No, not Waterworld Day (which I have just now invented and will fall on my birthday, September 19—only 181 shopping days left!). World Water Day is a slightly less awesome day to raise awareness about, like, water and stuff. Some countries don’t have good water. This country does.
Over at Huffington Post, Annie Leonard [EDIT: who reads tonight at Powell’s!] has put up a piece about bottled water and how horrifically wasteful it is, in virtually every sense—cost and environmental impact, obviously, and studies show it actually tastes worse than most tap water. This is all stuff you probably know already, or at least sense subliminally, even if you don’t consciously think about it. But yeah, buying bottled water really sucks. Leonard has made a goofy, short animated movie about it, in the vein of her The Story of Stuff. The Story of Bottled Water is kind of ridiculously earnest, but it’s good information, clearly presented, and it has moving drawings and stuff.
Do you drink bottled water? Does your office have a water cooler? The Mercury office thankfully has a filter system that hooks up directly to the water supply, but in the past I’ve worked in offices that have gone through dozens of five-gallon plastic jugs daily. I myself just bought some bottled water yesterday at the airport, which felt like an unavoidable necessity. I have also been guilty of buying cases of water bottles from Fred Meyer in preparation for camping/road trips. Barring these unavoidable scenarios (and maybe they are avoidable, I am just not trying hard enough?), bottled water blows, and Leonard’s piece is worth reading.
And! Leonard is reading at Powell’s tonight:
http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Ev…
Oh, duh, I forgot to mention that!
Water was also discussed on this morning’s “Think Out Loud” on OPB…http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/water-bottle-or-tap/.
I’m forgainst water.
Also, since it’s World Water Day, this is worth looking at (especially if you want to keep a water bottling plant out of the Columbia River Gorge):
http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/…
Ned you may already know this, but you can bring an empty bottle to the airport and fill it up with tap at a drinking fountain after you go through security. Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but it is allowed.
@Ned. You obviously don’t live in the Gorge like I do, otherwise you would know that the water bottling plant would be a huge boon to the area. We are hurting out here, and need any jobs that come our way.
Bottled water is perceived as evil for some very good reasons. But, just like everything in the American worldview, we tend to jack it out of proportion where it doesn’t need to be or ignore the peril where there is one.
Within certain limits, I suppose having a supply bottled water is necessary. Some places are hundreds of miles away from a water main. In Ned’s narrative, buying bottled water for or in places where the supply can’t be completely trusted or depended upon has its virtue. And the plant Jocie mentioned in the Gorge might indeed turn out to the all-round benefit of the Gorge communities and economy.
The plague that is bottled water – to the degree that it is – stem from the treatment of water as a lifestyle commodity. In most of America you can get water from the tap that is just as good as the bottled water you get (did you know that municipal water supplies have to meet more stringent standards than bottled water?) from the store, but people, abstracted into demographics and drunk (if you will) on image and lifestyle status, want something in plastic container, preferably with palm trees, a Europeanish label, or some cleverly-designed logo … even here in Portland, where the city water is pretty much better than just about everywhere else (should be, with the rates we pay for it).
The root of the problem is that the companies marketing bottled water hit on the way to associate it with fashionable lifestyles, and turned it from a staple into a fashionable accessory. Americans, fad sluts that we are, followed right along.
Jocie, what’s wrong with that economy in the gorge? Are there no more logging or commercial fishing jobs? Oh, right you killed those already. What about those dams? Can’t you get a job at one of those? They were supposed to provide jobs weren’t they? I guess our last option is to suck all the water out of that river and ship it to Malibu. What is wrong with you!?