On the 40th anniversary
of Earth Day, it's becoming clear that the waters of the world are being
destroyed by...water. Presenting environmental
DUH vs. FACT.
DUH: Sometime in the last 10 years or so, we all
decided that water that comes out of a bottle is purer than water that comes
out of the tap. FACT: bottled water is a food, under the authority
of the Food and Drug Administration, while tap water is regulated by the much
stricter standards of the Environmental Protection Agency, so in most cases tap
water is cleaner. Okay, fair enough, but
- DUH - don't most bottled waters come out of pure little springs that flow
fresh from the ground? Well, the FACT is
most bottled waters on the market are just tap water that's been filtered, including
the top two sellers, Aquafina (made by Pepsico) and Dasani (Coca-Cola). But at least it's cheap, right? (Hint:
DUH.) Bottled water is
approximately twice as expensive as gasoline.
(FACT.)
You want more DUH? Okay, how about the FACT that the act of
making bottled water is extraordinarily wasteful of fresh water. Engineers have calculated that, to bring 1 liter
of Fiji water from its source to market in the United States, approximately 7
liters of fresh water are used to make the bottle, bottle the water, and
transport it (as well as a quarter liter of fossil fuels and a pound of
greenhouse gases). And the thirst for
sources of water that can be bottled is leading corporations to buy up any
water they can find, denying millions of people access to safe and affordable
water.
But all this compares to
the great DUH, the mega-DUH, the "what the heck were they thinking?" DUH. The
bottled water industry creates about 1.5 million tons of plastic per year. About 20% of that plastic is recycled. The other 80% goes into landfills or washes
into streams and rivers. Much of it
makes its way to the Pacific, and floats all the way to the Philippines. Then it gets caught in the North Pacific
Gyre, which swirls it back into the center of the ocean, where it becomes part
of the North Pacific Garbage Patch. It's
a vast continent of DUH, already bigger than the continental United
States. It's out there, it will never
break down, and it's growing with every sip.
So here's a crisp and
refreshing idea. Go to your
kitchen. Turn on the faucet. See that liquid stuff flowing out? It's called water. Drink some.
Otherwise the planet will
be destroyed by DUH. And that's a FACT.
You can read previous installments of
the quick Sliver in our online archive.
Just go here: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs015/1103023679528/archive/1103033975377.html
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