A lot of people think public water fountains are gross because they don't understand them or how they work.
I once read a pretty good magazine article explaining that public water fountains are generally cleaner than most office water coolers. I don't remember all of the details, but in essence, it's because they are regularly inspected by professionals, and the water moving though the pipes to get to the fountain and then through the spigot reduces the chances of contamination. Unlike your office water cooler where the water sits around forever. We have to have a guy come out to de-funk our office water cooler every three months.
Amazingly, people have drunk from public water fountains for thousands of years and been just fine. Spend some time in Rome and watch hundreds of thousands of people drink from tens of thousands of public water fountains all day long, and amazingly the city hasn't been wiped out by the cooties.
Unless the glass is directly recycled (collected, washed and refilled with the same product) they are much more energy intensive than plastic or aluminium to produce.
The numbers I've seen say that glass uses less energy than plastic. 100% recycled aluminum beats glass, but a more realistic mix, or virgin aluminum, uses more energy than glass.
Glass uses less energy per kilogram by a factor of 3 or so, according to your source. But plastic bottles use an order of magnitude or two less material, so still use less energy per bottle.
I doubt that selling Dasani water in aluminum cans in the Northeast US is going to move the needle on global plastic pollution, with the entire US accounting for less than 1% of plastic pollution (below countries such as North Korea and Algeria [1]) despite having 4% of the population and 24% of GDP.
Interesting! I wonder if that's a big problem for them.
I tend to lose fancy water bottles, so I buy what are nominally single-use bottles and just refill them. I'm sure I get 10-20 uses out of them on average. But I figured my behavior is rare enough that it doesn't matter to the people selling the water.
I usually get a drink in a sturdy glass bottle and use that a couple of weeks —inevitably the cleaning staff think I forgot to toss it... so I buy another Hubert’s.
I do the same. I buy Powerade in Flo cap bottles and reuse them to keep water in the gym. It is ideal to quickly open without another hand and can be closed by a quick pat (as opposed to screwing the cap back on). And if I lose it - no big deal. I usually use them for many months and even eats before they break (usually at the seams) or get lost
It depends on hand size, but you can open water bottles while holding them with one-hand, hold the cap between your thumb and index, and then re-screw without using a second hand.
Those steps take longer, but you get a lot more flow when it's open. And you can do something else during the uncapping/capping process.
Same. I used to use and sometimes still miss a fancy thermos bottle, but I found it's just easier to use a new bottle every day and refill it two or three times than to worry about cleaning a thermos. I had the rather unpleasant experience of falsely believing a bottle that only contained water could go a few weeks without washing and then noticed black mold in it.
I do the same with glass soda bottles. Unfortunately not as useful since you can't reseal it, but handy for having water at my desk at home and at work.
Careful having extreme stances on things. Packaged water keeps many people alive during times of natural disasters or crises. Volunteers flock in and one of the first items brought in is bottled water. It was a lifeline for many people during the Flint water crisis. Finally it serves an overall utility of giving people another choice at the vending machine. It sounds silly to you and me as well, but it has a real impact on public health.
It’s a fine choice if your local water source is truly not potable, but for the vast majority of the western world that’s not the case. On the contrary, the majority of tap water that people can drink for effectively free is of higher quality and testing standards than most bottled water.
> Each time EPA establishes a standard for a contaminant, FDA either adopts it for bottled water or finds that the standard isn’t necessary for bottled water.
> In some cases, standards for bottled water and tap water differ. For example, because lead can leach from pipes as water travels from water utilities to home faucets, EPA has set its limit for lead in tap water at 15 parts per billion (ppb). For bottled water, for which lead pipes aren’t used, the lead limit is set at 5 ppb.
So it could go in either direction though leans toward tight coordination. Enlightening to know there is more scrutiny there.
That aside, the horrible taste alone should be enough to dissuade people with a known safe alternative from drinking bottled water.
Is there less plastic though (due to the rigidity provided by the aluminum)? Also, does the plastic typically separate from the metal and get into the environment, or does it stay with the metal until recycling (in which it gets burned away when the can is melted)?
iirc, the backlash against plastic bottles isn’t due to the environment as much as it is due to the water containing micro plastics from the water bottle, which has various health consequences when consumed frequently enough.
>Beverage giants are under pressure to boost recycling and cut down on plastic that’s filling the world’s oceans and waterways. Aluminum cans generally contain more recycled material than plastic bottles and are less likely to float away in the ocean.
The featured article seems to suggest that it's because of the waste created by plastic products, and not the health effects of microplastics
Don't want to scare the unaware public, when trying to push a new paradigm where using a less scary reasoning might work. Especially when targeting a demographic with too much money (Dasani is more expensive than a generic).
If you choose metal containers because you think plastic is bad, remember that all aluminum food and beverage cans have plastic liners which usually contain BPA or other endocrine disruptors.
"Based on FDA’s ongoing safety review of scientific evidence, the available information continues to support the safety of BPA for the currently approved uses in food containers and packaging."
BPA in infant formula and bottles is banned for safety reasons in the EU and Canada. So, would you mind if I believed the European Comission or Health Canada instead? Even in the US, BPA is not permitted in infant formula and bottles in an industry-voluntary way that avoided the FDA making an explicit safety judgment on the levels of BPA present in the containers. The CDC warns against storing breastmilk in BPA-containing plastic.
BPA is not the end-all be-all of endocrine disruptors, of course: there are other classes of compounds banned in most of the developed world with solid evidence of harmful effects, like phthalates. It would be useful to check various established OECD health authorities and reputable research before dismissing the danger of endocrine disruptors as "rumors spread by know-nothings".
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[ 7.3 ms ] story [ 90.7 ms ] threadYou're not crossing Death Valley on a mule. You're riding to the mall in an air conditioned SUV.
Drink before you go. Find a water fountain. Heck, slurp out of the neighbor's garden hose. Why are people so fragile these days?
I once read a pretty good magazine article explaining that public water fountains are generally cleaner than most office water coolers. I don't remember all of the details, but in essence, it's because they are regularly inspected by professionals, and the water moving though the pipes to get to the fountain and then through the spigot reduces the chances of contamination. Unlike your office water cooler where the water sits around forever. We have to have a guy come out to de-funk our office water cooler every three months.
Amazingly, people have drunk from public water fountains for thousands of years and been just fine. Spend some time in Rome and watch hundreds of thousands of people drink from tens of thousands of public water fountains all day long, and amazingly the city hasn't been wiped out by the cooties.
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/what-is-the-embodied-energy-...
[1] https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_...
I tend to lose fancy water bottles, so I buy what are nominally single-use bottles and just refill them. I'm sure I get 10-20 uses out of them on average. But I figured my behavior is rare enough that it doesn't matter to the people selling the water.
Those steps take longer, but you get a lot more flow when it's open. And you can do something else during the uncapping/capping process.
I don't necessarily feel the same about other single-use plastics -- it's the thin crumple ablebottles that are dangerous.
Your daily refill has minimal dwell time.
Ah, the smell of melting plastic bottle caps in the dishwasher.
I agree that fancy water bottles can be frustrating when lost, but there’s still really cheap bottles that last a long time.
(nods head)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/is-the-can-wor...
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/bottled-water...
> Each time EPA establishes a standard for a contaminant, FDA either adopts it for bottled water or finds that the standard isn’t necessary for bottled water.
> In some cases, standards for bottled water and tap water differ. For example, because lead can leach from pipes as water travels from water utilities to home faucets, EPA has set its limit for lead in tap water at 15 parts per billion (ppb). For bottled water, for which lead pipes aren’t used, the lead limit is set at 5 ppb.
So it could go in either direction though leans toward tight coordination. Enlightening to know there is more scrutiny there.
That aside, the horrible taste alone should be enough to dissuade people with a known safe alternative from drinking bottled water.
Just like the water in the “milk” cartons.
They might as well just sell water like Canadians sell milk —in simple plastic bags and then you put the bag in your favorite mug or whatever.
Since the answer to both of those questions is no, it's more than a PR move.
The featured article seems to suggest that it's because of the waste created by plastic products, and not the health effects of microplastics
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/bisphenol-...
I hope you don't mind if I believe the FDA over a bunch of rumors spread by the same internet know-nothings that brought back measles.
BPA is not the end-all be-all of endocrine disruptors, of course: there are other classes of compounds banned in most of the developed world with solid evidence of harmful effects, like phthalates. It would be useful to check various established OECD health authorities and reputable research before dismissing the danger of endocrine disruptors as "rumors spread by know-nothings".
And if still true for water, hydrolysis will be slowed at a neutral pH.
Oh shit.