Pure Manipulation

I'm assuming most people reading this (if anyone actually does) drink bottled water... I'm also assuming from time to time you hear stories about how it's not that much cleaner than tap - as a former New Yorker I was constantly reminded that The City had some of the cleanest water in the country.

An intreresting Op-Ed piece in the Boston Globe Sunday (click here) noted the following:

Nationally, we'll drop $16 billion on bottled water this year. That's 27.6 gallons for each of us. Since most of the bottles it comes in never get recycled, we're helping to clog landfills with 4 billion pounds of plastic annually. And when you consider the energy it takes to make and move those bottles into and around the United States, you might as well fill a quarter of every single one of them with oil.

Interesting right? The piece also talks to (and this blew my mind) Aquafina basically being tap water (specifically comes from a tap in Ayer, MA and then is filtered):

...Ayer, Massachusetts. Best known for mills, railroads, and a former military base. And the water comes not from some gently burbling spring in a picturesque valley, either, but from the municipal water supply. Which pumps a slightly less-filtered but equally safe version of that same water into residents' homes for a quarter of one cent per gallon.

Have to love it - we're wasting economic resources and polluting the environment to drink water that's as good as what's coming out of the tap. Take a look at what's on the table at the next congressional hearing on the enviroment. I'm guessing it's not a pitcher...