-ahead for Orgaworld — the facility that processes Ottawa’s organic waste — to accept diapers, dog waste and compostable plastic bags but the City of Ottawa has yet to give the green light.

Simcoe County — a community that attracts vacationers and retirees — faces a dire situation with less than six years of life left for three of its four landfills.

Communities are flailing as they try to manage waste within their own borders. Some are already sending garbage out of town. Some are still working on setting waste diversion targets. Others are revising them. And some like the Region of Waterloo don’t have waste diversion targets at all.

http://www.yourottawaregion.com/news/article/1256102–the-hefty-cost-of-landfills

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What symbolic role should America’s national parks play in promoting environmental stewardship and sustainability in front of hundreds of millions of visitors a year?

National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis is determined to rid plastic bottles from the national parks, but wants to consider all factors before doing so, the agency’s communications chief said today while addressing the uproar over the director’s decision to put a hold on a water bottle ban at Grand Canyon National Park.

“Jon Jarvis wants to get rid of water bottles in parks. That’s the goal. We want to do this,” David Barna said. “The issue with Grand Canyon is it’s such a big park and it sets such a big precedent.”

The issue, though, has taken on the appearance of dollars and cents, the dollars being those made by concessionaires and bottling companies and even those donated to the National Park Foundation. It also has led to a petition drive on change.org, where more than 94,000 people have signed a petition in support of a ban.

Internal Park Service documents (see attachments) obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility seem to indicate that corporate dollars played a larger role in the director’s decision than concerns over visitor safety and the Park Service’s intent to be a national leader in sustainability, says PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/12/looking-national-park-services-goal-eliminate-plastic-bottles9116

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For those who live in the Great Lakes region, water is seen—quite literally—as an abundant resource. A massive body of water is but a short walk or drive. We turn on the tap and water flows from the faucet. The lake churns severe winter weather. Surely, we need not worry about this vast resource in our own backyard, right?

Wrong, says a prominent Canadian activist who brought her message to UB on Tuesday as part of “Fluid Culture,” a free, year-long lecture, arts and media series presented by the Humanities Institute.

“That basic message is that we have a world in crisis, that we have a world running out of clean water, which is something we were all taught as children was not possible,” Maude Barlow said during a press briefing Tuesday afternoon in the Center for Tomorrow, North Campus. “We have polluted and mismanaged and, most importantly, extracted and displaced water around the world to an alarming extent.”

http://usafiltration.com/blog/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post

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Bottled water: It harms our environment, uses up our dwindling natural resources and uses up our college tuition money. Gustavus and its students can help put an end to this problem.

Students should use reusable bottles! Students who buy one bottle of water from the cafeteria every day spend 638 dollars each year, but if they bought a reusable container instead, they would only spend 9 dollars each year. Think recycling is a solution? That will only end up costing you more money.

Gustavus should stop selling disposable bottles and start selling reusable containers. If the school does this, Gustavus will become more sustainable, gain more of an environmentally friendly reputation and will be able to compete with other Minnesota private colleges. According to Rick Prososki, purchasing coordinator at Gustavus, “From August 2010 to August 2011, 261,408 bottles of water were sold at Gustavus.” That means 716 bottles were used each day of that year. Now that’s a lot of waste. The “green” reputation gained will be appealing to prospective students because schools are now educating students of more environmental issues. Fourteen colleges in the U.S. and Canada, including the College of St. Benedict and Macalester College, have already stopped their sales of bottled water.

Gustavus should also give reusable water containers to incoming first-years at orientation. The money to buy these bottles could come from the school itself, school organizations or local groups wanting to advertise their name on the bottles. Gustavus spent 496,977 dollars on bottled water for the year of 2010. If Gustavus would buy incoming first-years reusable bottles and stop their sales of disposable bottles, it would save them 496,000 dollars each year.

http://weekly.blog.gustavus.edu/2011/12/02/re-bottled-water/

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Tap water usually carries the stigma of being a health risk and of containing harmful chemicals. However, it is debatable whether tap water really is worse than bottled water. Tap water is controlled by more rigorous standards than bottled water is, but bottled water is subjected to more advanced treatment, leading to a lower risk of contamination during the process. Test results are inconclusive and the safety of water simply depends on each specific case. The quality of tap water can vary from region to region. Rural areas and some First Nation communities are still exposed to unsafe tap water, and a filtering or boiling process of the water is necessary. Furthermore, tap water in some countries is prone to more pollution than the tap water here in Montreal. In fact, according to CBC news online, regular Canadian tap water is extremely safe to drink – except for in the regions mentioned above.

Although the tap water in Canadian cities is perfectly safe to drink, the bottled water industry is prospering and growing fast. Bottled water not only appeals to more people because of health concerns; distaste of tap water organoleptics (the characteristics that affect taste, sight, and smell) has also contributed to a predominant public preference to bottled water over tap water, thus the surge in the water bottle industry. Nevertheless, a four-year review of the water bottle industry by the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC), an estimated 25 per cent of bottled water actually contains tap water.

Sometimes this water is further treated – but other times, it is not. While most bottled water is safe to drink, in about 22 percent of the water bottles tested by NRDC, at least one sample had chemical contaminants above state health limits. Furthermore, although we spend money to buy bottled water because we think it is “healthier,” phthalates – chemicals found in the plastic – are known to mimic and disrupt healthy hormonal functions, such as testosterone. Over time, these have been shown to leech into bottled water. Water in plastic bottles containing phthalates has been suggested by studies to be exposed to chemicals seeping from the plastic cap or liner. Unfortunately, there currently exists no legal limit for phthalates in bottled water; the bottle water industry has even managed to shut down the Food and Drug Administration proposal to set a limit on these potentially harmful chemicals. Furthermore, the immense environmental impact of water bottles is just another reason to consider reaching for a glass and turning to the tap, instead of buying a bottle.

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2011/11/droplets-of-truth/

 

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The main focus of the UN climate conference currently being held in Durban will be on how the world economy can go about reducing its levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

As emissions are a direct result of industrial production, the topic of fighting climate change cannot be discussed without addressing the impacts this will have on an economy’s production levels.

There are three ways in which emissions can be reduced. First, industry can continue to produce exactly what it has been, but develop new methods in which it can do so with less greenhouse gas pollution. Second, industry can shift its production to meet existing demands and needs of consumers, but with a different set of products that are less emission intensive.

And lastly, consumers or governments can drive a behavioural change such that consumer needs are met, but with lower total production and therefore lower emissions. It is the last of these that I would like to focus on.

There are a number of examples where this is possible and one of the most talked about is bottled water. Bottled water is extremely damaging to the environment through its use of oil in plastic production and transport, its strain on water resources, and the burden the bottles place on landfill sites. It has been reported that it takes 600 times more carbon dioxide to produce a litre of bottled water than a litre of tap water. While it may have its place in roadside shops where you can pick up a bottle while on the move, there is no reason beyond image and marketing why bottled water should be used in conferences, business meetings or social events. Toss some mint, a few slices of orange and maybe some strawberries into a jug of filtered tap water and your guests or clients are likely to be just as happy, if not more so.

http://www.iol.co.za/business/business-news/wasteful-consumer-goods-stress-the-planet-1.1189891?showComments=true

 

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