The Commodification of Water
On November 19, I posted the following comment on the Boil Water Advisory story thread. Kate encouraged me to repost it as part of my blog, but it's taken me till the day the advisory has been lifted to actually do it.
On commodification of water .. I agree that bottled water should not be encouraged. Think of the energy to produce all those millions of single-use plastic containers and transport them to market. A market that wouldn't exist if we didn't buy into its claims of purity, hipness, convenience, being a healthy alternative to soft drinks, etc. Access to clean water should be a basic human right, not a commodity for sale. Sure, we pay for the convenience of its safe delivery to our homes by way of taxes, as we do for other infrastructure and services for the common good in our society ( the GVRD's Medical Health Officers, for example), but when we can get water out of the tap for free, there is no sensible reason for the existence of a bottled water industry. So we might have to boil our tap water for a couple of weeks. Hopefully this minor inconvenience will make us all think about where our water comes from and how lucky we are to have it. If we don't pay attention, control of this vital natual resource could soon to lost to us.
And following is an abridged additional comment I posted on the same thread, partially in reponse to other comments about plastic being perceived as "toxic" and "nassty".
Plastic not all "nassty".. Its versatility, light weight, resistence to chemicals, etc. can be useful -- think of its applications in medicine, safety equipment, food storage, electronics, etc. But most plastics come from petroleum (bottled water usually comes in polyethylene terephthalate (aka PET or recycle code 1) containers), as do most fuels to transport products made from or packaged in them. In this peak oil era, we should be reducing our reliance on petroleum products and exploring renewable resource alternatives (such as compostable plastic packaging made from corn.) On a personal level, our consumer choices (what we buy or don’t buy) can effect change -- if no one buys something, there’s no market for it. In my previous post I was wanting to add to the previous poster's two cents, as I feel that bottled water is a waste of resources and should not be encouraged (we do, after all, have running water -- we’ve just been temporarily advised to boil it prior to consumption), while also bringing up the related larger issue of control of the population’s water supply (which looks to be a concern for others too -- see Gordon Campbell looking at privatized water treatment for lower mainland.) As for Being More Prepared For Emergencies -- keeping an emergency supply of water (for when there isn’t even any coming out of the tap to boil) is indeed a wise idea, which can be accomplished by reuse of containers filled with tap water rather than buying up caselots of bottled water.
In addition, the last version of the Boil Water Advisory story (headline: "The boil water advisory is winding down") mentioned this related news:
The Greater Vancouver Regional District is planning a public education campaign to promote tap water over bottled. Directors decided just weeks ago to go to war against the water industry, condemning it for brain-washing the public into believing tap water is somehow contaminated.
So, bottled water: discuss!
Comments
I beleive it should be the
I beleive it should be the consumers choice as to whether they want to buy bottled water not a few burecrats making that choice. Their must be a problem with municpal water when one third of the population buys it. You will have a difficult time convincing me that the chloines in the water systems are good for you.Why do they recommmend that if you are on chemotarapy that you should not drink from a water supply that has chlorine by-proucts added to it.Why is it that when the municipality's that have banned water coolers and bottled water on their premises turn around and spend thousands of dollars on in house water filters so empolyees can at least have a good drink of water that does not have a terrible taste of chlorine in it.The reports that I have read state that 80 percent of bottled water containers are recycled. Do you realize the thousands of jobs that are related to the bottled water industry.
I wonder how the public would appreciate all the broken bottles littering our highways. I am prepared to spend my money on bottled water.
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A great segment on bottled
A great segment on bottled water on CBC Radio's BC Almanac aired on Monday. The panelists reminded listeners that both Dasani and Aquafina (two brand names that imply that the water was collected from a mountain spring somewhere and in the case of Dasani, blessed by a spiritual leader) are both from municipal water sources. Coca-Cola and another soft drink company (don't remember if it was Pepsi) decided to get into the water business as health conscious consumers started buying less pop - using existing facilities. That meant they started bottling water from....municipal sources. They filter it first - but that's it. A consumer could do that on their own with an off-the-shelf filtration system. It costs them something like 0.03 cents per bottle - and they charge us $1.25 or more.
Their other point was that some muncipalities have started bottling water and giving it away to prove that their water is just as healthy as bottled. It's like a big shell game, isn't it? I'd like to change this.