Guys, you must have seen me collecting plastic bottles thrown around after each game. One of the reasons is that then it has a chance to get recycled. But this seldom happens as, in the absence of laws to promote recycling, it will be always cheaper to make bottles new.
We often go for bottled water thinking, piped water provided by municipality is not so pure or contaminated by corroded/ leaked conduit pipes etc... It is far from truth... In the UAE, Municipalities provide us water by purifying seawater by a complex filtering process called reverse osmosis. The process filters out salt from sea water along with most of the impurities making it as pure as any bottled water. Try filtering (not distilling) seawater to eliminate salt and you'll know how difficult it is. Perhaps it may not have the minerals, which the mineral water companies claim their products have. But then, so also is rain water, purest natural water!
I should also note that vast majority of Bottled water uses reverse osmosis rather than more expensive distillation for removing impurities. Thus this does not make their product any more better that the tapped water. So imagine what additional cost we pay for something which will only serve to damage our environment, leaves an enormous carbon footprint and deprives clean water to our less privileged brethren who can’t afford the luxuries we take for granted (about 3500 million people or 50% of world population).
So when you buy your next water bottle think
- About 2700 million people abound the world do not have access to clean drinking water and you actually pay to deprive them further. YOU’LL BE QUESTAINED BY GOD AT THE GATES OF HEAVEN!
- Cost incurred by government and bottled water companies are more or less the same for purifying water. If government charges you 50 fils per litter for pipe water (half of what bottled water companied charges you) you’ll end up paying AED 3000 per month if you use just 200 liters a day (it will be more than then for a family of 3; just check your ADWEA bill) Abu Dhabi govt charges only for water conduit pipes and water come free! Imagine… we do not care a damn!
- All talk of killing Bacteria is big bullshit (‘keedan!’ I don’t know what that means in Malayalam although they keep using the word in Malayalam TV advertisements). All your surrounding and even inside you is filled with Bacteria. You cannot live with out it. Only less than 10% of bacteria is harmful. Viruses are virtually indestructible.
- Drinking from plastic bottled water kept in cars can cause cancer owing to harmful chemicals seeped in water when plastic bottles gets heated in the car
I am sure from the above facts, we do not stop using bottled water overnight. But try limiting it and control the use of plastics. Plastic is a byproduct of Crude oil, a very finite natural resource. Once turned to plastic (very robust compound), it will not degrade to soil for many number of years. Even when it degrades/ germinates say after natural process that can last more than 100 years, it releases harmful chemicals to soil. That is why it is considered a harmful pollutant.
I am sure most of you guys get irritated (and blame the government) when you come across plastic waste at a beach or a park. Still you would not think twice about throwing around a used water bottle.
Use of such useless comforts like bottled water is a result of US style consumerism (Buy a cup of coffee from a McDonald/ pizza hut and you’ll realize). Our body is much more resilent and adapted to the nature. So please do not fall when they preach you in the TV ads that disinfectants will save your kids from bacteria and bottled water saves you from communicable desease.
Let us play cricket; let our kids feel the sun on their skins; let them feel the soil with their bare hands… let them know that there is a world beyond the confines of our cars and flats…that there is beauty in sunrise…. that our beloved God inherited the Earth not just for us in air conditioned comforts!
Guess I got too carried away… see you guys soon!
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