Trashing the disposable bottle

There’s nothing like a well designed water bottle to make drinking water alluring. And water companies know it. Just look at the Starbucks’s hourglass “ethos” bottle, Voss’s sleek, plastic cone of water, and Fiji Water’s turquoise blue bottle adorned with lush tropical flowers. Unfortunately, it seems as if they’re as alluring to throw away as to buy, since approximately 80 percent of these bottles end up in the landfill.

In backlash to designer throwaway plastic bottles, a Queens based non-profit began promoting a reusable sports bottle in early January: http://www.tapintothecity.com/tapintothecity/Home.html. Their hope is to get people a an effort refilling the bottle with tap water, instead of promoting disposable consumerism.

Here are some of the reasons they provided:

• Manufacturing and transporting bottled water burn large amounts of fossil fuel, emitting thousands of tons of greenhouse gases

• Bottled water is not safer than tap water. In fact, 40% of all bottled water actually comes from municipal water

• Bottled water is thousands of times more expensive than tap water.

This isn’t the first time that New York City started promoting its drinking water. Last summer an ad campaign was launched to return people to the tap (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6286606.stm). The idea is to get restaurants and New Yorkers in general to fill a glass, instead of paying more than the price of gasoline for a resource that is regularly available, clean and free.

What I want to know is if New York City’s drinking water is truly as clean as promised. If so, are there any threats to the health of the City’s water.

I’ll get back soon with a few answers…