I saw this news story about how Bundanoon, a town in Australia, has banned bottled water, and I thought “Yay! Good for them!” And then felt a guilty stab at the many plastic water bottles that surround me. I have them at home, I have them at the office, I leave a trail of water bottles wherever I go.
In fairness to myself, most of these haven’t seen the original water in many a long day, and have been filled from various taps of my acquaintance. But the fact is that, ultimately, these bottles are still going to have to go somewhere. Yes, I will take some of them to a recycling point (wouldn’t it be easier if plastic bottles were part of residential recycling collections!? I’m told it will be later this year, in my area, but in the meantime…) but for some of them, frankly, that somewhere will be landfill. And wouldn’t it be better if, rather than recycling them, I just never had them. If I had a nice reusable water bottle that I took everywhere with me and filled from lowly taps? Well, yes. I’d save myself some money too!
So, that’s what I’m going to do. Over the next week I am going to hunt out some nice, practical, reusable bottles. I’ve seen some lovely ones in camping shops, so it isn’t like I have to settle for something utilitarian and ugly just for my principles! Basically, there isn’t a good reason not to do this. So, I shall!
2 Comments
July 10, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Apparently in Canada there has been a HUGE scare (like, UK’s worries about MMR level) about plastic bottles giving you cancer. Everyone’s gone the metal camping one route.
I made the swap to metal camping one a while ago, and it is heavy, but keeps the water colder for longer, and I’m sure it tastes nicer (not sure why, but does).
July 12, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I was in fact in Canada during that scare. My beloved utilitarian Nalgene which I had carried for years through high school and uni landed in the recycling. Avoid aluminium. Stainless steel is much sexier anyway. Hope you are well. x