Lawmakers open groundwater fight against bottled water companies:
Washington state, land of sprawling rainforests and glacier-fed rivers, might soon become the first in the nation to ban water bottling companies from tapping spring-fed sources.
The proposal is one of several efforts at the state and local level to fend off the fast-growing bottled water industry and protect local groundwater. Local activists throughout the country say bottling companies are taking their water virtually for free, depleting springs and aquifers, then packaging it in plastic bottles and shipping it elsewhere for sale.
"I was literally beyond shocked," said Washington state Sen. Reuven Carlyle, who sponsored the bill to ban bottling companies from extracting groundwater. It was advanced by a Senate committee last week.
"I was jolted to the core to realize the depth and breadth and magnitude of how they have lawyered up in these small towns to take advantage of water rights," the Democrat said. "The fact that we have incredibly loose, if virtually nonexistent, policy guidelines around this is shocking and a categorical failure."
Elsewhere, lawmakers in Michigan and Maine also have filed bills to restrict the bottling of groundwater or tax the industry. Local ballot measures have passed in Oregon and Montana to restrict the industry, though in Montana, Flathead County's zoning change remains tied up in court.
"The Washington state bill is groundbreaking," said Mary Grant, a water policy specialist with the environmental group Food and Water Watch. "As water scarcity is becoming a deeper crisis, you want to protect your local water supply so it goes for local purposes. (Bottled water) is not an industry that needs to exist."
Though much of the controversy around the bottled water industry has concerned "bottled at the source" spring water sites, nearly two-thirds of the bottled water sold in the United States comes from municipal tap water, according to Food and Water Watch. The Washington state legislation would not keep companies from buying and reselling tap water.
Americans consumed nearly 14 billion gallons of bottled water in 2018, while sales reached $19 billion—more than doubling the industry's size in 2004. The bottled water industry is expected to grow to more than $24 billion in the next three years, according to Beverage Industry magazine.
Industry leaders have opposed sweeping legislation that would cut off resources, pointing out the potential hit to local employment and the importance of bottled water in disaster relief.
"This legislation would prevent any community from having these jobs or having a project in their area," said Brad Boswell, executive director of the Washington Beverage Association, who testified against the bill. "We think these issues are best dealt with on a project-by-project basis."
The International Bottled Water Association defended the track record of its members in an emailed statement. The bill in Washington and other legislation to limit the industry "are based on the false premise that the bottled water industry is harming the environment," wrote Jill Culora, the group's vice president of communications.
"All IBWA members," she wrote, "are good stewards of the environment. When a bottled water company decides to build a plant, it looks for a long-term, sustainable source of water and the ability to protect the land and environment around the source and bottling facility."
Culora did not address specific examples of community claims that bottling companies have damaged their watersheds and aquifers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @08:03PM (12 children)
> (Bottled water) is not an industry that needs to exist.
Says someone who has never tasted Las Vegas tap water.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @08:06PM (10 children)
Buy a home filter.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday February 18 2020, @08:12PM (3 children)
Or dismantle the corrupt Sheldon Anderson political machine and clean up the city infrastructure at a fraction of the cost per capita of everyone buying filters or bottled water.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:02PM (2 children)
If you don't like it buy your own president.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:20PM (1 child)
Congress critters are cheaper.
A home filter is probably the most cost effective option. Along with face mask filters. Rubber gloves. Etc.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @01:40AM
I hear that holes in the desert outside Las Vegas are even cheaper. If they get filled with the right people, perhaps needed change can occur...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:05PM (5 children)
In the 1960s and early 70s, I grew up with Las Vegas tap water.
We didn't use no filters! I wonder if that affects cognitive development?
(I suspect some people didn't use filters on their cigarettes either. The water was also very 'hard', but I didn't understand what hard water was until I lived somewhere else.)
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:05PM (4 children)
Central Florida uses a lot of well water in the homes, typically from the Hawthorne aquifer which has some pretty strong H2S content. If you let the water sit in an open container, long enough, after it is taken from the ground, most of the hydrogen sulfide gasses off, but... studies show that even low levels of chronic H2S exposure can, and do affect negatively cognitive development and lifelong cognitive ability. Which goes a long way toward explaining the people you tend to meet around those parts...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:34PM (3 children)
I have no trouble believing that, though I did have a good chuckle at "low levels". I'm mighty curious what they consider low in the context of concentration in water.
Working in the oil industry, you learn all about H2S, with regular refresher training every few years because it can and does kill people who get careless. At 500 ppm (0.05%) concentration in the air, most people are dead after only five minutes. At 1000 ppm (0.01%), you drop dead after one breath. At 40,000 ppm (4%!), long after everyone is dead, it becomes explosive. Any spark or source of ignition and boom. It's also heavier than air, so it pools nicely in any ground depressions in the area. You get a lot of those on an oil well lease.
To say it's nasty stuff is putting it mildly [cdc.gov].
- D
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:34PM
It's difficult to translate the dissolved concentration of H2S in well water into an airborne concentration. It's simple enough to say: you definitely can smell it, and even though some of the restaurants serve it - it's an acquired taste to say the least.
40 years ago, folks around those parts still didn't use air-conditioning much, but they would run their ceiling fans with the windows open most of the time, so concentrations weren't so high in the living quarters back then, but even with all the fresh air of the great outdoors, a flowing well can be easily smelled from quite some distance. And, of course, once you get used to it you can sit in the H2S cloud without any discomfort...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:53PM (1 child)
Easy. It is the highest level they get away with bribing legislators to approve.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 20 2020, @02:48AM
Oh, Central Florida is a whole lot simpler than that - they're still back at the "don't ask, don't tell" stage. Everybody has had these wells for the last 100 years, it was good enough then, it must be good enough now. While the county will test your well water for safety, for free, very very few people volunteer to let that happen, and I don't think anybody is interested in anything that might in any way suggest that their way of life is somehow flawed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:06AM
Or flammable tap water.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 18 2020, @08:21PM (8 children)
With today's poisonous atmosphere in DC they will needs lots of luck.
We will see if people care about it in a few months.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:19PM (1 child)
Other cities have successfully been able to enact measures to improve air quality.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:21PM
DC needs the whole country to clean its house, it doesn't take that long.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Informative) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 19 2020, @01:03AM (5 children)
The article was about the *state* of Washington, not Washington D.C, which is approximately on the other side of the country.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @01:43AM (3 children)
Do you think the folks who insisted the state be named "Washington" knew how much damn confusion they'd be creating between the state and the District? I figure they had to have known, and after they managed to get it the official name of the state, they laughed and laughed and laughed.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:26AM (2 children)
When I say "Nevada", do you get confused between the Iowa one, the Missouri one, and the Texas one? (No, I'm not mixing those towns up with the counties with the same name in California and Arkansas.) Lots of things have repeated names, but all of them have ways of disambiguating them.
The town in DC with the name "Washington" is "Washington, DC", it's very simple. You pay the cost of getting there second with two extra syllables, deal with it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 19 2020, @02:00PM (1 child)
https://patch.com/district-columbia/washingtondc/washington-d-c-be-renamed-new-columbia-if-it-ever-becomes-state [patch.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statehood_movement_in_the_District_of_Columbia#2016_statehood_referendum [wikipedia.org]
If D.C. statehood ever happens, decades or centuries from now, there could be an accompanying name change. Until then, it's business as usual.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:42PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday February 19 2020, @02:21AM
What I am saying is that the wizards from DC will overrule anything the state wants to the contrary. I believe California is in the midst of such a battle over its emissions standards. We are being colonized by the feds who owe favors to their financiers.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday February 18 2020, @08:22PM (56 children)
This seems sensible.
"As water scarcity is becoming a deeper crisis, you want to protect your local water supply so it goes for local purposes. (Bottled water) is not an industry that needs to exist."
But this doesn't. This is contradictory.
Fresh, clean water is a very valuable resource. That single statement explains *both* why it's important to conserve and protect local sources of water, and also why it's important that the bottled water industry *does* exist.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:08PM (12 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:17PM (8 children)
Las Vegas gets its energy from the Hoover Dam thing. They also export electricity. ("The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California." [wikipedia.org])
In 1960 (before I was born) it was said that it would never rain in Las Vegas. (also Maryland Parkway was a dirt road, or so I was told.)
I remember rain in my childhood.
By my teens there were sometimes problems with flash flooding.
I remember the first time I saw snow in Las Vegas. Just little bits that would barely stick to anything. Not what people elsewhere would call "real' snow. But it was amazing nonetheless.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:36PM
It can snow in a desert .. Wild variations of temperature are possible without a large body of water to absorb heat and regulate local heat exchange rates
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:49PM (6 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:03PM (5 children)
After decades of being away from Las Vegas, I visited it again in about 2010 when my company had its office Christmas party there (instead of Orlando).
Wow. How different it is. All different casinos. Once you leave the casino areas to where people actually live, it looks like urban decay everywhere. Very different from when I was a kid. School systems seemed to be overflowing with money back then -- but not decades later. I had never heard of or seen a pothole in the road -- until I lived in a different state.
I would never want to live there after seeing it as an adult.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:22PM (4 children)
Corporate america took it over from the mob.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @01:46AM (1 child)
The mob was a better caretaker of the place. They wanted to pass the family business down to their families, so they kept the place up. Corporate America only cares about this quarter.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Wednesday February 19 2020, @02:45AM
In addition, the mob understood that "you don't shit where you eat". If you keep things running well and don't hurt innocents, the police won't be all that interested in looking behind the curtain.
Also, the mob ran on human decision and so knew how to show mercy. That's why if you lost big, they would give you dinner and a plane ticket home while the corporate casinos just roll you out the door. I wouldn't claim the mob was all sunshine and kittens, but if you didn't mess with them, they were in many ways nicer than the corporates (and in some ways definitely not).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 19 2020, @02:27PM (1 child)
That is exactly what happened.
My first instinct would be to think this is a great thing to have happened.
But looking at the actual outcome, I have second thoughts.
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 19 2020, @09:03PM
It SHOULD be a good thing. It's very telling that in practice people miss the mob for good reasons.
It's not just in Vegas. The same applies in New York and New Jersey. The mob is being squeezed out between the Russian gangs and corporate America in part because there are ethical lines the Mob won't cross.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:26PM
We have Vegas and Hollywood so people don't riot. Such is the price for keeping the peace.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @07:19AM
You living in a freezing city are wasting more energy for heating than anyone could use supplying themselves with bottled water. Why don't you move to somewhere you don't have to use so many gigajoules to heat your home?
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:49AM
Although there are some cities that I question if they should exist or not, we do need plastic bottled water from time to time. The problems in Detroit* or hurricane stricken areas come to mind.
* The last I heard, Detroit still has contaminated water even all these years later. Now, an argument can be made whether Detroit should be abandoned thus alleviating the problem of bottled water. But, if Detroit is to be abandoned, there are some serious questions like who funds relocation for all the people who are still there? Most of them are very poor. Ultra-capitalism supporters would prefer that the poor simply die there. I can't say I'm a fan of that idea.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:09PM (6 children)
Ironic that a political party which calls itself 'conservative' is the one that doesn't protect clean water, air, land, species, or any other natural resource. Drill baby drill! Bring back Clean Coal. Loosen regulations on pollution. Lower standards for what qualifies as 'drinkable' water. Allow more lead in children's toys.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @11:16PM (3 children)
Don't forget previously staunch supporters of "rule of law."
It's not like any of the laws were written in stone anyway. Oh wait, I think lie/steal/womanize were fucking lightning bolted on to those tablets.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Captival on Wednesday February 19 2020, @02:43AM (2 children)
Uh oh, watch out. The party of Ted Kennedy / Bill Clinton are on their moral high horse again. How dare Trump touch a woman! He should just be outright raping them like Bill did!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:48PM (1 child)
Ok, tribal idiot, I will maintain my morality only so long as it is politically convenient. As soon as I win the election it is forced labor camps for you Republicans!
Seriously, do you not see how fucked in the head you are? Like at ALL?
"touch a woman"??? ummmm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations [wikipedia.org]
And he was buddies with Epstein, and given his beauty pageants and creepy fucking comments about going into young girls' changing rooms and "when you're famous they let you do it" the circumstantial evidence really screams TRUMP IS A PEDOPHILE RAPIST INCESTUOUS PIECE OF SHIT!
Don't let that get in the way of your moronic support though, I'm sure your high IQ gives you insight that we normies can only dream of O.o
(Score: 2) by Captival on Thursday February 20 2020, @02:44AM
>And he was buddies with Epstein,
Stupid or liar? Which one is it? You know that Epstein was kicked out of Mar a Lago once the rumors spread about him. Clinton did no such thing, he was happy to take dozens of flights to pedo island with the guy. This is all easily-learned public info. Since you choose not to know it, you're either stupid or lying. What makes such awful degenerate idiots like yourself?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:12AM (1 child)
Now-now, mate... it is called "personal responsibility".
The water, air, land, species and any other natural resource are responsible for cleaning up themselves, them bastards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 19 2020, @02:31PM
Ironic that corporations (which are people too!) don't have any requirement of personal responsibility.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:16PM (11 children)
Where's your NIMBY spirit? Other people don't matter, what are you a Democrat?
Jokes aside, the bottled water industry falls in a similar category with portable nicotine delivery systems, lottery tickets, sugar salt and lard laden ready-to-eat foods, crack, whores (not to mention crack whores) and evangelical preachers. There are some things that hit the human dopamine release mechanisms too hard for a sizeable portion of the population to be able to handle responsibly - they become a danger to themselves and others and everyone - including themselves, will be happier in the long run if they aren't encouraged to indulge to their innate level of contentment.
What's bad about bottled water? Many people are willing to pay absurd premiums for it, and the capitalist system takes that weakness and wreaks all kinds of absurdly disproportionate environmental damages in pursuit of the easy dollar, willingly given.
There are lots and lots of more efficient ways to get good clean water to drink. Unfortunately, bottled water plays to the quick-fix give me something I can afford today, rather than the: tax everyone for the cost of a month or two's supply of bottled water so you can give them several years supply of equally good or better municipal tap water a couple of years in the future.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:16AM (10 children)
Alive and well, but not absolutist.
I want to see local water supplies protected from over-use, but not walled off from use entirely.
"What's bad about bottled water? Many people are willing to pay absurd premiums for it, and the capitalist system takes that weakness and wreaks all kinds of absurdly disproportionate environmental damages in pursuit of the easy dollar, willingly given."
So the only thing wrong with it is that people are willing to pay absurd amounts for it?
I don't doubt that some are, and that drives up the price of certain brands in a way that makes no sense to me (they're often not even good water in my opinion) but to each his own.
You know some people buy it because their tap water is not good for drinking, not because they're trying to flaunt their wealth, right?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 19 2020, @11:51AM (7 children)
Even when it's not brand stupidity driving the prices, bottling water and shipping it is orders of magnitude more expensive than delivery via municipal pipeline systems.
I'm _almost_ O.K. with taking people's money who willingly fork over $10+ per gallon for status symbol water, but the very presence of that market seems to legitimize "cheap" bottled water that's still 20+X more expensive than tap, for example: ~$0.005 per gallon in Phoenix AZ.
Take the money your population is spending on bottled water because "tap is no good" and spend it on improving the tap water instead, you'd be surprised how much you save. And, the reason you're saving money is mostly because you're not expending as much energy (these days mostly fossil fuels) accomplishing your goal.
Oh, but taxes are baaaaahd, big gubbmint gonna enslave us all, rather give my money to Rasheed at the Quickie Mart at $0.99 per 11oz of Fiji water. Not directed at any poster on this board, just one of the many dysfunctional general sentiments that drive vanity water sales, and the downstream markets like $0.89 per gallon for filtered water from WalMart.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:29PM (6 children)
Of course. And that's reflected in the price. About $.0015/10 gallons at the tap, compared to $.89/gallon for bottled spring water.
But even though that's a very large increase as a percentage of the tap water, that doesn't make it a large expense. Back of the envelope, mayo clinic says the average person needs a bit under half a gallon/day, so let's round up and call it $.50/day. About $180/year. Compared to the cost of moving that's nothing.
"I'm _almost_ O.K. with taking people's money who willingly fork over $10+ per gallon for status symbol water"
What about people that waste money on other expensive status symbols? Do you want to outlaw Rolex? Dulce & Gabbana? Apple? Tesla?
Just where do you draw the line, and what makes you think it's ok to impose your line on other people without their consent?
"Take the money your population is spending on bottled water because "tap is no good" and spend it on improving the tap water instead, you'd be surprised how much you save."
Sounds good in theory, if you know nothing about water treatment. In practice this doesn't produce good water. Human filtering works quickly and cheaply to remove elements that threaten health and make the water /safe/ to drink but it doesn't make anything palatable. You can't change that just by throwing more money at it. Good drinking water is filtered naturally in a process that takes many years. Human reprocessing results in Dasani instead, or worse.
"Oh, but taxes are baaaaahd, big gubbmint gonna enslave us all, rather give my money to Rasheed at the Quickie Mart at $0.99 per 11oz of Fiji water."
You realize that anything you buy at a convenience store carries a convenience surcharge, right?
Look at that bottle in context. You know what else you could get to drink at that location for that price? Dasani, and probably some kind of corn syrup based drink.
That's what happens when you don't think ahead and pack sufficient water at the beginning of the excursion.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 20 2020, @02:45AM (5 children)
When Rolex, Gucci and Apple prop up an industry that is actively undermining the development of safe and effective delivery of essential services - that's where I'd draw the line - Luxe brands are not doing that (in most cases), but you might say bottled water is "special" - sort of out there with essential oils vs proven antibiotics, if the essential oils were significantly impeding the ability of antibiotics being manufactured and delivered to people who need and want them.
Check again, Coca-cola's Dasani and similar brands filter, then toss a "secret recipe" of minerals into the water to manufacture consistently appealing drinking water in diverse locations with diverse sources. How do they do it? Money, and not very much of it as compared to what they charge - free enterprise gone wild.
Which is why 11oz of chilled Fiji from a Quickie mart is closer to $2, instead of the $0.99 internet bulk price.
Unless, you know, municipal sources provide safe palatable drinking water for essentially free...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday February 20 2020, @05:23AM (4 children)
"Check again, Coca-cola's Dasani and similar brands filter, then toss a "secret recipe" of minerals into the water to manufacture consistently appealing drinking water in diverse locations with diverse sources."
Yeah, no.
Dasani is exactly my point. It's the peak of what we can do with water recycling. And it's not pleasant to drink. I've tasted it and I shudder at the thought.
You're talking about boosting the price of my tapwater tremendously, to bring it up to 'dasani' quality which will make it many times as expensive to water my lawn, wash my clothes, take my bath etc. But it won't actually change the position with regard to drinking from it.
A total waste of time and energy. For the vast majority of my water usage, the increased effort is unnecessary, and for the tiny amount remaining, it's insufficient.
"Which is why 11oz of chilled Fiji from a Quickie mart is closer to $2, instead of the $0.99 internet bulk price."
And it's not the best water in the world either. It's tasty, at least, it's not at all unpleasant to drink at least. And the levels of arsenic are classified as 'safe.' But I wouldn't drink it every day, even if it were free, and it's ludicrously expensive even at .99/330ml when there is better water on sale every day for .89/gallon.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 20 2020, @01:51PM (3 children)
Oh, I understand now. If you're unable to stomach Dasani then you are truly special, and excused from conversations that involve the 99+%. Enjoy your special products, I hope the industry continues to meet your needs, but your needs have nothing to do with what makes safe, healthy tap water for the vast majority of the 7+ Billion people on the planet.
No, I'm talking about delivering safe clean tap water via municipal level utilities - if that's not meeting your needs, you can indeed install your own Dasani style home filtration / treatment system to your own spec for as much or as little "special water" as you desire, or go buy water with gold flakes in it - if that floats your boat.
The problem lies in the perception that bulk delivery of ~$0.89/gal not-so-special bottled water is somehow an acceptable replacement for safe ubiquitous tap water. It's not even as radical as UBI, just UBW - we really can do it, on a global scale it's less expensive than the systems that are in place today.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday February 20 2020, @03:29PM (2 children)
No, no, you don't understand and I'm starting to wonder about your ability to read because I said the exact opposite.
You can drink it. In a pinch, when there's nothing else available, sure. Same goes for my tapwater. They'll sustain life.
But when I set out a meal I like to spend a couple cents extra to put good drinking water on the table instead. Why is that such a problem for you?
If you think dasani is good, btw, you've either never tasted it, or you've never tasted good water, or you've just killed your taste buds entirely with soda pop and the like. Most people seem to fall into the last category these days.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 20 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)
It's not a problem, until the presence of the bottled water industry delays or completely obstructs the construction or maintenance of safe municipal water systems.
I have no particular opinion on Dasani, it didn't kill me when I drank it, but neither was it in any way impressive. I am my own form of water snob - we have a spring fed supply at the house that comes from the same limestone formation that Zephyrhills bottled water is tapped from - and it's some nasty H2S laden stuff when it comes out of the ground. Previous owners installed a "settling tank" which allows the H2S to mostly outgas before reaching the pressure tank / house, and that worked well enough in warm weather but wasn't so great for our family of four in the winter (higher usage, slower outgassing rate when it's cold), so I added an air pump / air stone to the tank to accelerate the outgassing process - now it's fine as long as the kids don't leave a hose or tap on for > 30 minutes... Our house water is "infused with trace minerals" right up there with Fiji and other limestone (old coral formation) aquifers, no chlorine or other treatment necessary (though this does mean a little extra cleaning of the toilets and showers, since the tap water isn't actively killing things...) Other water is... different, and usually not as desirable to me.
If you enjoy San Peligrino or whatever, that's fine - the amount of water consumed with meals is small enough as to not be a real concern. If you simply must have your water of choice at all times throughout the day, I'd say you're suffering a first world problem of your own making.
Where the whole thing spins into absurdity is the large part of the population that seems to yield to social pressure to drink bottled as a status symbol, everywhere, all the time. In regions where municipal water isn't up to par, I'd be highly in favor of a stiff (say 20%) tax on gross bottled water proceeds to fund the municipal water system. In places where the municipal water system is supplying a bottled water plant, or the plant is significantly affecting the municipal supply (good luck proving that...) I'd also be in favor of profit sharing (aka tax) at a similar level to offset the impact.
Of course, I'm probably projecting... my sister in law hasn't been gainfully employed more than 6 months in the last 5 years, claims to have no savings at 60 years of age, lives mostly on the charity of others, and is frequently seen with a bottle of Fiji in her hand - apparently it has positive impact on her self esteem.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday February 21 2020, @02:18PM
That would be a problem. Any evidence of it actually happening?
"I have no particular opinion on Dasani, it didn't kill me when I drank it, but neither was it in any way impressive."
Well then we're basically agreed. I first tried it blind btw - a friend of mine thought it would be a great test since it had just come out and I hadn't even heard of it, let alone tasted it, yet. And that was basically my response. Made a little face. "It would do, in a pinch. Odd taste. Where is this one from?"
I don't think I've tried Zephyr hills, I know limestone water from springs in western va that is absolutely delicious, but I can see the sulfur being a problem. It sounds like you've got it covered though.
"If you enjoy San Peligrino or whatever, that's fine - the amount of water consumed with meals is small enough as to not be a real concern. If you simply must have your water of choice at all times throughout the day, I'd say you're suffering a first world problem of your own making."
I think we are agreed on that.
"Where the whole thing spins into absurdity is the large part of the population that seems to yield to social pressure to drink bottled as a status symbol, everywhere, all the time."
I think that's just one facet of a deeper problem, which really has nothing at all to do with bottled water.
"Of course, I'm probably projecting... my sister in law hasn't been gainfully employed more than 6 months in the last 5 years, claims to have no savings at 60 years of age, lives mostly on the charity of others, and is frequently seen with a bottle of Fiji in her hand - apparently it has positive impact on her self esteem."
She doesn't sound... wise. Not at all.
On the other hand if it were a bottle of carbonated corn syrup, that would be even worse I suppose.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 20 2020, @08:11PM (1 child)
Around here many stores have water filtering machines (reverse osmosis) and sell it by the reusable 5 gallon bottle for something like a buck. There is also water delivery trucks which pick up the empty 5 gallon containers and drop of a weeks supply, not sure of the price but they seem popular. Me. I drive to a spring and get water as my well is crap. BTW, our tap water is considered some of the best in the world, or at least was.
Buying water by the half litre or even litre seems awfully wasteful.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday February 21 2020, @02:31PM
That will make it safe to drink, which is great, but it doesn't tend to taste great.
"Me. I drive to a spring and get water as my well is crap."
Lucky you, to have a spring in driving distance. :)
"Buying water by the half litre or even litre seems awfully wasteful."
On a day to day basis? Sure. I get spring water by the gallon and I don't have to have anything else. Sometimes I splurge a little, buy a pallet of one of my favorite brands when the local supplier has an attractive overstock. It's a lot cheaper to do it that way and just throw a couple bottles in the icebox before going out, rather than buying something at a convenience store when I get thirsty. Pellegrino, Acqua Panna, whatever I have it's going to be at least as good as the Fiji, normally better, and obviously I'm paying a lot less this way too.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:29PM
You're right - I don't think they articulated themselves well. What I suspect they meant was "The Bottled Water is an industry that shouldn't exist". Its existence exacerbates the problems with local water that drive more people toward bottled water in a vicious cycle. Not to mention the insanity of shipping all of that fresh water around the world.
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday February 18 2020, @11:01PM (22 children)
You've missed the point. I don't fucking care if the industry exists or not.
What I want, is regulations on the plastic, or to use glass again. Glass may not be necessary because we have plenty of products similar to plastic, but compostable. Sustainable or reusable containers is needed.
Those fuckers can sell all the bottled water they want........ as long as their bottling facilities are in town and hooked up to the same water supply I have access to. Then the Capitalist proposal, the ones with free markets that don't exist, would provide those that want it better filtered water than the tap.
The critical issue is that they're DESTROYING our fucking forests for greed. Considering that forests drained of water usually result in HUGE FUCKING FIRE HAZARDS, I'm going to go with we round these fuckers up and set them on fire. They literally refuse to listen to reason, refuse to listen to science, refuse to listen to the evidence of their harm, and then argue they have the absolute rights to drain the forest of all water.
THERE is your problem to focus on. Obtaining water at the expense of our environment for profit. They need to put their bottling facilities farther down from the source, specifically AFTER whatever municipal and rural taps on that water exist, such that we can measure and tax those bastards accordingly. When they go ludicrous-plaid and demand 90% of our water supply for profit, we tell them to fuck-off-and-die and live with the allotment we gave them. That allotment would include the recommendations of scientists that understand just what supply is currently available in our groundwater supplies.
This is the perfect example of toxic Capatilism at work that is perfectly okay with great harm, as long as their is great profit. At the expense of the rest of us. As you might guess, this is rather personal to us in California because Nestle is draining the fuck out of our forests, dangerously. The forests are having adverse effects, and are just becoming a greater fire hazard. The number of dead trees in our forests is extremely scary and sobering.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @11:19PM
Have you not read Fustakrakich's method of using a series of contracts to to maintain flexibility without draconian laws? If that fails then it is your fault for not voting out the people who allowed this to happen. /s for safety
(Score: 4, Disagree) by deimtee on Wednesday February 19 2020, @12:05AM (10 children)
We have the same activist idiots trying to ban bottled water here in Oz.
It only makes sense if you legislate the same for soft drinks (soda pop to you guys). We have clean drinkable tap water here and the majority of times I use bottled water is because I want a drink when I am out somewhere, and I don't like all the suger or the artificial sweeteners. If they ban bottled water I'll just be buying iced tea or something. Same number of plastic bottles, and a fatter population.
I sometimes wonder how much funding Coke and Pepsi contribute to the groups trying to ban bottled water.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday February 19 2020, @01:40AM (1 child)
Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. are among the largest [technavio.com] sellers of bottled water.
They make a larger profit selling tap water than selling soft drinks.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:49AM
Ah, yes. But they are not monoliths. I should have said the coke and pepsi divisions of the coke and pepsi companies.
I think you also underestimate just how cheap the syrup is. I would be surprised if the cost difference is more than a couple of cents per bottle.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:15AM (2 children)
You understand my issue has nothing to do with banning bottled anything right? I'm not interested in banning bottled anything either. Regulating the plastic use, sure. If we have reasonable alternatives, we will use them. I feel the same as you, I want to in some cases, have access to bottled water. Although, I might also say, it could be better to have your own container at least. Better bringing it from home, kept cold in a thermos, then buying bottled something while you're out. That's just pinching pennies though.
The issue at play here isn't banning bottled water at all. That may be what some activists are asking for, but the issue is the source of the water. That's it. Even in this case it's more about where they are getting this water, than what they are doing with it.
They need to be kicked out of the forests and natural springs, because they have zero respect for it, and very clearly continue to harm our environment. They have no rights to drain forests on public land, and they act like they do, and their LAWYERS argue that have absolute rights to all the water they can find anywhere. Offense and ridiculous.
If these companies were reasonable, and proper stewards of the environment they are in, they would reduce their water consumption to that which is safe. X amount of water out of the forest per year, so as not to harm the trees and ecology. They are not nearly this reasonable and have literally created huge fire risks.
As you are seemingly in Australia, I think you can appreciate the anger of creating greater fire risks for communities just to make greater profit.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday February 19 2020, @07:13AM (1 child)
I know that in OZ the complaints are mostly about the plastic bottles. I just don't see how they are worse than soft drink plastic bottles.
I don't really disagree with your post, but it isn't about the consumption of water either unless they are deliberately overtaxing very small springs.
For example, the entire 14 billion gallons p.a. of bottled water use in the USA is about one twentieth of the flow of the rather small Smith River in California [northcoastweather.com]. (Pic of the river) [google.com]
Distribute that over all the companies, all the places they collect from, and how much is actually just filtered tap water and there must be more to it. They are not diverting the Mississippi, the whole lot is the equivalent of one small creek.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 20 2020, @08:52PM
I remember when pop came in glass bottles, that were reused a few times.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday February 19 2020, @07:31AM (1 child)
Australia imports thousands of tonnes of bottled water. We also export thousands of tonnes of bottled water. The CO2 impact of all of that shipping, only to end up with a nearly neutral net position re: H2O movement.
At least with soft drink, they use local water and only export/import the syrup.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday February 19 2020, @07:54AM
Yeah I agree that's stupid, but its their choice. There is probably more wasted fuel in a single formula one race. Once again, if people want to pay for it, it's their choice. I don't buy imported bottled water, and I don't go to the races. Legislating to control personal discretionary spending is wrong.
Making the companies clean up their act and stop screwing the environment is fine, telling people they can't have water and have to drink coke or fanta is not.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 19 2020, @09:02AM (2 children)
Because buying plastic bottled water is the only solution or what?
Like should we congratulate the Aborigines for the discovery of the plastic bottle some 40k years ago, ' cause otherwise they would not have survived?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday February 19 2020, @09:46PM (1 child)
Why is buying a bottle of water worse than buying a bottle of soft drink?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:05PM
Never said it.
I only said that one doesn't need either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 19 2020, @12:31AM (9 children)
Mandate that water bottlers actually recycle water. They can build desalination plants on the coasts, and pull their water from the ocean.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @01:55AM
Better yet, mandate that water bottlers actually use recycled water. They can take their water supply directly from the output of the municipal wastewater treatment plants. If that water isn't clean enough for them, or their customers, they can shoulder the cost to filter it some more.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:27AM
The simplest requirement is that their water hookup is ALWAYS "downstream" from the mountains, forests, springs, aquifers, wells, etc. Mandated by law, their hookups are municipal and rate limited. They can buy X gallons of water at Y rate, and above a certain volume, the Z rate. It's tiered.
That's how I paid for water in Las Vegas for awhile.
I love freedom and peaceful enjoyment as much as the next person, but that doesn't give me the right, even on my own property, to adversely affect groundwater supplies for a whole fucking county. Which is why those bastards that frack improperly in shallow formations directly under the ground water supplies, ruining water for whole communities at a time, need to be dragged out into the street and gutted. In some places the water supplies are permanently screwed now with hydrocarbons leaking and bubbling up into the aquifers. The cost to the public and our country for allowing unfettered access to our resources has been huge, and devastating.
Water is a big fucking deal. The only way these toxic Capitalist fucks should be able to access unlimited water from us, is when we actually have the surplus. It's just common sense to properly steward our groundwater supplies.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:22AM (6 children)
Maybe in another century we'll be able to make drinkable water by processing brine for less energy than it takes to transport it from the glacier, but we're not there yet.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:18PM (5 children)
Actually, I have drunk "that crap". Five years of sea duty ensures that you're going to drink it, and probably sooner than later.
When a ship gets underway, there are no tens of thousands of gallon water tanks to top off. We make our own water, constantly. Two big evaporators pulled water from the sea, producing quite a lot of water.
Of course, the Navy has it's priorities. The boilers get all the water they could ever want, or need. Then, the galley gets water. Then, the dispensary. And, finally, the crew gets whatever is left - if any. Fresh water showers, drinking fountains, laundry, etc. On days when one of the evaps might be down for maintenance, the other evap doesn't keep up very well, so you go to "water hours". That is, no laundry outside of designated hours. Or showers. Or even drinking water if it gets that bad.
And, that water was always just as pure as pure can be. It's tasteless, but it's damned good water. People who are accustomed to pollutants in their water may not like desalinated water, but I'm fine with it. People pay a lot for water softening treatments, but desalinated water needs none of that.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:46PM (4 children)
So that would produce very pure water. Perfectly usable for all the other things you mention - cooking, cleaning and so forth. No problem. Safe to drink too, not life threatening. But as you say, completely bland and tasteless. If you're on a ship it makes sense, but if you're a restaurant and you serve water like that you're pushing your customers to order corn syrup or alcohol instead.
And this is NOT the process typically used to treat municipal water. It's far more energy intensive - which is fine on a navy ship but not so great in a municipal setting. Instead you have systems that look something like this: https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/water_treatment.html
That system produces large amounts of 'safe' water, perfectly good for cooking and cleaning and irrigation but not very pleasant to drink. It does it very efficiently as well. The result is perfectly good to cover the vast majority of water usage. So instead of importing relatively small amounts of water for drinking, at relatively low prices, you want to mandate that the entire system be rebuilt, at great cost, into a system that will be far more expensive to run going forward, just to produce tasteless water that many people *still* won't really want to drink to cover that last 2% of usage?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by Myfyr on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:59PM (2 children)
Around these parts, desalination makes up nearly half of our drinking water supply. It absolutely works, it tastes fine, and we'll likely need more of the same in the future. Without it we'd be completely screwed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Seawater_Desalination_Plant [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:19PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:51PM
Bottled water is somewhat of an affectation, people drink it because they are conditioned (marketed? brainwashed?) into believing it is safer and superior to their local tap water. Maybe that is true for a few places, but most places I have lived have perfectly fine tap water. My current city even bottled and sold their water for a while (they may even still do so). If you are buying bottled water in plastic bottles as your primary drinking source over your local tap water, you are probably drinking water more contaminated than what usually comes out of your tap.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:15PM
I'll just point out that water sustains life. Most of the crap in flavored sugar water tends to shorten life. But, to each his own, right? We all have the right to choose our own poisons, then pay for the cures for those poisons in later life. Except, I don't think there is a cure yet for diabetes.
If it's good enough for Myfyr, it should be good enough for anyone! ;^)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @04:39AM
TFS should've opened with: "Washington state, land of sprawling low-income housing developments and fluoride-laced municipal water supplies, might soon become the first in the nation to ban non-fluoridated bottled water." [...]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday February 19 2020, @11:51AM
Lots of off-the-cuff, simplistic comments here. It's actually a complicated issue, as most things are.
- Sure, there are idiots willing to pay a premium price for something that they can get out of their tap for free. I saw a show a while back, where some guy was handing out bottled water samples, in sexy looking bottles somewhere in the UK. He got tremendous feedback - the water was great, where could they buy it? He had filled his bottles with the local tap water. Idiots.
- On the other hand, this presumes that the local tap water is actually potable. This is not the case, in a surprising number of places. Where I live, a lot of drinking water comes from rivers and lakes, and some areas have high concentrations of agricultural chemicals.
- Water rights are a mess, just about everywhere. You may not own the water (even the rainwater) that is on/under your own land. Water for agriculture is often artificially cheap, enabling wasteful stuff like farming in the California desert. And who has rights to well water, which can drain water tables over a huge area? Rationalizing water rights is politically impossible, because so many vested interests are threatened.
- Lastly, why is selling water worse than selling any other kind of drink? Soft drinks are arguably far worse, because they are also unhealthy. What about wine? Consider the sheer inefficiency of growing a crop, plucking its berries, crushing them for juice, which is then fermented, bottled, and shipped around the world. It's hard to imagine a less efficient way of getting something to drink. So: what kinds of drinks are you going to regulate, and why?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by anotherblackhat on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:14PM (1 child)
If a bottled water plant produced 1,000,000 half-liter bottles a day, that would still be less than 1,500 homes.
Farms use water by the acre-foot (1,233,480 liters) and they're up in arms about something that uses maybe 0.1% of the water?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @06:28AM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=36113&page=1&cid=959810#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by slashnot on Wednesday February 19 2020, @09:15PM
I remember wondering in the 90's, when it became fashionable to carry around a disposable water bottle with you, why civilization would spend so much energy on transporting water from one point to another via truck. Compared to other substances, water is fairly heavy. Imagine if instead, we had some network of reservoirs and pipes that could deliver water directly to homes and businesses. Oh wait, we do.
I agree, I don't like the taste of tap water, so I've been buying water filters for a long time now. Any kind of filter (pitcher, faucet-mount, inline, etc.) greatly improves the taste and safety of tap water. Most people don't know that many bottled waters are simply filtered tap water anyway - I'm looking at you Dasani (Coco-Cola) and Aquafina (PepsiCo).
This concept could extend further, for example by selling juices only in concentrate and laundry detergent only in powdered form, but that's a discussion for another time.