Drink the tap!

In my relatively brief existence, I have both heard of and witnessed some horrifying, logic-defying fads. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, just go ask your parents to see their old pet rocks. To me, no fad has ever seemed as pointless as the water bottle craze that has taken the U.S. by storm in the last decade. In my hometown of Memphis, Tenn., during high school it became “cool” to walk the hallways flagrantly toting around a bottle of Fiji-brand water. This water was supposedly cleaner and fresher than our own tap water, simply because it came from an artesian well several continents away. \nIronically, Memphis itself has the world’s largest artesian well water system in the world. So instead of turning on their taps, my Memphian compatriots would rush to spend several dollars on what amounted to the exact same thing – only this water had to be towed in from the South Pacific by endangered sea turtles. Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly how it got to us, but the point is that it had to be transported all the way to the States somehow, most likely by a network of smog-spewing planes, trains and automobiles. \nThe American consumer base, including the “trendy” Fiji drinkers I knew, is fooling itself to think that just because water comes from a place with a 17-syllable, snooty-sounding name, it is somehow purer or healthier than what comes out of our faucets. There is little evidence to support these beliefs, according to the World Health Organization. And paradoxically, bottled water companies must meet less rigorous testing and purity standards than those that apply to city tap water, which must be tested more frequently for bacteria and harmful chemicals. Kind of counterintuitive, isn’t it?\nWhat’s more, our addiction to bottled water has a plethora of detrimental environmental impacts. I can guarantee that the water bottle connoisseurs of the world, for the most part, do not recycle them once they’ve emptied that last drop of “designer” hydration. Many times, the appropriate facilities aren’t available, and even when they are, as is the case at IU, it is simply too inconvenient to walk the extra six inches beyond the trash can to reach the recycle bin. \nWhat a waste.\nBy no means am I suggesting the American public to swear off Aquafina for good. The bottled water industry is only one of many that use packaging that will, in most cases, end up in the dump, and it is unfair to single it out for that. However, I would like you to consider why we are leading the way in the tremendous growth of this semi-useless, $10 billion industry, while there are countless worthier investments we could be making. For example, we could be saving to buy ourselves hybrid cars, or, if there is anyone who would rather keep their SUV, they could be saving up to buy ME a hybrid car instead – or pay my rent, for that matter. The possibilities are endless.