Councilman wants to ban bottled water

[harvey007]

Source: Aspen Daily News

Aspen City Councilman Torre returned from a recent sailing expedition in the British Virgin Islands blown away by the volume of plastic bottles that littered the otherwise pristine blue waters.

Besides an island tan and a refreshed demeanor, Torre brought something else back from the trip: a desire to reduce or ban outright the sale and use of disposable plastic bottled water containers in Aspen.

Read more: http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/144557

[MadHound]

1. Good, bottled water is far too prevalent in this country

And the damage it has done to the environment around the world is immense.

[1monster]

17. So in what the heck am I supposed to carry my carbonated water to work?

I've tried using a reusuable bottle, but the carbonation causes the water to bubble out.

And, of course, if the Virgin Islands have a problem with bottle litter, then Aspen must also have the same problem. I mean, they are so geogrpahically and demographically similar.

A simple inexpensive way of dealing with a possible disposable water bottle problem would be to charge a refundable deposit on each bottle. It would create jobs, possible revenue, and entrepreneurial kids who would collect (even to cleaning up road sides) the bottles to get spending money from the deposits. The redeemed bottles could then be reused or used to make other products.

I'm sure other methods to solve such a problem could be found too. What ever happened to imaginative and creative remedies in this country. The US used to be the greatest innovators in the world. These days the only suggestions to problems are to ban them... :eyes:

[No Elephants]

29. Plastic leaches undesirable stuff into beverages anyway.

[Alameda]

31. Get a seltzer maker!

I love seltzer wat4er and have CO2 chargers are recyclable and the fizz keeps til the next fill. Mine is a one quart, which is perfect for me. I know what kind of water goes into it and the water maintains it's fizz. You can easily carry it to and from work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/dining/10fizz.html

[arcane1]

2. I support this; bottled water is a rip-off and a waste of petroleum n/t

[doc03]

3. What does that commercial say? All the bottled water bottles

used in one year would circle the earth like 70 times? I wonder how many barrels of imported oil it takes to make them?

[bluestateguy]

4. Of course that must be the answer to everything we don't like: ban it!

I don't like abortion: Ban it!

I don't like guns: Ban them!

I don't like gay marriage: Ban it!

I don't like plastic grocery bags: Ban them!

I don't like Hooters restaurant: Ban it!

I don't like porn: Ban it!

I don't like hate speech: Ban it!

:sarcasm:

[naaman fletcher]

10. Once upon a time we liberals were liberal

Now whatever we dont like we want the government to ban. I drink tap water, and I think the bottled water companies should have to pay royalties, but banning water in a bottle? There is nothing liberal about that.

[Kennah]

13. It is responsible to ban certain things

Plastic bags and bottled water pose very real threats, and there are alternatives. However, we could certainly use more R&D spent on bags that biodegrade and/or bags from plants rather than petroleum.

But I also don't think it's very responsible certain other things.

Civilization hasn't collapsed since Roe V. Wade.

More guns in more hands today, but crime is down.

Porn? Just like cigarettes and alcohol I think we can keep them out of the hands of kids, but we need only look to the prohibition of alcohol for adults to see a textbook example of failed policy.

There's that whole First Amendment thingee which protects hate speech.

[timo]

5. hhahahahaha

fucking morons, they just "banned" plastic grocery bags here locally, it does NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING, to address the fact that the bottle IS NOT RESPONSIBLE, the trashy litter bug people ARE!!!!!! GOD FORBID THE PEOPLE ADMIT THEY HAVE A LITTERING PROBLEM AND TAKE STEPS TO FIX THEIR OWN FLAWED BEHAVIOR!!!

[Alameda]

32. It's not about littering, there is no good way to get rid of them.

I for one an sick and tired of seeing funky plastic bags hanging in trees, in the surf, blowing down the road.

[Drale]

6. Well I no long use plastic water bottles

I bought a nice Stainless steel bottle from REI and I will never look back.

[MichaelHarris]

7. I use

the Soda Stream thing to make my own soft drinks and it's amazing. I have 4 reusable bottles. I recently ordered Coke syrup and found a ration that makes a great tasting fountain coke for pennies. http://www.sodastreamusa.com/

[Robb]

19. Sort of a desktop seltzer bottle. Cool. nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. Me too for daily use, but occasionally I end up buying a bottle or two

[RobinA]

39. Well, I Use It

Back in the day all you could by at events was soda, soda, soda. I am not a soda fan and dehydrate easily. My sister and I used to buy "plain" snow cones to get unadulterated water. Nowadays we have no problem buying water when we are at the stadium, the park, a fair. Keep bottled water.

By this guy's argument, I say ban beer. When I take a walk down my semi-rural road the biggest litter item by far is beer cans. Second, soda cans. Plasitic bags and water bottles? Not so much. Are can drinkers bigger litterers than bottle drinkers?

[AsahinaKimi]

8. That should go well in Aspen

They don't have bottle recycling there? Does he want them to go back to glass bottles? Does he expect to put the company there out of business in fairly jobless market?

[BlueJazz]

9. I hate the damn things and the people that use them need to bone up on their knowledge.

IF so many of the bottled water manufactures did not use ordinary water from the municipal water system, I might not have such a hard-on against them.

I filter my water at home and just carry it with me. ...that way I don't add to the garbage mess..

The son-of-a-bitching things are all over Florida and NO...people are not going to change their ways and stop throwing the things out their car windows....it just ain't gonna' happen. Some people are pigs and that's the way it is...

[slackmaster]

11. Maybe it would make more sense to ban littering, or enforce anti-littering laws

:shrug:

[timo]

20. nooooooooo

that would be addressing the REAL problem

[awoke_in_2003]

12. Only bottled water I drink...

is Perrier in the glass bottles (100% recyclable).

[DeSwiss]

14. Please ban them. NOW! - K&R n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. I invite all those against bottled water to come to my home for a glass of tap water

If you want to drink this be my guest,

[DeSwiss]

22. It's not just about you.

Comes complete with 2 Black Berkey filter cartridges that have the ability to reduce lead, mercury, aluminum MTBE, herbicides, pesticides and a http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkeytech.htm">long list of additional contaminates from your drinking water

http://www.berkeyfilters.com/">Berkey Filters

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. I have used all sorts of water filtration gadgets in Africa

and the water still tasted terrible, even if technically safe.

[DeSwiss]

24. There's got to be a point......

...where we finally come to terms with our behavior. With what we're doing. Individually and collectively. I'm not pointing fingers, we could all do more. Me included.

But we've got to somehow get past accepting limited and short-sighted positions on critical issues. The alternative of just continuing to poison and pollute the world affects all in the end. And this polluted world is what we're handing it off to our progeny.

Our future.

[RobinA]

40. That's Why I

drink bottled water. I hate the taste of our very hard, very iron-rich water. Couldn't care less if the bottled comes from a tap, as long as I like the taste enough to drink it.

[BrightKnight]

42. I filter worse than that when I backpack. If you recycle your bottles

it is not that bad. It is possible to properly filter that water. Having your drinking water trucked in from another part of the country or world is not very green or cheap. I drive from Dallas to northern Minnesota every year to canoe in the BWCAW and that is not green either. I'm not in a position to throw any rocks.

[SemperEadem]

16. but but but-you're killing jobs at the plastic plant that makes those bottles

that pollute the pristine waters of shangri-la.

I'll bet those bottle producers also pollute the water where the bottles are made, too.

[Ter]

21. How about just enforcing recycling laws?

Also, raise the penalties for littering. Banning things is a horrible idea.

[defendandprotect]

28. Glass is recyclable ... not plastic ... you can pretend -- but it's not ....

Also, as hospital tests have show with plastic containers, the plastic leaches out

and contaminates the contents.

[freshwest]

34. If they're not recycling the plastic that zealots like me are giving them...

Along with my carefully cleaned and sorted paper, metals, etc., then how do any of us truly know they're recycling the glass?

Only way to know personally that it's being recycled is to melt it down and make more glass out in the garage. But the problem is that many municipalities don't have recycling at all. That's what people might be missing in this debate.

The reason why is that it offends their ideology. Seriously. They think reducing, reusing and recycling are for tree hugging sissies.

So like real Murkians they toss it all together to end up wherever the increasingly private and unregulated trash companies choose. And then they whine about the trash bill. By their thinking, as well, the Earth is infinite and per Rush, we can't do anything to it, so it's all out of sight and out of mind.

Something most definitely has to be done about the failure of recycling the bottles. Some states have refunds for that; some grocers here have it for products that are being offered in glass in the store, like milk and cream.

The reason for this waste was the cost of labor and maintenance. I'm old enough to remember when the milk man brought glass bottles of milk and cream; when all soda was in returnable glass; and restaurants and schools all used glass and ceramic plates and stainless steel forks. Those days are returning in community focused grocery stores in my area.

In the past, as now, it had to be handled carefully and sanitized before reuse. There was little waste generated from that, but people had to do the work. That's the kind of employment some people regard as menial and worthless now. The culture of arrogant and wasteful consumption and not respecting honest but necessary work needs to end.

There are some alternatives such as the new cellulose and bamboo cutlery and containers, but it's still disregarding community and people working together.


:dem:

[BrightKnight]

43. More landfills equals higher property taxes.

Reducing landfill usage by 20% to 40% is very good for the bottom line. If the Tea Party fools really gave a damn about fiscal responsibility and good government they would see that.

[freshwest]

44. Good information, but I don't think the Tea Party wants a government, period.

They want to hand everything over to their heroes in the private sector. No taxes, no regulation, no trash pickup, schools, hospitals or police or even their social security checks.

Just good old fashioned Italian style fascism, but I doubt if they saw that far ahead. When the lights go off and they can't see Glenn anymore, they might wake up. Too late.

Okay, maybe the Democrats can save their tails again. This is getting old though.

[defendandprotect]

46. No .. what I'm challenging is that plastic is "recyclable" ....

You're no doubt doing your part -

but plastic is NOT recyclable as glass is --

it creates further harm to de-process the plastic to turn it into something else --

and it is not biodegradable --

But yes, they are recycling the glass and paper -- not GLASS as it was one recycled for

re-use - which is what should be being done again -- but breaking the glass down, I presume?

And I presume that because I doubt it is going back to the original manufacturer/processor

as used to be done with Coke/Pepsi bottles --

There are some elements of recycling which -- I think we have to admit -- are undesirable?

When glass used to be recycled for RE-USE thru stores, the companies coming in with the new

product picked up the used bottles/jars glass. That isn't happening now.

What we have now are major collections -- sometimes off the street which the public and

homeowners don't like.

Also notice that firms like Paul Newman has now put their salad dressing into plastic bottles -

though they stuck with glass until the latest increases in gasoline prices.

Re containers -- think we also need to get back to the wax-coated containers -- the plastic

is harmful -- and the wax-coated often worked better.

When you have a meaningful living wage -- which we don't -- then I think all labor just becomes

"labor" and there is less un-democratic outlook on anyone else's labor?


Didn't know about cellulose and bamboo containers ... have to catch up on that --

Meanwhile ... :)

Fingers crossed for a happier New Year for all of us -- and the world!

[RobinA]

41. As a Confirmed

drinker of bottled drinks, I much prefer glass.

[defendandprotect]

47. Agree -- gasoline prices are forcing many more to turn to plastic, I think?

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[One_Life_To_Give]

26. When soda bottles were a problem

we put a required deposit on them. Why do we think, now that the infrastructure is all in place, that we need a different solution to water bottles littered everywhere?

As I recall Concord, MA proposed a ban and 1 week later a major pipe burst forcing millions of MA residents to use Bottled Water.

[defendandprotect]

27. Good idea -- we don't need the plastic bottles ... and it suggests that there are options other

than protecting the water we do have available in our cities/towns --

[jallo]

35. we don't NEED a lot of stuff

That doesn't justify banning it. It's a fundamental logical disconnect. You can't justify a ban of X by saying "well, we don't need it". I've never once in my life bought bottled water btw. I always thought people who drank it were morans when you could simply get A container and reuse it.

[defendandprotect]

45. A lot of other "stuff" doesn't do the harm to the environment plastic does ....

it should be banned --

[femrap]

30. Sounds good to me....

I use a Pur filter on my tap, pour water into my traveling mug and I'm off! I keep jugs of the Pur water in the fridge. It's very easy, saves $$$, and saves the environment....plus plastics use oil.

[Kingofalldems]

33. People should have an old fashioned army canteen (metal)

hooked to their utility belt.
Works great!

[harun]

36. No need to ban, just make them so they degrade in < 100 years

hopefully much quicker if in sunlight, etc.

[IcyPeas]

37. we use recyclable plastic cups here at work...... see this website...

http://f-k.com/green

doesn't say they make bottles though unfortunately..... maybe in the future? Made in the USA too.

[BrightKnight]

38. A widely available recycling program would be much more effective.

We have a recycling dumpster outside my condo and most people use it. It fills up as fast if not faster than the trash dumpster. The monthly trash fees that my HOA pays are very reasonable.

I have lived in apartments for years and none of them had any kind of recycling. Mandating recycling in all multifamily housing would do a lot more good.

--

Filtered water is much cheaper and generally as good if not better than bottled water. With a filter I know exactly what I am getting every time. Paying to import water from France or Fiji is ridiculous. I have a weakness for San Pellegrino but I drink it about as often as I drink Chianti.