This morning I was reading the news and saw another article about someone trying to ban bottled water. I’ve had a discussion about this at church with a friend who is very ‘eco’ and wants to do the right thing by the environment. She told me about how many bottles were ending up in landfills and how much oil plastic takes to produce. Then she told me that at church functions they would no longer be buying bottled water, and that I would survive with good old tap water. What’s interesting is that I didn’t get the same degree of cooperation when I suggested that at these same church functions they replace the Starbucks coffee with Folgers, or the Diet Coke with Winn Dixie brand cola. “Drew, stop being unreasonable!” I’m the planet killer and just need to start enjoying tap water. But I’ve hated tap water all my life, and am not about to start loving it now.
When I was in high school I lived in the country. We had a deep well and our water was great. No chlorine, no sulfur, just water. It was hard water, and didn’t suds up much, but the taste was great. But my school was in town, and after running a few miles in P.E., we’d have to drink from the fountain of municipality treated, chlorinated tap water. Yes, it was cold and wet, but so is a dog after standing in the rain. Some kids would buy soda from the Coke machine, and my friends and I had a dream. This was 1988, and all we could hope for, besides the fall of the Berlin wall, was that Coke would put filtered, purified water into a Coke machine. We would even pay the same price as soda, even though water was cheaper. Just give us clean, good tasting water without all the fluoride and chlorine that the city added.
In the 1990’s, it happened. You could find bottles of water in soda machines across the country. After years of hearing our parents tell us to drink less soda, now we could. Water consumption was up and life was good. But now we’re the ones killing the planet. Never mind that soda comes in those same bottles, its those water drinkers who are clogging up the landfills.
It’s so hypocritical. My thing is fine, your thing is bad. “Bottled water is just tap water!” No, that’s incorrect. It’s FILTERED tap water. I can’t carry a Brita with me all the time. I’d like to be able to get a glass of water without having to wait for it to percolate through a filter. Just like Coke tastes different from Chek, and Starbucks tastes different from Folgers Crystals, filtered, ozonated, purified water tastes different from what’s coming out of the tap. “But your bottles are killing marine life and clogging up landfills!” Yeah, well so are Coke bottles. Put a recycle bin nearby. Charge a deposit. There are all sorts of proven ways to encourage/strongarm recycling without a ban. “Water has a serious carbon footprint! You’re trucking water around when you have it right here in a tap.” Yes, and your coffee gets shipped from mountains in foreign countries thousands of miles, and my bottle of water comes from our neighbors the next county over.
I’ve been really surprised how self-righteous the water haters have become. It’s not a beer, it doesn’t have any high fructose corn syrup, it’s renewable, what more could you want? I’m not going to be dismissed or ridiculed any more. I’m proud to say it. I love bottled water.
