messageI have one Aquafina bottle that I carry around and make a point of showing folks I fill it at a water fountain or bathroom sink. I’ll never pay for water as long as I live within the bounds of the Great Lakes and shame on the rest who find it trendy to pay for water!
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Subbu Allamaraju replied on Nov 13, 2007Totally agree. Making these bottles bio-degradable is not necessarily the best solution for the problem.
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Tim Dunn replied on Jan 19, 2009
Tap water has chlorine and chlorine byproducts, which perfectly conventional MDs say cause thousands of cases of cancer every year-so bottled water isn’t just a scam.
There is another kind of biodegradable plastic than the well known PLA made of corn- oxo-biodegradable plastic. It is made of otherwise useless industrial byproducts instead of food, which poor people in the third world already don’t have enough of.
You can make water bottles out of it, and it can be recycled, unlike PLA. It is in the ‘1’ recycle category.
Read more at
link text
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Thomas McMurchy replied on Jan 24, 2009
The problem with introducing biodegradable plastic into the current waste system is that there exists relatively few places where this type of material can be effectively processed. This poses two significant issues:
1) If biodegradable plastic is mixed with normal recyclable plastic, the whole batch becomes contaminated and is unable to be reused, hence becoming more landfill. An awful and unproductive outcome.
2) Biodegradable plastic such as PLA, while it does eventually break down in the environmental back to natural elements, this still takes a long time. During this degrading process the bio-plastic still behaves like regular plastic in that it can starved and suffocate wildlife, particularly marine and bird species. Also when bio-plastic is not properly processed in commercial composting facilities a number of chemicals a released into the atmosphere such as methane (27 times the warming capacity of carbon dioxide).
So, while bio-plastic can be a reasonable solution when properly used, the fact remains that the current system is not designed to accommodate biodegradable plastic – and it often ends up doing more harm than good.
Finally, the fact remains that no one who is serious about the environment and its conservation would purchase bottled water especially from one of the largest corporations in the world.
Use the tap!
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Tim Dunn replied on Jan 24, 2009
Thomas, you are wrong about all biodegradable plastics being harmful to recycling. Oxo-biodegradable plastics are not harmful to recycling efforts. It is PLA which is harmful to recycling, because it is completely incompatible with PET, yet it looks enough like PET to be mistaken for it. Oxo-biodegradable plastic water bottles are made out of PET.
See: http://www.biodeg.org/recycling.htm
And: http://biogreenproducts.biz/IsOxoHarmful.rtfIf you use the tap, either let the water sit for 24 hours before drinking it, or boil it. Either will remove the chlorine and I hope, subsequent chlorine compounds. Otherwise you are drinking carcinogens! Completely germ-free tap water kills thousands of people every year, according the the American Journal of Epidemeology! See:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract
/165/2/148
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Tommy Charles replied on Sep 25, 2009
Tim Dunn, Chlorine has not been shown to cause cancer. Get your facts straight. It is not listed as a carcinogenic compound and never has been.
However, trihalomethanes or other organic compounds that are created when water is chlorinated are currently under investigation. There is a weak association suspected between them and rectal and bladder cancers. Whether these compounds can be filtered out (or even exist in any significant quantities in average tap water) I can’t tell you. Just thought we should be a bit more specific here.
IMO, bottled water is the biggest scam ever conceived of.
Besides, I know allot of smokers who drink bottled water. This indicates to me that they are buying it because it’s a fad, not because of any expected health benefits.
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Tim Dunn replied on Sep 25, 2009
Please note that I didn’t say that buying bottled water was the only way that you can avoid the carcinogenic hazards associated with chlorinated water. There isn’t any debate about the hazards of chlorinating water among scientists about these hazards. Chlorination is done because it is considered the lesser of two evils – the carcinogenic effects are less of a hazard to public health than diseases such as cholera, typhus, and typhoid – it isn’t regarded as harmless by public health officials. Quibbles about exactly which chlorine compound might be at fault are beside the pont.
See: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/2/148
