Bottled Water - Bad for the Environment

Whoracle said:
In socal tap water is rancid.
Click to expand...
I'll vouch for that. That's something I could never figure out when I lived there.

The thing that amuses me now is everywhere you go you see people toting their own little personal bottle of water.
 
BPSCG said:
What, you never heard of Two Buck Chuck?
Click to expand...
$1.99 here, my closest Trader Joe's sells more than 100 cases a day. As you say, what does a poor guy do when bottled water is expensive and bad-tasting, and wine is cheap and good? Personally, I drink water only with lobsters and filet mignon since such dishes require an upscale drink .... :alc:
 
I just buy one of those filter jugs and drink the water made therein. Isn't the plastic bottles harming the environment more?
 
Whoracle said:
In socal tap water is rancid.
Click to expand...
Worst water I've ever tasted:
  1. Las Vegas; I suppose they want to encourage the visitors to go to the casinos/restaurants and buy alcohol, but what about the poor people who actually have to live there?
  2. Garland, Texas, where Mrs. BPSCG mèrelives. Mrs. BPSCG's father used to make the world's worst coffee* making it with Garland tap water that he acknowledged tasted "like they dredged it up from the bottom of the reservoir..." and one teaspoon from a six-month-old can of Folger's, for a twelve-cup Mr. Coffee. Nasty-tasting and weak.
* OTOH, he made the world's best whiskey sours and margaritas, and to this day, in our family "Doyle-strength" means high praise when describing mixed drinks, defamation when describing coffee.

Regarding people carrying bottles around everywhere. At my gym, you see, from time to time, water-buffalo-sized women being given a free tour of the place, with an eye towards joining. They invariably have a bottle of Evian or Dasani or something, but the next time I see one of them do anything that would break a sweat or cause thirst will be the first.
 
BPSCG said:
Regarding people carrying bottles around everywhere. At my gym, you see, from time to time, water-buffalo-sized women being given a free tour of the place, with an eye towards joining. They invariably have a bottle of Evian or Dasani or something, but the next time I see one of them do anything that would break a sweat or cause thirst will be the first.
Click to expand...

A friend of mine once witnessed a woman in the parking lot of a grocery store, at seven in the morning, dumping out a bottle of bottled water and pouring vodka into it. Whatever gets you through the day, eh?
 
The only reason I drink bottled water, is because I've discovered that I lose bottles all the time. It's either lose the snazzy $20 Nalgene bottle, or the one that cost me $0.50. Evian makes a good one with a loop thingy on top. I can usually carry one of those around for up to two months before losing it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
A friend of mine once witnessed a woman in the parking lot of a grocery store, at seven in the morning, dumping out a bottle of bottled water and pouring vodka into it. Whatever gets you through the day, eh?
Click to expand...
That might be the Occam's Razor explanation for a lot of erratic behaior I've seen...
 
I only buy bottled water when there's some reason why it's convenient. Our tap water here is pretty good. Unfortunately it's chlorinated where I live now (as of a few months ago), but there is a free running tap in a parking lot in downtown Olympia constantly giving tasty Artesian well water.
 
Corpse Cruncher said:
Isn't the plastic bottles harming the environment more?
Click to expand...
This is the one objection to bottled water that I doubt has much validity. I say put them in landfills and forget the guilt trips. We are not running out of landfill space and it costs less to bury them than to re-cycle them.

The silliest argument is "they don't biodegrade". It is a good thing that they dont! If they did biodegrade they would probably release something into the biosphere that we don't want there. On the other hand. Who cares if they sit there in the ground for a few million years like rocks? There are hundreds of millions of tons of stuff under my house right now that is never going to biodegrade and it's not bothering me one little bit. [/rant]
 
BPSCG said:
I've never been much for drinking bottled water. When it's more expensive than wine, than beer, than gasoline, I figure I'm just wasting my money (BTW, why is Starbuck's coffee more expensive than gasoline?).

Anyway, now I find I'm not only saving money by not drinking bottled water; I'm actually helping the environment.
Click to expand...
More expensive than wine or beer? Okay, either you've got some freakin' exensive tap water, or you're drinking some seriously f**kin' nasty cheap beer and wine. If what i pay for beer and wine is less than 4 times what i'm currently paying for gasoline, it just isn't worth drinking (unless I happen to get lucky with a major discount).

As for Starbuck's coffee, I have no idea, since that swill is practically undrinkable. As a native Seattleite, I'd just like to apologize on behalf of of the city for releasing that monstrosity on the world. For the most part, only non-natives drink that crap. Seattle has some truly amazing coffee, we just keep it for ourselves, and don't share it with the rest of you losers (kind of like the Irish and their Guinness).
 
Whoracle said:
In socal tap water is rancid.
Click to expand...
Seattle tapwater varies widely depending on which reservoir you're on. They just completely refurbished one of the main ones recently, so the quality for downtown water has improved a lot.

Although Seattle has one of the highest water quality ratings in the nation, some areas are still listed as "potential health hazard" for inorganic contaminants. There isn't any problem with organic contaminants; mainly because they put so much chlorine in the water that it smells and tastes like a freakin' swimming pool. (I have had out-of-town visitors make that exact comment about my water.) I have to use a carbon filter on all my taps, because i'm particularly sensitive to chlorine.
 
luchog said:
More expensive than wine or beer?
Click to expand...
Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration. but if you ever come to Our Nation's Capitol and walk down Constitution or Pennsylvania or Independence Avenue at noon on the Fourth of July, you'll find street vendors selling you 12-ounce bottles of water for a buck a bottle. And the touristas pay it, too.

That works out to about ten bucks a gallon, which is four times what you pay at your Exxon station for 93-octane.

Seattle has some truly amazing coffee, we just keep it for ourselves, and don't share it with the rest of you losers (kind of like the Irish and their Guinness).
Click to expand...
I roast my own Sumatra Mandehling. Bliss, bliss and heaven.
 
luchog said:
As for Starbuck's coffee, I have no idea, since that swill is practically undrinkable. As a native Seattleite, I'd just like to apologize on behalf of of the city for releasing that monstrosity on the world. For the most part, only non-natives drink that crap. Seattle has some truly amazing coffee, we just keep it for ourselves, and don't share it with the rest of you losers (kind of like the Irish and their Guinness).
Click to expand...
Well, David Schomer will mail beans to you if you ask nicely (i.e. send him big chucks o' money). But really, I don't know why the world hasn't carpet bombed you for the evil that is Starbucks.
 
luchog said:
Speaking of nasty tapwater, Dasani was found to have toxic levels of bromates, because it was nothing more than tap water treated with massive amounts of ozone.
Click to expand...

I was laughing for weeks when i head about Dasani. That'll teach people to get their new venture ideas from old episodes of "only fools and horses". ;)
I got wound up with the adverts for Dasani even before I knew about the bromate, mainly because they where advertising it as "as pure as water gets", while explaining about the calcium they have added to it to enhance the flavor!

Which part of "pure" didn't they understand?

All round a satisfying example of bad science being bad business, if only we had more of the same. :D
 
I sometimes save old plastic soda bottles (20 oz) to carry other beverages in, like water or juice, and a year or so ago a friend at school told me it was a poor practice. She had "heard" that these bottles deteriorate rapidly, and the plastic molecules end up in the beverage, so you drink them. Then they bind to estrogens, and keep them from being able to bind with their receptors.

I figure this is just so much woo-bunk, but I can't find any text on the subject, one way or the other. Anyone else ever heard of this?
 
Slingblade, It seems unlikely to me, since if the bottles are breaking down for you, they'd be breaking down on the shelf as well. Water purity tests would have detected it, yes?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom