16 June 2008 - 16:02Taking Back the Tap
So up until a few weeks ago, I was filtering every cup of water I drank. Then my water filtration system broke and I decided to turn to the tap.
It took me awhile to get used to the idea of drinking tap water. I just couldn’t imagine that the same water that appears in my toilet was good enough for me to drink. 
But David Suzuki had the right idea last year when he said, “I think that we’ve got to drink the water that comes out of our taps, and if we don’t trust it, we ought to be raising hell about that.”
And many Canadian municipalities are trumpeting the merits of their own water supply. The City of Toronto says that tap water is just as good and may even be safer than bottled water, since there are actually more regulations on tap water than bottled water.
But whether you filter your water or drink it straight from the tap, what you’re not doing is buying bottled water, and that’s a very good thing.
The lifecycle of plastic water bottles leaves a very large ecological footprint. Consider the energy required to produce the bottles and their packaging, not to mention the waste created from the millions of bottles sent to landfills. Even the bottles that get recycled do so at a high energy cost. Then, the fuel required to transport all that water by truck is enormous and so are the harmful CO2 emissions. Most bottled water travels hundreds of kilometers to get to your local store.
If that weren’t enough, bottled water is between 240 and 10, 000 times more expensive than tap water.
For a solution that is not hard to swallow, get yourself a glass or stainless steel water bottle (like the ones pictured here) and fill it up!
1 Comment | Tags: Conscientious Consumer, Water
20 Jun 2008 - 11:15
I used to work in a water treatment plant and the amount of testing and quality control we performed (especially after Walkerton) would make the average person’s head spin. Not only did we do numerous daily bacteriological and chemical tests of the water at various points in the plant, but, every day, we went out and did field tests at various points in the city to ensure that the quality was consistent throughout the distribution system. Every month we sent a sample of water to a private lab to analyze for over 200 dissolved chemicals. After Walkerton, the regulations in Ontario were rigorous, to say the least. Will your bottled water company do this kind of testing for you?
The biggest marketing advantage that bottled water manufacturers have is the public’s misplaced fear about tap water quality. Basically, what they are selling is bottled paranoia.