A good watch if you haven’t seen it:
If only there was some sort of “internet for water”. Some sort of “tubes” that could deliver water directly to where it was needed.
I still can’t believe they managed to make this a thing. I very rarely ever use it, only on trips when I don’t have any other options. If I am smart and plan ahead I have a big reusable water bottle I fill and then refill in bathrooms.
Sounds like some kind of crazy socialist scheme that will force cleanliness standards on people and violate property rights. Can you imagine what installing these things will do to our roads?
Commie.
Bottled water was considered effete and feminine in the 80’s.
There were jokes about guys that drank bottled water in the 80’s…as being less than macho.
Evian even choose the pink color scheme for it’s bottled water because it’s market was Women.
What happened? Gulf War.
When we started to see images of Marines and Soldiers drinking the donated bottles of Evain it suddenly became ‘okay’ for a guy to purchase and drink bottled water.
Fuck, I hate bottled water. Dumber than lotto tickets.
Well… At least bottled water does something tangible for you with regard to hydration, rather than cyclically raising your hopes, then dashing them.
Honestly, the lottery is a machine built to first grow, then ripen, then harvest the misery of the stupid, the desperate and the poor.
I recently participated in a charity fundraiser walk. Our welcome packages and lunches included . . . bottled water.
I suppose this saved the trouble of doling out cups of water, but still, a lot of those bottles went to “waste” in that they were left behind when the event wrapped.
I took them to work and stuck them in the drinks fridge.
The places I’ve spent most of my life, New York City and Vancouver, both have excellent tap water. There is absolutely no reason to drink water that doesn’t come from a tap in those places.
I also spent 4 years in Houston doing my undergrad. When I turned on the tap, I was often greeted with a waft of sulfur. I sometimes smelled worse after my shower than before (apparently, the sulfur is naturally occurring and has nothing to do with nearby chemical plants). I can forgive people in Houston who prefer not to drink tap water. But still, the answer should be better filtration and not bottles.
Huh - I’ve been informed by some people that I guess their tap water tastes like ass.
I do remember in Europe, like 15 years ago, you had to ask for tap water. They assumed if you ordered water it was bottled water.
This is still a thing.
Partly because of history, partly because a lot of countries (Luxemborg comes to mind) have terrible water/no water treatment, and partly because bottled water (natural spring or otherwise) is easier to transport to said countries with terrible water.
Bottled water… Good to have if you have no good source of clean/treated water. This is an issue even in some modern industrialized cities as wednagreb pointed out.
Edit: That is not to discount the nose in the air pinkie out mentality. That is most definitely a thing. Shit… some places even have water sommeliers… I shit you not.
@bonetithed - Sure, bottled water is a necessity in certain places. If I ever travel to South East Asia I’ll undoubtedly end up drinking it constantly as my stomach-raised-in-a-western-metropolis will inevitably decide it wants to refuse all food and water for three days if I try to drink the tap water. At an individual level the choice here is obvious, drink bottled water.
But at a societal and governmental level that’s a very short term solution. All that bottled water being consumed in places where the tap water is undrinkable only makes pollution worse, and the tap water even less drinkable. The solution must be to start cleaning up the tap water and phasing out bottled water.
If I was more of an entrepreneur and had the know how, I’d start a bottled water company that’s only goal was to put itself (and its competitors) out of business, by putting all profits towards creating cleaner public water supplies.
Brain : “I shall pollute the water supply with this DNAdefibuliser, turning everyone into mindless slaves.”
Pinky : “What about the people who drink bottled water?”
Brain : “Pinky, people who pay 5 dollars for a bottle of water are already mindless slaves.”
Really? Luxembourg has the second highest GDP (PPP) in the world, yet nobody can afford to build a water treatment plant?
Agreed on all points. Of note though is that the large majority of bottled water here is sold in glass bottles that are heavily recycled. I think the deposit on most of them is like 75cent. There is much less (albeit some) plastic waste and such by comparison. But yes pollution from lots of vectors other than bottle waste obviously.
Yes really. Luxemborg has many systemic issues and strange taxation stuff going on… It is a really interesting country sociologically speaking.
Edit: Also keep in mind Luxemborg is incredibly small (less than 3000km2) and has basically rolled the dice by basing the vast majority of their economy on finance… Which is causing its own problems.
It’s a bit like Dubai. It looks like a shimmering example of wealth and prosperity from the outside, but then you find out the sewage system basically consists of people pumping out gallons of human waste from storage tanks in the basements of all those fancy skyscrapers and trucking it out to the desert.
Ah, so Luxembourg is basically the end game of Libertarian political philosophy. Everyone is rich, but everyone has to pay top dollar for stupidly basic things individually, rather than paying very small amounts collectively.
Because apparently a little taxation is “economically hobbling the job creators” while paying $12 a bottle for water is just sound business.
You keep saying things that make it sound like the project of giving everyone extremely cheap, clean, fluoridated water would be easier there.
Contractor: “The Johnson’s house is tiny, just 70m2, and it’s just the mister and missus. Also, they’re incredibly rich.”
Plumber: “Dammit! This project is totally insurmountable! It’ll never get done, even though I’d only have to use 1/10 the time, materials and effort to get it done compared with a normal sized house!”
