07.09.07
More bloody reasons to feel guilty
“Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We’re moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That’s a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (Water weighs 81/3 pounds a gallon. It’s so heavy you can’t fill an 18-wheeler with bottled water–you have to leave empty space.)
Meanwhile, one out of six people in the world has no dependable, safe drinking water. The global economy has contrived to deny the most fundamental element of life to 1 billion people, while delivering to us an array of water “varieties” from around the globe, not one of which we actually need. That tension is only complicated by the fact that if we suddenly decided not to purchase the lake of Poland Spring water in Hollis, Maine, none of that water would find its way to people who really are thirsty.”
Bottled water is REALLY handy. I LIKE drinking water from a bottle when I am out and about. Water is good for you. The children are far more likely to drink water from a bottle. At home they demand juice but for some novelty reason they’ll drink water out of a sports top bottle. Usually I’ll get a multipack of the little bottles and re-fill them a few times with tap water to encourage them to drink it.
Do I have to feel guilty about drinking bloody water now?
AND I had to switch the oil on today. More environmental and domestic economy crimes. The weather is RIDICULOUS. This better not be global warming. What happened to the WARMING bit?
Fence said,
July 10, 2007 at 10:04 am
If you didn’t have the water bottle what would you be drinking? Fizzy drinks or juice or whatever that also comes in plastic bottles? How many plastic bottles of coke are floating around out there? For some reason they never seem to be mentioned.
I always reuse my water bottles, but don’t like to keep them for too long on account of germs and whatnot. But sometimes you are out, and want a drink, and as I’m not a huge fan of fizzy drinks I tend to go for water more often than not.
tom said,
July 10, 2007 at 10:20 am
Buy a bottle of water. Drink the water. Refill from tap. I really don’t think your kids are going to notice.
It does seem ridiculous that we pay taxes in order to have clean, fresh water through our taps, and then we decide to buy bottled water instead. That’s capitalism I guess.
Given that habits like drinking bottled water have a negative effect on the planet I don’t see why the practise shouldn’t be banned in countries with healthy tap water.
So that excludes Ireland then. BOOM BOOM.
Graham said,
July 10, 2007 at 11:53 am
There’s nothing wrong with drinking bottled water, but you can help to reduce the impact on the environment by buying Irish bottled water instead of those that must be shipped from France or even further.
It might be also worth remembering that the largest company in the world, Nestlé, owns most of the bottled water companies in Europe.
JC Skinner said,
July 10, 2007 at 6:54 pm
No need to feel guilty about drinking water. Just pour it from a tap in future. That way you don’t get ripped off (what’s the margin on water anyway?) and neither does the planet.
Gerry said,
July 11, 2007 at 9:32 am
New York is coming out against bottled water. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6286606.stm. I’ll say one thing for NY, you sit down in any bar or restaurant and out comes a big glass of iced water before you do anything else.
Bottled water has never made any sense to rational people. If people have to have water when they are out why can’t a shop keep empty bottles and fill them with water an charge the margin they make on it. Or have a tap. And ban it in restaurants.
I used to work with a PR agency and they would give you water shipped in thick glass bottled from Norway. I mean the glass weighed more than the water. A scandal. and of course it was refrigerated. I refused it after a while and insisted on tap.
Walking around with bottled water is nonsense. our parents and generations before them never saw the need to keep drinking water every 5 minutes. As children we’d go 8 hours without topping up and then drink a gallon at a shot.
No, walking around with bottled water is showing the world
1) look at me, i look after my self – no fizzies for me
2) i’m so wealthy i can buy water in a bottle
3) i am self-associating with the success lifestyle
You’re not walking around with water cos you’re thirsty.
leon said,
July 11, 2007 at 9:50 am
We didn’t know about the need to stay hydrated in the 80s Gerry. We know better now!
tom said,
July 11, 2007 at 10:45 am
true leon, but what is really concerning is that some people are still unaware of the need to pre-hydrate. Thank god lucozade sport are funding short documentaries reminding us of the importance of pre-hydration. otherwise where would we be?
Gerry said,
July 11, 2007 at 11:24 am
as i remember it only Charles Haughey, Terry Keane and Ben Dunne were hydrating regularly. and they had the perrier shipped in special from France. And one or possibly two of them are now dead. Which goes to show.
Sarah said,
July 11, 2007 at 2:14 pm
hmm well you know Paddy, who reads the New Scientist, says that this whole thing about drinking 8 glasses of water a day is rubbish. The science says we need to drink the equivalent of 8 glasses a day but we actually get most of that from food, so the 8 glasses doesn’t have to be additional.
Personally, and Darren Barefoot agrees with me, if that’s good or ill, I tend to use the goal of clear pee, rather than quantity as my guide. But maybe pee doesn’t have to be clear?
Gerry said,
July 11, 2007 at 2:25 pm
that’s a hell of a goal Sarah. Fair play to you. better clear than not I guess.
tom said,
July 11, 2007 at 2:29 pm
“I tend to use the goal of clear pee, rather than quantity as my guide.”
how do you check? I mean for a man it’s simple enough. For a lady surely it’s more complicated.
Sarah said,
July 11, 2007 at 2:42 pm
lol well, when one flushes there is ample opportunity. Of course, that’s if the previous user has also flushed which apparently we’re not supposed to do either unless absolutely necessary. But since I have my own well, I will not deny myself a clear bowl. There are limits, surely?
andrew said,
July 11, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Another myth about the eight glasses a day is that tea and coffee don’t count. They do.
Teenage girls, in particular, are welded to their water bottles, and impervious to the observations that:
a. Few boys seem to need a swig every ten minutes.
b. Girls in the south of France, where the temperature must be 10 degrees higher than here, are usually bottle-free.
c. Until about ten years ago, we went hours and hours without a drink of water.
Could it be that talk of rehydration covers a popular notion that the more water you drink, the less hungry you feel?
Incidentally, a friend of mine invigilated in the leaving Cert exams this year – a bottle on every desk – and reports that requests to go to the toilet in mid-exam reached epidemic proportions.
leon said,
July 11, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Sarah has a Cavan Crystal toilet. Surely you knew that lads. She tells people that it is Waterford but it isn’t.
Why the fuck do you want clear pee? You’re too goal oriented.
Sarah said,
July 11, 2007 at 9:13 pm
lol
I AM goal oriented, perhaps too much. How does one decide what is too much? I make lists and writing them helps me not get stressed thinking about what I have to do and ticking off the jobs is also stress relieving. However sometimes I wonder do I end up thinking of jobs to do just so I can make the list? I really notice this with projects for the house. Especially buying things i think I need for it. If I didn’t make the list maybe I wouldn’t think of so many jobs to do? Neurotic maybe. BUT OTOH, very productive. Can neuroses be forgiven if they are productive? I would like to exist and not be thinking about the next job on the list.
and look Cavan Crystal is full lead crystal. Or at least used to be. And sure lots of Waterford is outsourced now. I’d be careful what you buy from them. For my wedding list I ended up putting down Tipperary. I like the old fashioned heavy cut glasses but the Waterford patterns were just so expensive. Though lots of people ignored the list and bought Waterford anyway. I have around 120 wine glasses. (well, flutes, goblets, claret etc). I said to my mother, great, I can have lovely parties. Oh yeah she said, you’ll be having parties. But I WILL have parties. When my children move out. In the meantime I don’t have to get upset if a glass breaks.
I’m taking multivitamins at the moment. They’ve got ginseng in them. My pee is bright green in the mornings. Almost luminous. Bizarre. You’d drink lots of water if you had luminous green pee. God this blog brings out the worst in me,
A Nonimus said,
July 12, 2007 at 5:56 pm
What’s the most expensive bottle of water anyone has seen for sale? I wonder can anyone better the 2.70 for a standard small bottle I paid in the Parnell cinema complex last week…..
leon said,
July 13, 2007 at 9:21 am
A certain newpaper columnist on Domestic and Political matters sells her bright green ‘water’ to a very specific market (mostly in Germany) for 100 euro per 100 ml.
L
EWI said,
July 15, 2007 at 11:21 pm
“AND I had to switch the oil on today. More environmental and domestic economy crimes. The weather is RIDICULOUS. This better not be global warming. What happened to the WARMING bit?”
It’s essential to note that it’s ‘global’ warming, which leads to climate _change_, not necessarily warming everwhere (or even most wheres). The taxi-driver level ‘commentary’ on science issues which many engage in is eternally depressing.