Park Slope Food Co-op Banning Bottled Water?
The Park Slope Food Co-op will ban the sale of bottled water if its members vote to approve it. Bottled water has become a big environmental issue as an estimated 30 million bottles a day end up in landfills and manufacturing the bottle consumes an estimated 1.5 million barrels of oil a year. The Brooklyn Paper reports that the ban is expected to pass. A co-op member who started a discussion on the topic a couple of years ago via the Park Slope Parents group told the paper that "Bottled water is a completely unnecessary product for most people, and only serves to harm the environment." Many co-op members suggest a switch to good old-fashioned New York City tap water, which is actually subject to higher purity standards than those set by the Federal government for bottled water. The ban wouldn't apply to carbonated water or to other bottled beverages. Intense Park Slope debate to follow.Labels: Environment, Park Slope
posted by rsguskind at 7:35 AM
3 Comments:
This is the smartest thing I've heard since the person who came up with the idea of bottling the water and selling it in the first place. Everything has its time and place. Load up on the bottled water when camping, road tripping, touring the entire city in a day. But not with my meal. Tap water please. I would feel differently if I actually saw more businesses and consumers recycle these plastic bottles. --conscientious citizen, not tree hugger
This is the smartest thing I've heard since the person who came up with the idea of bottling the water and selling it in the first place. Everything has its time and place. Load up on the bottled water when camping, road tripping, touring the entire city in a day. But not with my meal. Tap water please. I would feel differently if I actually saw more businesses and consumers recycle these plastic bottles. --conscientious citizen (not tree hugger)
In theory I would wholeheartedly agree - bottled water is, in general, wasteful; tap water should suffice.
But on the other hand, how many times have you been out for pizza, et cetera, and reached into the beverage cooler to select water over, say, Coke? The fact of the matter is, with a dearth of other healthy options in restaurants and bodegas, sometimes bottled water is the best thing going.
The obvious synthesis of these ideas, of course, is the notion that everybody should carry a Nalgene around with them; realistically, I'd say bottled water should be on sale anywhere that beverages laced with high fructose corn syrup are.
Now, if Park Slope were considering a ban on strollers...
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