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Feeling guilty about your bottled water? Or worried that it is not as pure as the pastoral scene on the label implies? Your worries are justified. Bottled water is unregulated in the US, and often as not, it is just filtered tap water – with a heavier carbon footprint thanks to the requisite plastic container and the shipping.
Luckily, just as you’re re-evaluating this resource-intensive habit, so is everyone else, from the cities that have passed bottled water taxes to the bottled water companies themselves to entrepreneurs trying to figure a better way.
Culligan, the big kahuna of bottled water service companies now makes a cooler that hooks up to your tap – an apparent concession that the days of carting around those big blue bottles may be numbered.
But one of the most unique solutions to filling your cup without filling the landfill may be generating your own purified water. You can do that by tapping into the humidity in the air with an Atmospheric Water Generator, which pulls water from “thin air” (as long as that air registers at least 35 percent humidity).
The move away from bottled water has become a strong undertow in America, and now one of the leaders in packaged water is making a play for customers who want purified water – but without all the plastic.
Culligan is introducing a line of bottle-less water coolers that are designed to serve homes or small businesses. The new “point-of-service” water coolers rely on the building’s existing water sources (i.e., the tap water) but run it through a series of filters from Culligan’s Aqua Kleer line. The filter system can be customized to fit the particular needs of the area and the desires of the user.
David Paterson, Governor of New York, issued an executive order May 5th restricting the use of bottled water at state facilities and promoting executive agency sustainability.
The order will phase out the use of state funds to purchase single-serve bottles of water. Eventually, the state will purchase cooler-sized bottles of water and state agencies will provide tap water fountains and dispensers. The order gives government agencies 180 days to develop and begin implementation of a plan to eliminate the use of single-serve bottled waters.
Drinking a glass of water. It should be a simple thing. But as we Americans wean ourselves from plastic water bottles and return to the tap, there are a new set of questions that arise.
It’s no secret Americans are suckers for convenience. Consider how we’re losing the ability to make our own coffee. Or the fact that there are 2.8 cup holders per passenger in U.S.-made cars.
Of course what we’re putting in those cup holders may prove to be the most successful of convenience gambits, the plastic bottle of water. Once we got water from wells and then the tap; now we have factories bottle it up, package it, truck it around and then sell it to us. But you know that story.
Here’s a new one: That clear plastic marvel of modern marketing probably contains nothing much more than plain old tap water from somewhere that may or may not have been filtered as well as the water you could get from your own tap.
At the risk of sounding like Joe Biden, let’s say that again: It may or may not have been filtered as well as your own tap water.
That’s the gist of findings by the Environmental Working Group, which decided to look behind the “image of purity” promoted by bottled water sellers by lab testing water samples from ten common brands of bottled water.
Everyone knows by now that habitually buying bottled water introduces a staggering amount of wasted plastic into the world. Even if you conscientiously recycle every bottle, that recycling process uses energy and would be unnecessary if you used a non-disposable drinking vessel instead.
For those who have ditched the bottled water habit but don’t trust what comes from their tap, water filters are an appealing solution. Filter-makers have seized upon environmental concerns, and Brita even teamed with Nalgene for an ad campaign disguised as a green awareness effort that asks readers to “take the pledge” to buy filters and reusable bottles.
It waits, patiently, in a corner of the pantry. It knows that it goes out on Tuesdays, doing its good work with a load of diet Coke cans, glass bottles, newspapers and plastics #1 and #2. Salad bar containers make guest appearances, and once in a while a Tide bottle livens things up with its vivid orange and blue, but that’s about as exciting as it gets for the recycling bin.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It’s the mantra of environmentally concerned people everywhere. Maybe you’ve gotten the third part of the equation conquered: If it’s glass, plastic, metal or paper, it goes in the bin. It saves space in the garbage and it saves resources for the planet. But what about the rest? Are you reducing your carbon footprint? Can you reuse more things than you do?
You can, easily, and here’s the best part: It will also save you money. Frugality gets its own cult-like devotion these days. In economically questionable times, anything that keeps a little more cash in our pocket is welcome. And while we’d all like to go out and buy hybrid vehicles and solar water heaters, it may be more practical right now to concentrate on small things that add up to make a difference.
The key is, don’t think you have to overhaul your life. Look around your house, be conscious of your routines, and find small changes that work for you.
“I think the important thing to remember, when trying to go green to save green, is that you shouldn’t try to change too many habits too soon,” said author Leah Ingram, who writes The Lean Green Family, a blog that tells how she (pictured left), her husband and their two pre-teen daughters have adopted a green lifestyle and saved money at the same time.
“Take it slowly, doing one thing at a time, kind of like when you might go on a diet or start a new exercise program,” Ingram said. “Take baby steps. Soon enough it will all seem like second nature.”
How small can a baby step be? Here’s how small: Milk in your cereal. When you’ve finished your cereal, do you drink the milk from the bottom of the bowl, or do you throw it down the drain? If you’re the latter, cut the amount of milk on your cereal tomorrow by about half. Make it a goal to have the cereal and milk end at exactly the same time. Just a fourth of a cup of milk saved daily adds up to close to six gallons of milk in a year. That’s six gallons’ worth of containers that don’t have to be out in the world, and a nifty $20-$30 in your pocket.
Drinking tap, not bottled, water is gaining momentum in restaurants from coast to coast. The “Take Back the Tap” campaign began in March in San Francisco, although some restaurants had already been forgoing bottled water on their own. It grew to include cities such as Alburquerque, Memphis, Omaha, Portland, Seattle and San Diego, and this past summer, the Big Apple.
The program is sponsored by Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit consumer rights organization that looks at corporate control and abuse of the country’s food and water resources. The New York Take Back the Tap campaign also is sponsored by Riverkeeper, a Hudson River environmental protection group.
“Our goal is to make sure that people have safe and affordable drinking water,” says Food and Water Watch (FWW) executive director Wenonah Hauter. “Food and Water Watch promotes a clean water trust fund that protects [the country's] 1.5 million miles of water structure.”
But one of the most unique solutions to filling your cup without filling the landfill may be generating your own purified water. You can do that by tapping into the humidity in the air with an Atmospheric Water Generator, which pulls water from “thin air” (as long as that air registers at least 35 percent humidity).
