Let them bottle seawater

[yurbud]

Bottled water is generally a very wasteful, over-priced product that drains away a limited resource to profit a very few.

Rather than outlaw the bottling of water, I have a simple proposal: fresh water should a public resource controlled by democratic not corporate means, and no one should be able to take it from the rest of us and sell it back to us. But they should be free to desalinate and bottle seawater and sell all they want.

As fresh water supplies become scarcer, they would be providing a valuable public service, and jump-starting an effort essential to the survival of the human race.

Some would argue that this would require a lot of electricity and therefore create pollution, but if we had a carbon tax or even imposed zero emissions standards for plants that do this, we could make them use wind, solar, or even more obviously, wave and tidal energy to power their plants.

There may be some problems with this, but it sounds like a win-win to me. The corporate parasites get to make money and are actually forced to do a public good, and we get to keep our fresh water.

[sailor65]

1. This is a huge topic here in Michigan

as in the rest of the Great Lakes states.

[SPedigrees]

2. Free safe tap water is available to all in this country.

If a select few choose to drink bottled water, it's not taking away a resource from the many.

Personally I never understood why in the past decade or two, people in this country suddenly decided that tap water is unfit to drink. Nor do I get why people would willingly pay money for one of the few things that is plentiful and free.

[tabbycat31]

5. advertisments

I used to drink bottled water all the time. I now have a few reusable water bottles and fill them with tap water as needed. They're washed when I run the dishwasher.

[yurbud]

6. PR campaign convinced people tap water wasn't safe

I come from Portland, Oregon, and our water was once declared the second cleanest in the US (behind water from a cave in Hawaii), but this PR convinced even my grandparents to start filtering their water.

And then if budgets for municipal water are cut and they can't do as effective a job of keeping their water clean, all the better for the privatizers.

[Xithras]

16. Depends on your definition of "safe"

Where I live, the water contains everything from perchlorate to uranium and agricultural fertilizers. Our water table is so shallow that all sorts of surface crap makes it in. The municipals get the levels under the federal max limits, but just barely. They're having to close wells left and right because many of them are now so polluted that they CAN'T be cleaned up enough.

The California Central Valley has cancer rates well above the norm, and birth defect rates have been climbing for decades. Still, the government has the audacity to claim that our polluted water is NOT related to those numbers.

I don't drink bottled water, but my home does have a $3000 water filtering system to make it safe. When I go out, I take my own bottles with me. I do NOT drink the tap water. Haven't for almost 15 years.

[Occam Bandage]

3. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think bottled water has a significant impact

on water reservoirs. For that to be the case, it would have to cause people to drink more water than they otherwise would, to a massive extent; it doesn't make much of a difference if they're drinking tap water that was bottled thirty miles away, or that was poured directly into their glass. Plus, drinking doesn't account for much compared to other forms of consumption. I couldn't hope to drink in a week the amount of water I use in a shower, and if I drive out to some nearby cornfields, I can watch a year's worth of showers being dumped on a smallish field in minutes. And even that field is insignificant to the water used to keep a par-5 as green as Eden in the parched deserts of Tucson.

If I recall correctly, inappropriate land use in dry areas are what is causing overconsumption of water. While I like the 'if you want it desalinate it' theory, I'd instead apply that to things like golf courses, vineyards, and enormous (and well-manicured) housing developments in Arizona and New Mexico.

[yurbud]

7. that doesn't conflict with my idea, especially the golf course part

what a colossal waste of water. It would be a more challenging game if the terrain was left natural anyway.

[Kitty Herder]

8. Absolutely! If they want golf courses in the desert, make 'em desalinate it.

Golf courses and such in dry climates are one of my pet peeves.

[KamaAina]

11. Actually a golf course in, say, Arizona could be xeriscaped

basically, one large sand trap, with occasional fairways and greens mixed in.

Similarly, a course in Louisiana might be one giant water hazard, with the players crossing bridges, boardwalks, etc., to get to the green.

Call it "Greener Greens"!

[Kitty Herder]

13. Yeah, that would be fine.

But that's not what they do. Instead they waste water on these massive expanses of water-hogging grass.

[Pab Sungenis]

4. The funny thing is, bottled water is usually

JUST TAP WATER with a plastic bottle and a fancy label. Once people start learning this, bottled water will fade out of popularity.

[yurbud]

9. see my comment higher up on PR to convince people tap water is bad

[yurbud]

10. they had a great scene of this in SLUMDOG: kid was refilling water bottles in restaurant kitchen

so Evian was Mumbai's finest.

[GregD]

12. we have a huge battle with Nestle here in our community

http://protectourwaters.org/

[Igel]

14. "Democratic" would mean "government regulated."

Aren't many of the larger bodies of water already under government jurisdiction?

"Nobody should be able to take it from the rest of us." Except that "democratic" control would mean that 50% + 1 could take it away from the "rest of us," the 50% - 1. Not a big improvement over government control.

As an example, take golf courses in the desert. These tend to require that permits be issued, so the government *could* stop them. It usually doesn't. Now, are those government democratically elected or not? Tough call. I guess it depends if the people have (R) or (D) after their names; that seems to be one common criterion.

Even the "selling it back to us" is kind of strange. I know that my tap water is "sold" to me, because the water mains, transportation, treatment, storage, and even reservoir maintenance cost money. It could be paid with tax money, but having people pay for what they use (one way or the other) seems a good practice.

[yurbud]

15. gov't sells it back roughly at cost. Privateers charged Bolivians a quarter of their monthly income