Showing posts with label bottled water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bottled water. Show all posts

31 August 2008

Constant Dripping Wears Away the Stone

Although apparently a small matter, I think this story about restaurants refusing to provide tap water for free could have quite wide ramifications.

At one level, it's about restaurateurs being reasonable: if I spend tens of pounds on their food, it's not too much to ask for some water to go with it, given that it costs them fractions of a penny to provide it. If they refuse, it's sheer, bloody-minded greediness - and a good reason (a) never to eat there again and (b) to name and shame them so that others can do the same.

Moreover, as ever, this is not a question of a threat, but of an opportunity for restaurants, which can differentiate themselves through the quality of the tap water they offer - filtered, presented with ice, lemons whatever. Again, the costs of doing so are minimal, but the potential gains in terms of improved customer satisfation great.

But obviously, there's a much bigger issue here too:

Earlier this year, environment minister Phil Woolas condemned the bottled water industry as "morally unacceptable". Mineral water suppliers on average use two litres of water for every litre put into a bottle. Much is transported from overseas, from as far away as New Zealand and Fiji. Four out of five bottles are plastic, most of which end up in landfill despite recycling initiatives, where it can take four centuries to decompose.

Consumer campaigners Which? estimate that the number of plastic bottles sent to landfill each year would fill Wembley Stadium twice over. Which? describes bottled mineral water as an unnecessary drink that costs us £1.68bn a year. The good news is that sales fell by 9% last year, and in the credit crunch sales are expected to fall further. "Our reasons for buying bottled water are drying up," according to Which?

If we all start asking for tap water in restaurants - as I've recently started doing - we will be able to make a direct, if small contribution to reducing the ridiculous environmental costs of bottled water, perhaps start sensitising retaurateurs to the implications of how they choose to run their businesses and, more profoundly, change attitudes to the unthinking privatisation of vital commons like water.

09 February 2007

O Rose, Thou Art Sick!

Further proof, if any were needed, that we haven't really got the hang of this water thing:

The total amount of water used to produce and deliver one bottle of imported water is 6.74kg (5kg + 20g + 1kg + 720g)! And the amount of GHGs released amount to 250g (93g + 4.3g + 153g), or 0.25kg, or 0.00025 tons.

(Via Digg.)

20 January 2007

The Richard Stallman of Water

Heavy, man:

Late last year, I had a lunch meeting in New York City with the president of a foundation associated with a national protestant denomination. When the waiter came by to ask if we wanted a bottle of water, my lunch partner responded, “Tap water will be fine. I don’t drink bottled water.”

Don’t drink bottled water? I couldn’t remember the last time I heard someone say that – especially in New York City. I began to explore the issue with him and learned that he and many others in his church no longer drank Dasani (bottled by Coca-Cola) and other commercial bottled waters because they see the privatization of water resources as an intensely moral and political issue.

Obvious, when you think about it.