Australian town in 'world-first' bottled water ban

[VenusRising]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090926/wl_asia_afp/australiaenvironmentwater

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian town pulled all bottled water from its shelves Saturday and replaced it with refillable bottles in what is believed to be a world-first ban.

Hundreds of people marched through the picturesque rural town of Bundanoon to mark the first day of its bottled water ban by unveiling a series of new public drinking fountains, said campaign spokesman John Dee.

Shopkeepers ceremoniously removed the last bottles of water from their shelves and replaced them with reusable bottles that can be filled from fountains inside the town's shops or at water stations in the street.

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The cash savings only made the project more compelling, he added.

"I think that's why this campaign is doing so well, because we're saying to people you can save money and save the environment at the same time," said Dee. "The alternative doesn't have a sexy brand, doesn't have pictures of mountain streams on the front of it, it comes out of your tap."

Good for them!! I hope that more cities follow suit. The bottled water industry is a huge scam.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

1. May I invite you over for a glass of the Colorado River?

The tap water where I live is disgusting, I'm not enthusiastic about bathing in it. You can take my bottled water from my cold dead hands.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Filter your own -

we've got a PUR on the kitchen faucet, and we use a big BRITA pitcher in the refrigerator. Keeps the water supply in fine fashion. The water produced by both those items is crystalline and sparkling, quite wonderful, even though our small city's water supply isn't bad.

There's no need for all that plastic. All that plastic. Where is it gonna go?

[Confusious]

4. Recycled?

Just a thought.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. I would hope so,

but, man, imagine how many are thrown away every day!

You see everyone sucking on a bottle of water, no matter where you are. I personally find it sort of repugnant. I mean, were we all that dehydrated before this big water craze started?

Ah, well, life goes on..................

[Chulanowa]

12. For how long and for how much?

It takes energy to recycle, and plastic degrades severely when recycled.

It's much more sustainable to simply stick with municiple water with hte occasional filter

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. Brita filters do less than nothing

the water simply tastes terrible no matter what you try to do with it, not even orange juice will mask the flavor.

What makes the water bottles more evil than soda bottles or milk jugs? I have been recycling all of the above for years.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

8. Ewwwwwww - that bad?

They're all evil, all that plastic. I get milk in honest-to-god glass bottles, and it's well worth the trouble of washing the bottles and returning them to the store. But I know that's an option not available to many.

Showers must be miserable with water that bad. You can put filters on shower heads, I know. But, sorry, man - everyone deserves water that is, at the very least, not disgusting.............................

[VenusRising]

3. No one is giving up the water.

It's just being put in reusable bottles now that can be filled at water fountains and water stations.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. which in my case would be the same putrid tap water

[AusDem]

9. its a shame that you live in an area with poor water quality

i can understand why you wouldn't want to drink that. i think we're generally fairly lucky in Australia with our water quality. Melbourne water has been rated as good enough to bottle straight out of the tap. almost feel bad showering in it.

but yeah, I think buying bottles of water is ridiculous, and paying money to people who are no more than bottling and selling a resource that should be freely available to everyone is inane (except for cases where availablity or water quality is a serious issue).

[notesdev]

10. What's "Evian" spelled backwards?

All you need to know about how the bottled water industry views people who buy bottled water.

[RC]

11. What makes empty bottled water bottles non refillable?

Everyone I have seen has a top you can remove to refill the bottle. So what is the real difference between selling an empty bottle you have to fill and buying a bottle full of water your can refill?

[mdmc]

13. ..