Australian town votes overwhelmingly to ban bottle water

So long as they still sell beer in a can, I doubt pretty much anyone in Australia gives a XXXX about bottled water anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8141569.stm

 

wow thats crazy.. i wouldnt drink tap water here where i live :ack2: its horrible..
they found 3 dead cows in the water resource last year :ack2:

 

You wouldn't drink tap water in Ireland?

I drink the water here from the tap, it's not that bad but not a clean as perthshire mountain spring. Some places I prefer to filter the water, especially when I lived in Manchester and London.

But I used to drink it in Holland, and apparently because there are no local reservoirs they can rely on, most of the water there is recycled waste. I never got ill from it though, altough actually I did get a strange flu one august during my first summer there.

 

it depends , i used to drink it , not really in dublin, but in louth i drank it all the time.. till i found out about the cows...

theres a few places i would drink it from, like 15mins down the road theres a well thing, and the water is so fresh and nice

jus depends where you are i suppose

 

I was pissed when they started up a bottled water plant near where I live. Powelltown. We have heaps of streams you can drink out of, so they decided to bottle it and sell it. Admittedly, I have bought bottled water in a pinch, when youngest decides he is desperately thirsty and he wants something "now". (after consuming all the water -from home- in his "sippy" bottle). Don't like my kids drinking Coke or something else bursting with additives. Normally, we just bring water from home when we go out though (from the filter jug).

 

You get the occasional story here where some water supply gets contaminated with something, some chemicals from a farm or there's the winter vomiting bug that I think breaks out occasionally and has been known to get into water supplies if there has been a lot of rain, comes from sheep or something.

But having been to India and drank the water there I don't really get too stressed about things like this over here. There are streams around here where you can drink the water. I drank some recently and developed a bit of a slight sore throat, but this is good because if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger.

I used to live in Great Malvern and there they have a spring in the centre of the town, pure fresh volcanic spring water comes out the ground all day, I used to fill 5L bottles with it and use it to cook and everything, it was amazing.

 

Did they ban the sale of bottled soft drinks, too?

It's not that difficult to recycle. Seems like a more appropriate response would have been a law making it easier to recycle the plastic than to throw it away.

 

A system whereby they reuse the bottles would be better, but it probably still has to be transported, which also carries with it an environmental impact.

 

So does transporting anything. Did they pass a law banning the sale of candy bars because the plastic wrappers end up in the landfill?

 

I see your point. But sweeties are smaller and require less space and energy to transport. I guess if they tried to ban coca cola, for example, they would probably complain to the WTO organisation complaining they were in contravention of some laws.

 

In the US, cities are required to test their drinking water, meet specific standards, and mail annual reports to the taxpayers on water quality. Next to nothing is known about the quality and purity of bottled water.

Donald Trump once called bottled water a miracle of modern marketing, getting people to pay for something that is essentially free. I figure if Donald Trump thinks bottled water is great, that is reason enough for me to avoid it.

For environmental and cost reasons, I think the great international bottled water fad is now past its peak. This one Aussie town is ahead of the curve.

 

Fuck Donald trump.

If he comes anywhere near my house, I will kill him.

 

That's beside the point. Are you saying that because you think paying for bottled water is ridiculous that governments should ban its sale? And again I say ... is bottled water any worse than soft drinks, which contribute to grotesque obesity and keep half of the world's dental establishment in golf shoes?

The issue here wasn't the marketing or the intelligence of consumers, it was the plastic. Plastic bottles, as you certainly know, are easily recycled. Wouldn't it make more sense for the government to encourage recycling the plastic than for it to try and tell consumers what they can buy?

 

I would never drink the tap water here. I wonder if it's better in Australia?

 

i drink out of the tap here...supposedly Kansas City tap water is some of the best in the united states

 

Adelaide is notorious for it's crappy tasting drinking water. People often boil it first to try and get rid of some of the taste.

I have found in Melbourne and where I live (outside of the city) since the drought and then the bushfires, the water tastes more and more chemical. Taking a shower stings my eyes. I use a filter jug for drinking water. Miss being on rainwater.

Basically, after a dry spell, then fires around the catchments, there is a risk of all kinds of stuff being washed into the dams when it rains heavily. It's winter here now and the water tastes rather :ack2: without filtering/boiling first.

 

I'll help you hide the body. The hair can be recycled into a tasteless rug.

I suppose that is for the voters in that town to figure out. I don't have a problem with this particular decision.

 

As much as I hate the idea of bottled water (in most cases) I don't think this law is the solution. What about prepping for emergencies, disaster relief, etc.?

And banning bottled water does nothing for potato chip bags, cigarette butts, and the billion other convenient store waste products that litter the place. I think heavily increasing the fine for littering non-organic materials might be a better option.

 

I dont see any reason why bad tasting water need be an excuse not to drink tap water. There are tons of healthy flavour options you can add, for example, a single orange vitamin tablet will turn your glass of nasty water nice. Got me through the jungles of venezuela where you had to put iodine in the water to purify it, that stuff tasted like something dying in your mouth, but a single tablet made a litre of it taste like weak orange squash.

 

Fuck, boil the fucking water! Jesus! At my oma's house the water from the tap wasn't safe... so we fucking boiled it and it was safe.

Anyone who buys bottled water is, hands down, both lazy and an idiot.