Posted on 07/26/2007 1:17:56 PM PDT by vadum
"Don't drink the water" is a warning doctors and public health officials typically give travelers going overseas. But lately some environmentalists and city officials have been saying the same thing. Only this time they're trying to prevent American consumers from drinking bottled water.
Their reasoning? The energy used to package and transport imported bottled water contributes to global warming. If environmentalist groups have their way, grocery shelves will no longer carry popular products like Fiji from the South Pacific island and Evian from France.
Companies like Fiji and Evian emphasize the cleanliness and purity of their water. Fiji says its water comes from a source "far from pollution" and is "designed to prevent any possibility of human contact." Evian's spring water comes from the French Alps. You would think this water ought to be an environmentalist's dream.
Instead, their bottles provoke nightmares. Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council says, "It's ironic that on some of the labels of the bottles, you see snow-capped mountains and glaciers when in fact the production of the bottle is contributing to global warming, which is melting those snowcaps and those glaciers."
Complaints like that have led San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to issue an executive order banning city departments from purchasing bottled water, even for water coolers.
And Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson ordered his city's Fire Department to replace the usual chests of bottled water and sports drinks used to quench firefighters' thirst. Every firefighter will now be given a refillable 10-ounce container instead. And, get this, two city personnel will be assigned to fill them as they fight fires. I thought only high-schoolers got the job of water boy.......
FROM: http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=482
FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE AT: http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070726/COMMENTARY/107260001
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“...credentials?”
You mean, because you have D.D.S. after your name? I cited references with my comments, and suspect that the comments I quoted to you either match or exceed yours.
But that is not what the discussion has been about - it is about the right to have pure drinking water available from public water systems, or whether bottled water should also have to be fluoridated.
As to the technical aspects of fluoridation vs caries, you may one of these days find yourself in the minority among your collegues. The “proof” from 50 or 60 years ago has already been shown to be in error. There is also much comparative data available showing no significant difference in the incidence of caries in areas with fluoridation vs those without fluoridation.
And just think, your consolation prize - if fluoridation is discontinued - may be that Bentley :)
When you go to the grocery store, and they have one of those machines that fill your five gallon jugs with pure water, go look in back!
The water comes from a tap in the wall hooked up to the local municipal water supply. But it’s better and purer than the same tap water at your house.
You Betcha.
For sure.
During a fluoride treatment, my dentist told me to be careful not to swallow it. Same with fluoride toothpastes.
He said that fluoride’s main benefit comes from direct contact with the outside of teeth and not from ingestion.
Is he wrong?
When I go camping at the beach I take a couple of cases of bottled water with me. The empties pose a problem of taking up much room in the trash. I resolve the issue by burning them.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Our mission’s director of appropriate technology was teaching these things in Mexico and made three different tests to show his students how contamination occurs. The first was of water coming straight from a pipe in the local spring. The second was from the tank being filled by that pipe, a tank that the locals would stand in to fill their water buckets. The third test was of locally available bottle water.
Direct Spring water - no bacteria
Spring collection tank water - contaminated
Bottled water - contaminated!
Just like in the USA, many bottled water companies overseas just fill the bottles with whatever is coming out of the tap. It may be safer, but that is not guaranteed.
Our current crop of government officials give me the mental image of a pack of Pavlov's dogs, sitting in front of a handbell choir.
Drinking bottled water in Mexico may account for my getting to know Montezuma for a couple of days.
I use bottled water too. On occasion I buy a powerade sport drink. Once used I fill it up with tap water which is not bad where I am and use it when I need to drink water away from home.
"I like mine with a twist."
... tainting all of our precious bodily fluids!
Depends on what's going on inside the machine. if there's a membrane filter (essentially what Brita filters use) or a reverse-osmosis filter (what the bigger, pricer systems use and what most industrial bottlers use), then you're getting water basically identical to what you are buying in the bottle and what you can get with a filter at home.
I occasionally buy bottled water, when I'm out and about and -- here's the thing -- I want it ice-cold. If you can find a water fountain, it's likely to be a little cooler than room temperature, but not much.
When I take the time to plan ahead, I refill bottles from the filter at home, putting some in the 'fridge and some in the freezer. Take a tiny cooler -- something like one of those insulated lunch bags -- in the car with two chilled and two frozen bottles, and by the time you polish off the cold ones, the frozen ones will be partially melted.
I use the same trick at the ball park, but I have to buy water for that, because they only let you bring in factory-sealed bottles of water, to keep folks from smuggling in vodka. A couple bottles cold, a couple frozen, and the frozen ones are ready to drink in about the 5th inning.
For me, the filters are purely for aesthetics -- my local water supply is excellent, and I have no worries about its safety. There's a little chlorine taste I don't especially care for.
“SWILL!” LOL!!! Thanks. Your reward will be my little tale of the best water I ever had. I lived in Sitka Alaska from 92 to 01. A lovely town overrun with cruise ship tourists every summer. Anywho, the local water supply there comes from Blue Lake. It is in the mountains quite a ways from town. You drive to the old pulp mill (yes, pulp mill) and head up the hills from there on a dirt road. Not much fishing is done there. When the ocean fishing is do much better, why bother. The water is perfect. It needs very little treatment at all before hitting the taps of the community. The pulp mill was closed down some years before. The city was looking for ideas for its use. I kid you not, a company came in wanting to bottle the Blue Lake water for commercial sale. When I was leaving the town to move here to AZ I heard that they were talking to a chinese company that would take the water by the tanker load and bottle it in China. The old pulp mill site dock and buildings would be used for this I always thought that was a damned great idea as long as they don’t pump too much out of Blue Lake.
Yeah, hard water is tougher on the filters. You must be south of the fall line — I don’t see a lot of hard water in North Georgia (I’m in DeKalb County).
I live in Glynn, and it seems that everywhere I live the water is hard (Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Texas, Saudi Arabia, Germany).
Here's a little tip for you, If you can smell or taste the chlorine...They are not using enough chlorine, and your water is forming trihalomethanes, which are not desirable in most cases. Look up "Break-point chlorination" if you wish.
LOL..
They burn even better if you stack them in an old tire covered with tar and asbestos shingles.
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