Aus town bans bottled water

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Balstrome

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Aus town bans bottled water
2009-07-09 19:08

Sydney - Residents of a rural Australian town hoping to protect the earth and their wallets have voted to ban the sale of bottled water, the first community in the country - and possibly the world - to take such a drastic step in the growing backlash against the industry.

Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting on Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia's beverage industry in one day: Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.

"I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something," said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the "Bundy on Tap" campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 160km south of Sydney. "It's time for people to realise they're being conned by the bottled water industry."

'An environmental menace'

First popularised in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticised as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport.

Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the US and a handful of others in Canada and the UK have agreed to stop spending taxpayer dollars on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organiser of Corporate Accountability International's "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign in the US.

But the Boston-based non-profit corporate watchdog has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water, she said.

"I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognising that there's safe drinking water coming out of our taps," she said.

Bundanoon's battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company's proposal in court.

Then in March, Huw Kingston, who owns the town's combination cafe and bike shop, had a thought: If the town was so against hosting a water bottling company, why not ban the end product?

Instead they sell reusable bottles

To prevent lost profit in the 10-or-so town businesses that sell bottled water, Kingston suggested they instead sell reusable bottles for about the same price. Residents will be able to fill the bottles for free at public water fountains, or pay a small fee to fill them with filtered water kept in the stores.

The measure will not impose penalties on those who don't comply when it goes into effect in September. Still, all the business owners voluntarily agreed to follow it, recognising the financial and environmental drawbacks of bottled water, Kingston said.

On Wednesday, 356 people turned up for a vote - the biggest turnout ever at a town meeting.

Only two people voted no. One said he was worried banning bottled water would encourage people to drink sugary beverages. The other was Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute - which represents the bottled water industry.

Australians spent US$390m on bottled water in 2008 - a hefty sum for a country of just under 22 million people.

On Thursday, Parker blasted the ban as unfair, misguided and ineffective.

He said the bottled water industry is a leader in researching ways to minimise bottled beverage impact on the environment. Plus, he said, the ban removes consumer choice.

"To take away someone's right to choose possibly the healthiest option in a shop fridge or a vending machine we think doesn't embrace common sense," he said.

But tap water is just as good as the stuff you find encased in plastic, said campaign organiser Dee, who also serves as director of the Australian environment group Do Something!

"We're hoping it will act as a catalyst to people's memories to remember the days when we did not have bottled water," he said. "What is 'Evian' spelled backwards? 'Naive."'

- SAPA
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http://www.news24.com/Content/World.../09-07-2009 07-07/Aus_town_bans_bottled_water
 
I don't care what anyone says, bottled water tastes better than tap water (if it's mineral water like Evian or so) and sometimes it's just what you want when it's hot and you're outside. If I've been walking on a hot day or at the gym bottled water is perfect. They're missing the point.
 
cerebus said:
I don't care what anyone says, bottled water tastes better than tap water (if it's mineral water like Evian or so) and sometimes it's just what you want when it's hot and you're outside. If I've been walking on a hot day or at the gym bottled water is perfect. They're missing the point.
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No, you're missing the point. Want bottled water? Take a bottle and fill it at the tap. Want it cold? Put it in the fridge. It's been proven that bottled water is no cleaner than tap water in SA. Especially the Western Cape.
 
I'm not missing the point at all. I know it's basically a rip off but I still like to buy bottled water occasionally when I'm out and about because sometimes it's just what you want. They're telling anyone who buys drinks from a store that they can only buy sugary/syrupy concoctions. I happen to like water, and sometimes you just can't get to a tap. It's my choice to be ripped off, if that's what it comes down to.
 
cerebus said:
I don't care what anyone says, bottled water tastes better than tap water (if it's mineral water like Evian or so) and sometimes it's just what you want when it's hot and you're outside. If I've been walking on a hot day or at the gym bottled water is perfect. They're missing the point.
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Lol, you have what I like to call the "alcoholics taste preference":D.

I'll explain:

  • Offer alcohol drinker a cheap brand x. Their response: that is crap, they don't drink that.
  • Offer alcohol drinker cheaper brand x but put in expensive brand y bottle. They'll gladly accept, and compliment the taste as well.

/me offers cerebus still bottled water (with tap water in). Taste the difference?:p
 
I urge you watch Penn & Teller BS. They exposed this nonsense. It's all the same. People think it's different due to the way things are marketed.
 
cerebus has one good point: sometimes you may not have your reusable bottle with tap water with you, but you're thirsty and want water. In those cases bottled water is nice.

For all the other occasions though, I advocate tap water in a reusable bottle.
 
cerebus said:
I don't care what anyone says, bottled water tastes better than tap water (if it's mineral water like Evian or so) and sometimes it's just what you want when it's hot and you're outside. If I've been walking on a hot day or at the gym bottled water is perfect. They're missing the point.
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The best water I have tasted is fresh from the stream in the berg. The best bottled water is from Oasis, normal tap water put through a reverse osmosis process.
 
ponder said:
The best water I have tasted is fresh from the stream in the berg. The best bottled water is from Oasis, normal tap water put through a reverse osmosis process.
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Do you even know what a reverse osmosis process is ? I don't, but I can guess that it's bull**** sales speak.
 
Balstrome said:
Do you even know what a reverse osmosis process is ? I don't, but I can guess that it's bull**** sales speak.
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Reverse osmosis is a filtration process that is often used for water. It works by using pressure to force a solution through a membrane, retaining the solute on one side and allowing the pure solvent to pass to the other side. This is the reverse of the normal osmosis process, which is the natural movement of solvent from an area of low solute concentration, through a membrane, to an area of high solute concentration when no external pressure is applied.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis
 
penn & teller are pretty fair if you ask me (against the smoking protesters, yet they don't smoke)

they also SHOW you how people think bottled water tastes better - so it's not BS.

having said that I 100% agree with cerberus, what if you're at a mall, and want water? Cans are polluting the environment whether there is water available or not - bottle of bacardi breezer or valpre water bottle - same litter.

that's like banning smoking because it's bad for you - we want to make our own choices and not being babysit by some law.
 
Reverse osmosis is a filtration process that is often used for water. It works by using pressure to force a solution through a membrane, retaining the solute on one side and allowing the pure solvent to pass to the other side. This is the reverse of the normal osmosis process, which is the natural movement of solvent from an area of low solute concentration, through a membrane, to an area of high solute concentration when no external pressure is applied.
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So in English, water with sugar added, is allow to "contaminate" water that has not sugar added to it by the process called osmosis. Makes sense, but now if you squeeze the sugar water through a sieve, you can exclude the sugar from the water, because the holes in the sieve only allow water molecules though and not the bigger sugar molecules. This is reverse osmosis, great. By the way, what are these bottled water makers removing from the water? Impurities? and you still want to trust them that the water is pure. If their processes are so great, then they could just take sewer water and reverse osmosis it, and sell that. You would, because it's been reverse osmosis'ed.
Of course you could just catalyst normal water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine it into pure water, but that would totally dehydrate you. Which would be a neat sales ploy, as you would be force to buy more bottled water to slake your thirst.
 
Balstrome said:
So in English, water with sugar added, is allow to "contaminate" water that has not sugar added to it by the process called osmosis. Makes sense, but now if you squeeze the sugar water through a sieve, you can exclude the sugar from the water, because the holes in the sieve only allow water molecules though and not the bigger sugar molecules. This is reverse osmosis, great. By the way, what are these bottled water makers removing from the water? Impurities? and you still want to trust them that the water is pure. If their processes are so great, then they could just take sewer water and reverse osmosis it, and sell that. You would, because it's been reverse osmosis'ed.
Of course you could just catalyst normal water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine it into pure water, but that would totally dehydrate you. Which would be a neat sales ploy, as you would be force to buy more bottled water to slake your thirst.
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Seems you need a picture: http://www.espwaterproducts.com/images/filter-diagrams/how_reverse_osmosis_filtrat.jpg
 
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