Wider audience: interesing things from the London Borough of Lewisham.

“Lewisham employees guzzle 90,000 litres of designer-brand mineral water each year [at a cost of £16,500 to the tax-payer], while tap water would cost tax payers just £135 a year”.

“When we’re laying off more than 100 people, this waste is disgraceful” saida council member.

As well as reading clearly, you need to learn to express yourself clearly. This will in the end save you a lot of typing and stress.

And I never said you did. I responded to some specific things you wrote - the bits in italic, fyi - and then I went on to my personal opinion and then made an observation around what I had read above that I thought may be interesting to other readers, not just you.

Please don’t accuse me of things you are guilty of yourself.

“I’m not sure what Africans far from piped water have to do with anything. Are you asserting that most bottled water sold is given to thirsty Africans?”

No, I am not saying that, and I would appreciate it if you would take this a little more seriously. As I noted before, you show a remarkable lack of imagination around these issues. You are also arrogant enough to assume flat-out that I am wrong, before asking me what I meant by my comment.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s not all about you, Kiashu. Very often when people write comments - particularly on a blog; it is easier to demarcate intention on a forum - they respond to some specific things an individual has written, but also want to include wider comments and observations for the other commenters to read, in the hope of stimulating debate.

Debate: “a discussion in which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal”.

I didn’t say we should “get rid of” water bottles. I said that we should make it the responsibility of the company producing them to recycle them. That’s not proposing abolition, that’s taking a problem of private consumption and giving it to a private company, rather than continuing to have it foisted off onto the public.

The same goes for newspapers, sports cars, whatever. When they’re made responsible for their disposal and/or recycling, they’ll find amazing efficiencies they didn’t know were possible before. In Germany companies making whitegoods are legally responsible for their disposal. And old Fritz has adapted very well indeed - parts are made to be compatible with other models, functioning parts are reused in new machines, and so on. The entire fridge and washing industry did not collapse overnight as you might have imagined it would.

Whenever new regulations are brought in, the business world predicts its own imminent collapse. They did in Britain when laws against child labour in coal mines were brought in. Remarkably, coal mines are still able to produce coal and turn a profit. Amazing that.

They bitch and moan and cry like little girls, but then eventually adjust and sort it out and continue to make scads of cash. It’s in the nature of business to wail about its own oppression, comes from being mostly middle-classed.

I’m not sure what Africans far from piped water have to do with anything. Are you asserting that most bottled water sold is given to thirsty Africans? Perrier for the fellahs in a refugee camp in Darfur? Come now, let’s be serious.

In any case, I already said that I am puzzled by the focus on water bottles. They’re no more or less wasteful than plastic chip packets, biscuit packets, fag ends, or a million other things we throw away.

ha ha ha! lol

As a kid I carried an army issue belt canteen with me everywhere, then it was a western style one as I got older. We all had them. I always had water handy when working on the farms I grew up on. Now I live in a city and wear a suit, I pack a computer case and a briefcase everywhere I go, I visit up to 5 different clients a day on foot and via public transport. ( well not now I am on a leave from work for the next few months ) So it is not really effective for me to load up the 2-4 litres of water that I tend to drink in a day in a camel-back. Yet I put my empties in a recycle bin, collapsed like they are designed to be. Yes it is convenience, and makes my life easier to manage. Sue me or better yet in true AGW mitigation fashion tax the hell outta me.

Once again you show your inability both to imagine and to engage in the wider reality of the world. There are myriad examples where planning ahead is just not good enough, from the unexpected trip on the tube in London, to the African who is too far from the piped supply.

“When did we become such delicate flowers that needed a steady watering?”

Come on Kiashu! Show some imagination!

Whether we like it or not, the human race has undergone a massive change. The average rural African can survive for one week on the equivalent calorific intake of a sandwich, a can of coke and a packet of crisps.

Does that mean that we all can, or should?

“All we need do is make laws that make the companies who produce containers legally responsible for them.”

Oh, well, I’m glad it’s that easy. Why didn’t I think of that?

I’m not against reducing the CO2 footprint of water, or recycling, or any of those things. I just like to be able to get a nice cold bottle of water from the fridge of a newsagent.

After all, we don’t need any of the following:

* Newspapers/magazines
* Drinks
* Chocolate/sweets
* Tobacco
* Other packaged food

So let’s just get rid of them all, and get rid of the newsagent at the same time, shall we?

What’s that I hear you say? The newsagent is a cornerstone of economic freedom and freedom from oppressive regimes? I can’t possibly imagine how that could be the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc

My favorite part starts around 5:10, about the “water steward” in fancy California restaurant.

http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
‘Listening to the Planet’

we may not all be as tough as Kiashu, but we, little flowers, surely can fill a bottle at home and carry it on lengthy errands in our busy lives.

solution, watch the history of water. the plastic bottle will soon fall out of favor, especially when it sells in the high school halls.

We already make manufacturers legally responsible for what is inside the container, that is why it is packaged that way for health and safety.

So why not the container manufacturer responsible for the thousands of individual clients who purchase their products and distribute them all over the planet to millions of consumers.

So lets just regulate any hope they have of being a viable business out of them. Nothing like the risk of a good old fashioned class action environmental lawsuit or new tariff or tax to make someone want to actually contribute to the economy.

Plastics are not going away. They are used in so many products in our society. Should we stop littering, sure we should. Should we recycle, sure we should.

Now just for balance why do you think that many plastic drink bottles have a refundable deposit ( at least they do here ) that was to encourage recycling, helped alot but some will still toss them from the car window. How is that the responsibility of the manufacturer?

Do not hit me with the old “was in glass in the 50s crap” plastic containers are far superior, they do not shatter, they are lighter and if disposed of in the manner they were designed to be, would take up considerably less space.

Perhaps catsup should be in a 175 Litre Drum and we just go with any old glass jar and scoop out what we need? But if the jar breaks do we get to charge the manufacturer?

I have said many times if you want to recycle effectively you have to have central point waste sorting, before it is dumped in the landfill. I am sorry but some people will never do the pre-sorting, sad fact but true. Places where they do this have much better and less subsidized recycling centres and much cleaner and safer landfills.

This is a real solution, so why is it not done everywhere? Because it is still not actually profitable. Yet it is getting there as more manufacturers are looking to use a higher percentage of recycled content.

“Vastly different”? You mean like… planning ahead? Ridiculous! Next you’ll be suggesting people can make their own lunch instead of buying takeout! Madness!

I also wonder exactly why we need to carry bottles of water around. I know we’re getting global warming, but it hasn’t warmed up that much. Ten years ago nobody carried water bottles except soldiers in the field and competitive cyclists. When did we become such delicate flowers that needed a steady watering?

Nor do I see why water is specially bad as a product. How is 100% water in a plastic throwaway bottle worse than 90% water and 10% sugar in a plastic throwaway bottle, or 99% water and 1% coffee, or 100% mayonaisse or 100% tomato sauce or whatever?

The problem is not the water, but its container. All we need do is make laws that make the companies who produce containers legally responsible for them. We can just say that they can’t go to landfill, and there’ll be a charge of (say) 1 cent a container for each one that shows up, to deliver it to the company that produced it.

They’ll soon find ways of collecting and recycling them.

Get rid of specialty or designer water for sure, I do not need Evian, Fiji, Pellegrino or Perrier, who the heck does?

Most is so pricey that it really is for the foo foo chic amongst us.

I do not need it, I buy (when out and about) plain old purified water, from a local bottler. One litre for $2.00Cdn, hey big spender!

I guess what bothers many people is the need to transport Evian from France and Highland Spring from Scotland all over the world.

My view on the designer water from Fiji is that if you are mad enough to buy that then you have other problems to deal with.