AskPablo lays down a good challenge regarding bottled water. It's been like a tidal wave of sorts when you think about it. One day we were going to our tap or a drinking fountain for a drink of water and the next day our refrigerators were full of 8 ounce plastic bottles full of water that we went and bought at a store. You have to ask yourself - "How did this happen?"
We now know that most of the bottled water we buy is sourced from a tap somewhere and yet we continue to buy it. We need to stop. Consider these facts from AskPablo:
"In 2006 US bottled water sales surpassed 31 billion liters (Beverage Marketing Corporation, 2007), while global sales were above 150 billion liters per year. These sales are estimated at between $50 and $100 billion, or about $0.50 per liter on average. Most municipal water costs less than $1 per m^3 (1000 liters), so bottled water, most of which is sourced from tap water anyway, is marked up at least 500 times (or 50,000%)! Most of what you are paying is transportation, some for the production of single-use bottles, some for marketing, some for bottling equipment (filtration, filling, facility, etc.), and the rest is profit."
So what can each of us do? I like AskPablo's suggestion:
"Make a conscious decision to stop using bottled water and set aside the money saved. Donate this money to an organization that is working to provide clean drinking water to the world's poor and underprivileged. If only 1/5th of current bottled water consumers did this we could put an end to unnecessary deaths due to a lack of access to clean and safe drinking water."
So take a nice glass to work with you and fill it up when you get thirsty. It's these kind of small moves each of us can make that can make a difference.
