ten reasons not to use bottle water
The crusade against bottled water has become something of a standard feature of environmental activism among Friends. I discovered this a couple years ago when some self-appointed eco-elders came after me for having ordered several cases of bottled water with distinctive labels.
Good heavens, I wondered as their ire crashed down—what had I done? To listen to the indictment, giving away bottled water at a Quaker event was a mark of moral turpitude that fell somewhere between recruiting torturers for Guantanamo and handing out heroin to preschoolers.
Well, call me clueless and provincial, but this notion came out of the blue. In its wake, I figured it would be a good idea to find out what all the shouting was about, so I did some reading and digging.
Much of the anti-bottled water (or BW) propaganda can be traced back to an outfit in Ottawa, Canada, called the Polaris Institute. On the other side, the defenders of BW seem centered in the International Bottled Water Association, a trade group in Alexandria, Virginia.
After considerable study, I came to two conclusions on this topic. First, the water problem, in the U.S. and the world, is very real and very serious. And second, the anti-BW crusade is a mistaken, misleading, and misguided way to tackle these issues.
Indeed, the more I studied, the more clear it seemed that BW was not at all the plague upon humanity its attackers claim it to be. Quite the contrary: at the end of the day, I believe we’re very lucky to have it around. Why? Below are my Top Ten Reasons (plus three), a description of which will also suggest much of why I regard the anti-BW jihad as unsound. Here we go:
1. Safety—a major anti-BW complaint is not about water, but about the plastic containers most of it comes in. And to be sure, there are drawbacks to plastic. Yet, consider the alternatives. No, not the ten-dollar or more stainless steel mini-jugs that are fashionable in some quarters; their appeal is strictly limited. Glass
Good heavens, I wondered as their ire crashed down—what had I done? To listen to the indictment, giving away bottled water at a Quaker event was a mark of moral turpitude that fell somewhere between recruiting torturers for Guantanamo and handing out heroin to preschoolers.
Well, call me clueless and provincial, but this notion came out of the blue. In its wake, I figured it would be a good idea to find out what all the shouting was about, so I did some reading and digging.
Much of the anti-bottled water (or BW) propaganda can be traced back to an outfit in Ottawa, Canada, called the Polaris Institute. On the other side, the defenders of BW seem centered in the International Bottled Water Association, a trade group in Alexandria, Virginia.
After considerable study, I came to two conclusions on this topic. First, the water problem, in the U.S. and the world, is very real and very serious. And second, the anti-BW crusade is a mistaken, misleading, and misguided way to tackle these issues.
Indeed, the more I studied, the more clear it seemed that BW was not at all the plague upon humanity its attackers claim it to be. Quite the contrary: at the end of the day, I believe we’re very lucky to have it around. Why? Below are my Top Ten Reasons (plus three), a description of which will also suggest much of why I regard the anti-BW jihad as unsound. Here we go:
1. Safety—a major anti-BW complaint is not about water, but about the plastic containers most of it comes in. And to be sure, there are drawbacks to plastic. Yet, consider the alternatives. No, not the ten-dollar or more stainless steel mini-jugs that are fashionable in some quarters; their appeal is strictly limited. Glass