Water Without Waste: A push for less plastic

| Environment | West Seattle news

Drinking just plain water is great for your health. Drinking just plain water out of a plastic bottle can be a challenge to the environment’s health. See the bottle at left (shown off by Alki resident Shauna Causey at last night’s Alki Community Council meeting)? Imagine your disposable plastic water bottle a quarter-full with oll; a water-policy expert says that’s the equivalent of the average energy cost to make the plastic for the bottle, transport it to market, then deal with the waste. So Shauna and others are asking you to join in Water Without Waste Month — keep drinking water, but get it out of the tap, or filter it, and drink it from reusable containers. (This is separate from the mayor’s city-government order to bag the bottles, but same idea.) Find out more, see the stats that just might convince you to do it, and take the pledge, by going to the Water Without Waste website.

Dan March 21, 2008 (3:21 pm)

Far be it from me to agree with the mayor, however I am just now learning the “cost” of the bottled water consumption. During the past 2 years at Summer Fest our church/preschool have given out nearly 20,000 free bottles of water to the Summer Fest crowd. We will not be doing this any more. We have since “repented” and this year have committed to being more environmentally responsible.

WSB March 21, 2008 (3:28 pm)

Dan, that was my reaction too — “wow, never really thought about that before.”

snowlion March 21, 2008 (5:21 pm)

I’m still trying to figure out when it became a sin to drink tap water. That’s what it’s FOR. Yes, some folks might have rusty pipes that cause a taste or health issue, but I’ve always had water out of the tap, and I made it to 36 relatively unscathed. It’s good to see people sitting up and taking notice of this; obviously we cannot completely eliminate the energy usage involved in making and transporting bottled water, but we can certainly reduce it. :)

WSB March 21, 2008 (5:42 pm)

If you happen to have grown up in places with lousy overly treated taken-from-far-away water like we did … Southern California, Southern Nevada … the tap water was terrible (and back in my childhood, the brilliant taste-improving Brita-type filters didn’t seem to be around) … even when we lived in San Diego for a few years before moving here in 1991, it was extra-terrible. But here in the NW, you’re right, it’s just fine … Now I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the sparkling water issue. We buy the Talking Rain flats from Costco. Might have to switch to San Pellegrino (which is in glass bottles).

acemotel March 21, 2008 (6:50 pm)

And the water in Seattle is tested more often than water in most bottled water plants. WSB, I have seen a contraption that carbonates plain tap water – it forces air at great pressure in to the water, and it’s manual. I haven’t seen it in this country, but I’ll look around on the web. Did Ms. Causey mention that chemicals have been found to leak out in to the plastic bottles when they are exposed to heat and cold? Great idea to start a campaign! Sign me up for the pledge! (I’ll go to the web site)

carraig na splinkeen March 21, 2008 (7:07 pm)

We drink tap H20 here, always have–but have lived in other areas in US and overseas where the tap water was not sweet and “soft” (and in some cases safe) like it is here. And for XMAS, we purchased Stigg bottles for all family–no more plastic bottles (unless emergency).

WSB March 21, 2008 (7:38 pm)

Ace, yes, she did. That’s one reason in retrospect I realize it wasn’t ideal when I reused the same “disposable” water bottle for months at a time at my old job (now that we’re based at home it’s easier to use cups and glasses). “Water Without Waste” was also pitched earlier in the week at the monthly Sustainable West Seattle meeting — those guys have a lot of great stuff going on — their site is:
http://sustainablewestseattle.org
(and we hear an upgraded redesigned website is in development for them, too)

Bonnie March 21, 2008 (9:17 pm)

I actually prefer tap water. I think our water is pretty good around here.

acemotel March 22, 2008 (1:19 am)

I don’t mean to promote this particular product, because I don’t know anything about this co., but here is an example of a device to carbonate water (which is available in the US):

http://www.sodaclubusa.com/Penguin/about.htm

There are lots of similar devices out there on the web, I just picked this one because the others I saw used plastic bottles. :-))

Aidan Hadley March 22, 2008 (8:48 am)

Beyond water bottles, consider all of the plastic in your life. Plastics are everywhere in our houses, offices and cars. None of it would exist without oil. Our petroleum addiction goes way beyond the juice we pump into our cars.

Hutchins Family March 25, 2008 (10:38 am)

Des Moines, Wa

We have always had reusable bottles for water for soccer, sports, etc, but recently we are trying to give up soda and have been buying water bottles instead – sorry! We do reuse the bottles again, but if we bought better ones to reuse we would save about 50 bottles by the end of May!!