Those of you who know me know that I am big on recycling.  I even take my newspaper that I read at lunch back home to put it in my recycle bin.  Until we got our new water cooler hooked up at our new office, I took home my used water bottles to place in the recycling bin too.  We can debate until we’re blue in the face whether or not items marked for recycling are actually recycled, so let’s just assume they are.  Some communities and companies are obviously better at it than others and no system is perfect.

It turns out that most water bottles are made with petroleum and we know the vicious circle involved with that right now.  In addition, we now know that a lot of “pure” water being sold is simply municipal tap water.  Add the ludicrous idea of the amount of energy it takes to transport water from a place like, say, Fiji, and it all seems rather silly to give companies lots of money for such a low cost item.

But yet I’m not willing to condemn bottled water.  Yes, there are definitely areas of the country that have fantastic tap water.  Growing up in Detroit and Chicago, I had no problem with the water at all.  At that time, bottled water was an extreme luxury for those dumb enough to pay for it.  In Peoria, the water was so hard you could smell the minerals as you showered.  It would leave rings of white crust on any water fountain.  To me, it was borderline undrinkable so I rented a 5-gallon water cooler for my room so I could hydrate myself, as I am a huge water drinker (yes, even more so than beer!).

Then Evian came along and changed the perception that water is just water.  Putting aside the snide remarks that it spelled “naïve” backwards, it made water a status item.  Sure it was all marketing hype but America didn’t care.

So we have bottled water being demonized because of the 1-2 punch of it being tap water and filling up landfills.  But I still see a plus that seems to be glossed over.  In this day and age of soda over-consumption (I include diet soda in this category too) along with other high fructose corn syrup bombs, it seems that if someone is going to be using a recyclable container, why not have them drink a beverage that is zero calories and has no sweeteners?  Wouldn’t you rather have someone drink a bottle of Dasani water than a Coca Cola regardless of whether they recycle the bottle or not?  People are going to drink individual containers.  It’s a way of life and since bottled water isn’t going away, I think it’s better for someone to drink Houston’s municipal tap water than a soda with 54 grams of sugar in it.

In the meantime, enjoy this clip from Penn & Teller’s show poking fun of bottled water drinkers.