tagged w/ Take back the tap
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What kills more than war? Dirty water. What makes up the bulk of the Pacific garbage patch (you know, the one floating in the ocean that it three-times the size of Texas?)? Plastic. What costs, on average, about 200% more than you should be paying? Bottled water. What uses billions of barrels of oil per year? The bottled water industry.
Who is spearheading our advancement into ecological responsibility and better health worldwide? Hopefully you, with the help of Quebec universities.
From October 1-3, the Sierra Youth Coalition held their national conference at Guelph University. In a regional break-out session, all of the Quebec universities present unanimously decided to push for a ban on bottled water on their campuses.
By March 10, 2011, the second annual Bottled Water Free day, the Polaris Institute will be gathering as many pledges as possible from Quebec campuses who have decided that their environment, health and money were worth more than any bottling company could offer them.
To continue reading go to: http://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/green-bean-tuesdays/hell-no-to-bottled-h2o-quebec-universities.php/What kills more than war? Dirty water. What makes up the bulk of the Pacific garbage... more
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Attendees are encouraged to drink tap water during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
Metro Vancouver is promoting the use of municipal tap water instead of purchasing bottled water during the Olympic Games, the CBC reports. Municipal officials seek to reduce the city’s bottled water consumption by 20 percent at the end of the year as a part of their Tap Water Campaign.
The Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel has joined the campaign, agreeing to no longer sell bottled water. Instead, hotel guests will be able to purchase reusable steel water bottles to keep.
“Bottled water is a major seller in our guest rooms through the mini-bars. I was concerned about the fall-off of those sales … but it’s the right thing to do,” hotel manager Randy Zupanski told the CBC.
If the movement gathers steam, it could affect the bottled water sales of Coca-Cola Ltd., a major Olympic sponsor.
However, Coca-Cola spokesperson Nicola Kettlitz told the CBC he is not concerned about the tap water competition.
“Our bottled water does not compete with tap water. It’s about having clean water available in a convenient place, and tap water is not always available in a convenient place,” Kettlitz said.
Vancouver isn’t the only city promoting tap water consumption. Officials in London have included plans to provide free tap water to tourists when they host the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, according to the London Evening Standard. In addition, many U.S. municipalities have already banned the purchase of bottled water for city-funded events.
Meanwhile Food and Water Watch has published guidelines on how consumers and promoters can enjoy events that are bottled water free.Attendees are encouraged to drink tap water during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic... more
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Grand Rapids, Michigan is the latest U.S. city to join the effort to “Take Back The Tap.” Following New York, San Francisco and Portland, the Midwestern city has pledged to stop using bottled water in city facilities or at its events.
Take Back The Tap, the brainchild of the advocacy group Food & Water Watch, is a national two-part campaign. It convinces businesses to switch from bottled water to tap water and asks people to petition congress for a public trust fund that will finance water infrastructure.
Grand Rapids formally joined the movement Tuesday, as the city commission resolved to stop buying bottled water for use in city facilities or at city events. Jon Keesecker, a senior organizer for Food & Water Watch’s Take Back the Tap campaign, told the commission Tuesday that Grand Rapids’ resolution represented “one of the most comprehensive approaches that we’ve seen across the country,” noting the involvement of the city’s Saint Mary’s Health Care network in the movement.
“Tap water is a better choice than the bottled brands, for our health, our environment and our wallets,” Mayor George Heartwell told the Grand Rapids Press.
The city resolution notes that in 2006 Americans bought 33 billion bottles of water, which requires nearly 900,000 tons of plastic and more than 17 million barrels of oil for production.
According to the resolution, bottled water, at $1 per pint, is 2,400 times more expensive than tap water for residents. City water is less than a penny per gallon.Grand Rapids, Michigan is the latest U.S. city to join the effort to “Take Back... more
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Take Back The Tap running a taste test between bottled water and tap water.
The Portland Water district has the cleanest water, not just in the USA, but in the world. Our source, Sebago Lake, is so pure that we get a waiver from the EPA and FDA on physical filtration at the intake.
We also have some of the most stringent watershed protection laws on the books.Take Back The Tap running a taste test between bottled water and tap water.
The... more
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asherp
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added this
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4 years ago
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From maintenance problems in Atlanta and sewage spills in Milwaukee, to corruption in New Orleans and political meddling in Lexington, the recent history of water privatization in the United States is marred by underachievement and failure. During the 1990s, corporations — many of them multi-billion-dollar conglomerates based overseas — persuaded communities throughout the nation to transfer control of their systems to the private sector.
Corporations offer themselves as the solution to financial, technical and organizational challenges faced by municipalities throughout the United States. They are grappling with stricter standards, diminishing federal funding and a citizenry not keen on rate increases. But these corporations — mainly European multinationals RWE, Suez and Veolia — have produced mixed results at best. The privatization bubble is bursting.
As stories like those chronicled in this report have mounted in recent years, elected officials and citizens alike have viewed water privatization with increasing skepticism.
Instead, the answer to the water infrastructure crisis is a renewed commitment to public funding through enhancement of the State Revolving Funds and creation of a national water infrastructure trust fund. The federal government maintains trust funds for roads and airports — even the Capitol Rotunda’s frescoes and wildlife in South Dakota — but not for water. It’s time for the federal government to act and ensure the nation’s aging water and wastewater systems will be able to provide communities with safe and affordable service.
Local elected officials and citizens also are taking matters into their own hands. Movements are afoot in a growing number of communities — including Lexington, Kentucky, and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois — to buy their water systems from corporations. The momentum for public control is only escalating after many recent public victories in communities like Stockton and Felton, California.
Of the 254 million Americans on a community water system, 86 percent receive their water from public utilities. Public utilities are accountable to the communities they serve and in most cases are extremely well managed. It is in the best interest of the country to ensure these systems are preserved and improved.
“Water links us to our neighbor in a way more profound and complex than any other.” – John ThorsonFrom maintenance problems in Atlanta and sewage spills in Milwaukee, to corruption in... more
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Washington, DC – According to a new guide released by Food & Water Watch, event organizers, whether throwing garden parties, conferences, or citywide street festivals, can join the growing movement against bottled water. The national consumer advocacy group, which is working with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the design firm SMWM to provide tap water for the inaugural Slow Food Nation event over Labor Day weekend, has been working with restaurateurs and city mayors across the country. Now, the group is aiming to help event planners and caterers break the bottled water habit and join their Take Back the Tap campaign.Washington, DC – According to a new guide released by Food & Water Watch,... more
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Plastic water bottles produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, according to a 2007 resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. That much energy could power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a year, according to the resolution.
Cornell University professor and environmentalist Doug James said the irony of bottled water is that it's marketed as clean and healthy when its production contributes to unnecessary environmental degradation.
"Fiji water, for example," he said. "A one-liter bottle is taken out of the aquifer of this little island, and shipped all the way across the world, producing like half a pound of greenhouse gases so you can have this one-liter bottle of water."
The taste question
Another obvious issue in the consumption of bottled water is taste.
In some areas, tap water simply isn't drinkable, Brown said, and in those situations, bottled water is a useful resource.
Other consumers simply prefer the taste of bottled water, Lauria said.
"Consumers have lots of preferences and some people want mineral water for taste," he said. "Everyone has their own reasons for buying products. And some people have a preference for bottled water."
But, Brown argues, perceptions about the taste of tap water and realities about the taste of tap water can be very different things.
To test her hypothesis that tap water tastes as least as good as bottled water, Brown has been conducting a series of taste tests at Ithaca College in the past year.
In five blind taste tests over the last year, the tap water has won four times, she said.
The growth in advertising and consumption of bottled water has occurred "frankly, since the big soda companies bought up water," she said. "They would buy up the Dasanis, and they would buy up the Poland Springs, and you get into the huge marketing machines of the major soda industries, Coke and Pepsi, notably, and they take it to a whole different field."
Water and waste
Then there's the waste stream.
In roughly the last 10 years, the amount of polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottles being recycled increased from about 775 million pounds in 1995 to about 1,170 million in 2005, according to the Container Recycling Institute.
But during the same time period, the amount of PET bottles going into landfills skyrocketed from 1,175 million to 3,900 million pounds.
Water bottles are a big part of that problem, Brown says, because there are so many more of them, and because in many states, water bottles don't have a redemption value like soda and beer bottles do.
Lauria said the focus on water bottles is unfair because they make up "less than one-third of one percent" of the entire U.S. waste stream.
"There are many other plastic objects that are in our lives that no one seems to be concerned about and yet it all needs to be recycled," he said. "As you recycle bottled water you should also recycle many other products that are in your refrigerator when you're done with them."
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1.4 billion people worldwide are without potable water, while FIJI water is taken and transported around the world for profit at great environmental cost as women and girls in Africa risk their lives to walk up to nine hours a day to collect only enough jugs of polluted water to last one day for a family of four to six people.There is no moral justice to that at all. And while yes, it is very good to cut as much plastic waste in bottles, bags, etc. as you can, water bottles are targeted because they are an unnecessary waste and because study after study has shown that bottled water is no better than tap water in many cases. Corporations also wish to commoditize and privitize water which is a human right to make it a product on the open market like oil. This is simply something we must not allow to happen especially in wake of the climate crisis that is causing water scarcity and food shortages.Plastic water bottles produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil... more
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