2008 Woodie Awards
Bottled water campaign: "just tap it"
Meredith Clinton
Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: News
This semester, Dr. Lora Taub, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Media and Communication, and her Environmental Communication class are participating in a campaign to ban the sale of bottled water at the College.
They believe that the reason bottled water is so popular is simply because corporations have used advertising to convince the public that bottled water is safer and tastes better than tap water. In a survey taken by the class, one hundred students on campus were asked whether or not they believe bottled water tastes better than tap water; eighty-three percent responded yes, and 17 percent said no.
While many people may believe that bottled water tastes better, a comparison of the regulations placed on bottled water versus tap water may be a better indicator as to which one is the better option. The United States Environmental Protection Agency's standards for tap water are much more precise than the standards placed on bottled water by the Food and Drug Administration.
If someone is feeling hesitant about drinking water straight from the tap, there are numerous filtration systems that can be bought to make tap water cleaner and more enjoyable.
Furthermore, the cost of production that goes into bottled water is outrageous. In an extensive study on this topic, Pablo Paster, Sustainability Engineer at Triple Pundit, discovered that the manufacture and transport of a one kilogram bottle of Fiji water consumed 26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons), .849 kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre), and emitted 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds).
In addition to these unnecessary costs of production, nearly ninety percent of water bottles are not recycled; instead, they end up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for them to decompose.
Dr. Taub's class would also like to point out that this campaign is not just about the environmental effects of bottled water; water is a human right, and is not something that should be commodified and sold to the public by corporations. The class hopes that their campaign will make the campus more aware of the absurdity of bottled water and that it will encourage the College to ban the sale of bottled water on campus. In place of the bottles they would like to see filtration systems throughout the campus so that all students can have access to free, safe water.
They believe that the reason bottled water is so popular is simply because corporations have used advertising to convince the public that bottled water is safer and tastes better than tap water. In a survey taken by the class, one hundred students on campus were asked whether or not they believe bottled water tastes better than tap water; eighty-three percent responded yes, and 17 percent said no.
While many people may believe that bottled water tastes better, a comparison of the regulations placed on bottled water versus tap water may be a better indicator as to which one is the better option. The United States Environmental Protection Agency's standards for tap water are much more precise than the standards placed on bottled water by the Food and Drug Administration.
If someone is feeling hesitant about drinking water straight from the tap, there are numerous filtration systems that can be bought to make tap water cleaner and more enjoyable.
Furthermore, the cost of production that goes into bottled water is outrageous. In an extensive study on this topic, Pablo Paster, Sustainability Engineer at Triple Pundit, discovered that the manufacture and transport of a one kilogram bottle of Fiji water consumed 26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons), .849 kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre), and emitted 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds).
In addition to these unnecessary costs of production, nearly ninety percent of water bottles are not recycled; instead, they end up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for them to decompose.
Dr. Taub's class would also like to point out that this campaign is not just about the environmental effects of bottled water; water is a human right, and is not something that should be commodified and sold to the public by corporations. The class hopes that their campaign will make the campus more aware of the absurdity of bottled water and that it will encourage the College to ban the sale of bottled water on campus. In place of the bottles they would like to see filtration systems throughout the campus so that all students can have access to free, safe water.