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John W. has just alerted me to the existence of this film all about the current worldwide water situation.

The New York Times called it 'An astonishingly wide-ranging film.  An informed and heartfelt examination of the tug of war between public health and private interests'.


Here's the trailer:

$2,600 bottle of water

For sheer unadulterated obscenity, you can think about the billion people in the world without clean drinking water while you read about this bottle of nothing but water that costs $2,600.

Crikey:

Introducing the first entry of the new, Dubai Collection... "The Ten Thousand".  This bottle has over 10,000 hand applied Swarovski Crystals.  Previously only available at Harvey Nichols Department Store in Dubai UAE. "The Ten Thousand" has recently been seen in the fall BeBe Catalog under "what's hot..."and is listed as the most expensive bottled water in the world by Forbes.  CNN, is quoted describing Bling H2O as, "Sipping Pure Prestige".  "The Ten Thousand" bottles are all custom made to order, numbered and come with white handling gloves and case.  Contact us for custom bottle colors and designs.  we can create for you almost any design or image  in Swarovski Crystals on our bottles.(prices vary based on design)

No matter how crazy you think the world gets, it can always get a little crazier.

Penn and Teller on the bullshit of bottled water.

Some Great Tap vs Bottled Sites

Thanks to Bill for these:

In-depth analysis of tap vs bottled.

Bottled water is not safer than tap.

Brilliant diagram explaining about the cost in money, resources and waste.

Five reasons not to drink bottled water.

Six myths about bottled water.

Tap vs Bottle International: Australia

Here's a link to a story of how the local council of Bondi Beach is attempting to counter the waste of bottled water with the ecological sense of fountains:


From the Council’s perspective the project helps them demonstrate their commitment to helping the environment. “From the point of production to their ultimate disposal, water bottles have a significantly negative impact on our environment. The production, transportation, refrigeration and disposal of water bottles is a massive waste of our natural resources and leads to excessive greenhouse gas emissions; not to mention the obvious pollution they create in our local environment,” said the Mayor. And he has written to all his fellow mayor around the country encouraging them to follow in Manly’s lead.


There are further links in the story to a campaign that's been making a real difference in Australia.


Ripper/Bonzer, or whatever they say in Oz.

What Happens When You Ask For Tap Water In The Chain Restaurants Of London?

Today I visited:

Starbucks

Burger King

Costa Coffee

McDonald's

Pret

Cafe Nero

And EAT

To find out what happens when you ask them for tap water to fill up your bottle.

I didn't buy anything, I didn't have to beg and they were all fine about it.

So they all do it, but I have to wonder if there is some kind of stigma the British public has about asking for a 'handout' or 'freebie'.

There might also be the fact that they don't know the above restaurants will give them free tap water, and that's what I'd like to rectify.

If everyone knew that these chains would provide free tap water if asked then maybe more people would ask. But this does throw up another problem, which is that they will make less money off their bottled water. However, I think this will be offset in three ways:

1) Some people will still buy bottled no matter how daft it is.
2) If more people know your place provides free tap water then you will get increased footfall in your restaurant, and if a fraction of those new customers buy something it will easily pay for the expense of some extra tap water.
3) People will think more positively towards the cafes that do this, and therefore would be more likely to visit them for their lunch/snacks/etc.

It seems that overall this is a massively untapped (excuse the pun) route to much greater tap water consumption, reducing the damage caused by bottled water.

The Problem with bottled water

Bottled water is an unnecessary use of resources.

It takes over 30,000 tonnes of CO2 to transport it to the UK, sometimes from as far as New Zealand, which is more than 11,000 miles away.

Britons consume over 3bn bottles of water each year, the vast majority of which come in plastic containers. Each one litre bottle takes 162g of oil and seven litres of water to manufacture.

Of 13bn bottles soft drink bottles that are used in the UK each year, less than 3bn are recycled, and of those that are disposed of correctly, the vast majority become landfill in far-off countries such as India, using even more CO2 to transport.

In the US, annual plastic bottle consumption uses enough oil to power 1,000,000 cars for a year.

Water Water Everywhere seeks to make tap water freely available to as many people as possible. We believe this can be done in two ways:

1. Increase the number of public water fountains.
2. Encourage restaurants/cafes etc. to offer free drinking water to the public.

If you wish to help or get involved, contact wweverywhere@gmail.com

More facts can be found in this excellent article.

And the entire issue is explained clearly and succinctly in this film.