Australian town bans bottled water

[Stark]

ah. Like a soda can. I understand completely.

What the hell? A drinking bottle is not a soda can. How the christ is a soda can relevant to a discussion of reusable water storage?

This whole thing is amusing to me because I grew up in a cold climate with an outdoor lifestyle, so everyone had lightweight aluminum cups, drinking containers, etc. Now people just re-use shitty plastic ones full of precious plastic denaturing byproducts. It's sad.

[Narkis]

Penn & Teller did a good episode on bottled water. Basically, no first world country needs bottled water, and its monumentally wasteful and expensive when you consider your taxes already pay for the clean water that comes out of your taps.

I don't know who these Penn & Teller guys are, but I know at least one nominally first world country that needs bottled water: mine. The water is really undrinkable in quite a few places. My ex-military uncle has a lot of horror stories about the water in many of his stations, and in fact took some time to be convinced that the tap water in the major city he's now residing is, in fact, drinkable. But he's not an isolated case. I've read more than one study about the dangers lurking in the water of more than one city, and I've seen news reports where the tap water in some village or another is the wrong colour. I wonder what those people should drink.

[erik_t]

Sometimes, a person on the go will realize they are thirsty, and will want to deal with this issue. If there's no water, they'll go for something else. Perhaps a carbonated beverage.

Is anyone aware of the societal costs of forcing folks towards sugary beverages instead of making water available for purchase?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Nobody says that there should be a worldwide ban on bottled water!

Really?

Finally. If I was Emperor of the Earth banning the sale of bottled water would be my first edict. Hopefully this becomes a trend.

Your complete inability to understand OBVIOUS SARCASM is amusing.

[Lusankya]

I still haven't been able to figure out why the other states haven't gotten around to putting a deposit on bottles and cans yet. We have one in South Australia, and it's done a lot towards making the streets in SA a lot cleaner than the streets interestate. Banning bottled water is good, but you'd think they'd want to do something about all of the other containers that get sent to landfill.

[Darth Wong]

Sometimes, a person on the go will realize they are thirsty, and will want to deal with this issue. If there's no water, they'll go for something else. Perhaps a carbonated beverage.

Is anyone aware of the societal costs of forcing folks towards sugary beverages instead of making water available for purchase?

Wouldn't it make more sense to pass a law forcing businesses to allow people to use their municipal water taps to refill their drink containers? Allowing people to charge absurd rates for environmentally harmful bottled water is a poor solution to the problem of pedestrians being unable to get a drink.

[erik_t]

Well, it certainly would. In fact, most municipalities in Arizona have such a law (since heat stroke is such a serious concern). I don't mean to suggest that bottled water is the answer, only that this is a more complicated problem than RAH RAH I HATE PLASTIC.

[Stark]

You mean, how reusing cheap plastic is a bad idea and the bottled water industry is a giant waste of resources? What kind of place doesn't have public water sources, anyway?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Maybe public water sources would take away from American's rugged survivalist nature.

[Themightytom]

ah. Like a soda can. I understand completely.

What the hell? A drinking bottle is not a soda can. How the christ is a soda can relevant to a discussion of reusable water storage?

This whole thing is amusing to me because I grew up in a cold climate with an outdoor lifestyle, so everyone had lightweight aluminum cups, drinking containers, etc. Now people just re-use shitty plastic ones full of precious plastic denaturing byproducts. It's sad.

The soda can was a tongue in cheek reference to your "metal water bottle" because they do in fact sell canned water in some places. I was always stuck with the metal water bottle when I was a boy scout and only WISHED I could have the awesome plastic ones, specifically because you can't see inside a canteen and after a while the canteen would taste suspicious no matter how often you washed it. You can't really tell how good the water is before you drink it unless you poured it out.

Nonetheless a disposable plastic water bottle is apparently not as hygenic as a metal one, I am not ready to switch back, I really should just leave the nalgene bottle in the gym bag and stop fforgeting it. it does no good as a $10 paperweight.

You mean, how reusing cheap plastic is a bad idea and the bottled water industry is a giant waste of resources? What kind of place doesn't have public water sources, anyway?

Actually there are no public water sources downtown here, except for a shitty public bathroom behind city hall that is LITERALLY hidden behind a bush. I refill my bottles off of a water bubbler smack in the middle of a park that is a mile and a half away from anything. I doubt your average pedestrian will take a detour. its becoming faux paux to go to a restauraunt and order just water which is free, I should ask my clients where they get water when tehy need it.

[Darth Wong]

You can generally get water by going into any fast-food restaurant, and they're everywhere.

[Themightytom]

You can generally get water by going into any fast-food restaurant, and they're everywhere.

I'm not really shy about it, but several times I have done it with people and they have said they felt a little wierd about it. The guy I talked to this morning lives in the woods and he says he does it all the time.

Edit: I refill my water bottle from the fountain in a mcdonalds and people feel wierd. The client I asked about it today IMMEDIATELY busted out a water bottle and said he refills it all tthe time at restaraunts. Filling the water bottle makes people feel wierd, not asking for a free cup.

[loomer]

Pretty much the only bottled water I buy is the carbonated mineral water you can get, in the biggest size - or tonic water for gin. It's pretty much a bottle a week, and we reuse them, so it's not too bad - and probably better than actually making seltzer using CO2 cartridges, as awesome as that is to do.