I had an epiphany the other day. These don’t happen to me very often which has led me to the sneaking suspicion that nothing about me needs changing. Nevertheless, it happened when we watched the documentary Tapped. I’ll never look at a bottle of water the same way again. I now have a new guilt to add to my plethora of guilts. A big guilt. A Catholic upbringing kind of guilt.
I occasionally buy bottled water, a practice which has given me the status of a sort of environmental troglodyte. For every pound of compost we produce, it’s negated by every bottle of water we toss. We recycle pretty faithfully, but we’ve been guilty of tossing the odd plastic item into a garbage can when no recycle bins were around. We also buy bottled water because we think we’re making a healthy dietary choice. When away from home what are the other options? Sugar- and chemical-laden pop or the liquid-sugar-plus-Vitamin-C that we call juice. The third option is milk from another animal, a cow (when you really think about it – ewwww yuck) which is full of hormones and antibiotics. Hmmm. Choosing water seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?
It’s also convenient. When we’re out and about where are we going to find tap water? We’re reluctant to put our lips anywhere near water fountains for fear of the bacteria that they’re crawling with. When we plan ahead we bring our little enviro-friendly stainless steel water bottles with us, filled with Toronto tap water which was, incidentally, awarded 3rd best tasting water in North America in 2007 (behind Oklahoma City and somewhere-in-Kansas). When we don’t plan ahead which is often in this impulsive and spontaneous family, we’re stuck buying bottled water from a take-out food joint or a vending machine owned invariably by Coke or Pepsi. Their water products are called Dasani and Aquafina respectively and both are just tap water bottled and sold back to us for a gi-NORM-ous premium. The third partner in the Triumvirate of Bottled-water Evildoers is Nestle, the Swiss company formed by Mr. Nestle who started by creating baby formula for babies who were unable to breast-feed. Out of that altruistic beginning the company has morphed into a giant mega-corporation that rapes and pillages water sources throughout the land.
While Nestle may not be re-selling us tap water, they bleed dry the local springs in towns all over the U.S., wading into rural communities with promises of jobs in exchange for water rights. Bottled water companies charge us roughly 1900 times what tap water costs us. Real vampires wouldn’t even do that.
Then there’s the bottle itself. The plastic from which the bottles are made is laden with chemicals, not least Bisphenol A which is suspected to be the cause of many illnesses from cancer to obesity to thyroid disfunction and neurological damage. I remember buying two bottles of Nestle water a couple of years ago not noticing until later that they were tilted. The top half of the bottles leaned to one side. It was evident to me they had been exposed to heat, softening the plastic which is the quickest way for the chemicals to leach into the water. How many times have we seen cases of bottled water sitting out somewhere on a skid, exposed to sunlight and other heat sources? Even at a cooler temperature the longer the water is exposed to the plastic, the more chemicals are likely to leach.
Toronto tap water is tested every 4 to 6 hours; bottled water in the Province of Ontario is not covered under Ontario ‘s Safe Drinking Water Act or its regulations which means bottlers don’t have to follow the same guidelines as municipalities do for their water supplies. According to the Polaris Institute’s website, “in the last 12 months the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has only inspected 16 of the 282 (6%) bottled water plants in Canada (2009).” They go on to say that water bottlers aren’t required to report any bacteria-positive test results to the government, and that the CFIA only tests bottled water if previous contaminations were detected. This lack of regulatory oversight is not uncommon throughout North America.
Bottled water is expensive too. Some time ago I sent my son into a well-known submarine sandwich chain to buy a bottle of water. I gave him $3.00 and he came out with 41 cents change. They charged him $2.59 for bottled tap water and that’s just nuts.
Finally, our landfills are full of so much plastic that some say could take up to 1000 years to biodegrade. It ends up in our lakes and rivers, poisoning fish and wildlife. What a legacy to leave behind! Invest in a good stainless steel water bottle and get used to filling up that baby every time you leave the house. Now if I could remember to do just that.
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I made a food error which I must share. I carelessly threw the green-lentils into our squash and carrot soup with a confident swish, not realizing that they weren’t green lentils at all but green split peas instead. If you know your beans you know that split peas need to be soaked ad infinitum, unlike their more delicate lentil cousin, so after spending an afternoon simmering and prepping, we were dismayed by a crunch. Our soup had attained a lovely squashy-carroty deep burnished orange hue, and just when the velveteen liquid passed our lips it happened. You know it – the feeling when the food item that has no business going near your teeth suddenly resists in an unattractive way. The crunch that had no business being there was there. After dinner I strained the remaining offending split peas and threw them into a broth to simmer. After four more hours they were stubbornly hard, and even the next day they refused to soften. I dashed the damned things into the compost, swearing emphatically. Split peas go to hell.
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Thanks to Sesame Street for the image of Count von Count. Baby daughter has just discovered the joys of Sesame Street. Awesome.
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