Quote:
Originally Posted by moz
Wow, it must suck to live somewhere that it's not safe to drink the tap water. In Sydney a few years ago we had cryptosporidium in the main water supply so many people had to boil drinking water to be on the safe side. That was really ugly, but luckily only for a couple of weeks.
But buying water in bottles... is pretty much the defining symptom of a society focused on creating waste. Sure, a few people here reuse their bottles, or like me never buy them in the first place but reuse other people's bottles. But the whole bottled water industry is about taking a system that works efficiently (piped water costing ~$US0.30/kilolitre retail) and replacing it with an incredibly wasteful one that's more profitable. Wrap water in plastic, truck it long distances, sell it in shops, throw away the plastic. Result: someone pays $1 for $0.0002 of water. Result: huge amounts of petrochemicals used to make the bottle, run the plant, run the trucks, run the shops, run the garbage trucks and run the landfill where the bottle ends up. But GDP goes up, all bow before our magnificent GDP!
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This is exactly the point that came up in my mind. Bottled water is a huge waste and is not needed 95% off the time. You can get clean water cheaply just about anywhere you can go. And if you can't get it, bring a canteen that you reuse (metal or plastic).