Bottled Water

Is there anything better when you're thirsty than a glass of ice cold water? Maybe a cold

beer that's been iced down. I like water and have always drank a lot of it iced. Before bottled

water, if people wanted a drink of water, they took it from the kitchen tap or if they out and about

a very environmentally-friendly water fountain (some of which were operated solely by gravity,

no electricity needed to get water from a tap). Oh the convenience of bottle water! It is

convenient, much more portable than getting water from a tap. Buying bottled water might even

make you feel safer, less likely than tap water to become contaminated, which is a growing

worry nowadays, thanks to terrorists. Bottled water is about time and energy savings for me.

Buying bottled water means not having to purchase and fill my own container. The ability to

purchase water readily means that I can obtain water when I want it, rather than carrying around

a bulky container all day. And when my thirst is slaked, disposal is just a trash can away; there's

no need to bring the bottle home and wash it and refill it myself. Somewhere in the past 20

years, we've moved from accepting water from a water fountain to accepting the exact same or

very similar water from a rarely-recycled plastic bottle. We're buying bottled water because it's

there and we are drawn to convenience (most bottled water sold is plain old tap water, not spring

water or other specialty water). Having water at your side is more convenient than searching out

a public water supply (unless, of course, you're at home, work, or some other usual place -- you

have no reason to be grabbing a bottled water at any of these places. For something that can be

so refreshing, in fact, the disposal question may be the most troubling.

A great concern to me is the millions upon billions of plastic bottles that get thrown into

landfills, waters ways and our oceans. Beyond the problem of water quality is the problem