Bottlemania - Elizabeth Royte [98]
In fighting bottled-water bans in schools and city halls, bottlers have insisted that thirsty consumers will revert to high-calorie drinks if their product is subtracted from the menu. But I think not—not if we educate ourselves about the environmental toll of bottled water and then complete the equation, making good tap water freely available to all, at cafes and stores from spigots, and in municipal buildings and on our streets, from fountains. (When Toronto banned sales of bottled water in city buildings, city leaders committed to improving accessibility to public tap water. Bravo!)
Install the fountains, and thirsty people will save money, fewer delivery trucks will clot our streets, the air will be cleaner, and fewer bottles will litter our sidewalks, parks, and rivers. I propose a national fountain campaign—a bounty of beautiful bubblers that have good water pressure, are frost-resistant, wheelchair accessible, sparklingly clean, and have one spigot for sipping and another dedicated to refilling those lovely, reusable bottles. (Microbiologists assure me it’s safe to sip from public fountains; the two-spigot innovation may help some germophobes get over the hump.)
My dream is that we’ll remember a time when single-use disposable containers weren’t ubiquitous, a time when people could go a few hours without a prepackaged beverage. Let’s not forget that single-servings of bottled water barely existed twenty-five years ago, that humans evolved in the absence of disposable water bottles (notwithstanding the odd gourd). Sure, we all need to drink, and we all enjoy a choice of beverage, but responding instantly to every urge and desire has had some serious unintended consequences for the environment (and for small towns fighting large corporations).
It’s a small place to start, but with modern plumbing, good tap water, ubiquitous fountains, reusable containers, and enough public education, we just might be able to wean ourselves from the tens of billions of water bottles we purchase each year.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people generously helped me report this book—some of their names appear in the text. I’d like to offer special thanks, in Fryeburg, to Jim Wilfong, Stefan Jackson, and Howard Dearborn, who, despite threatening to throw me in the lake, welcomed me back to Lovewell Pond. Tom Brennan, of Nestlé Waters North America, was patient with my questions and unstinting with his time, as was Mike Klender in Kansas City, Jennifer Sass at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Emily Lloyd and Steven Schindler in New York City. Thanks to Lisa Reed for the NEWater, to Leigh Baker for research assistance, and to Joshua Royte for fine lodgings and botanical guidance.
There have been several books written about the global water crisis, all of them increasingly important as we diminish this most precious of natural resources, and I’m grateful to have had the benefit of those authors’ experiences (see Selected Bibliography and Further Reading). Special thanks to the Overbrook Foundation—which supports many remarkably effective conservation projects and whose financial support made researching and writing this book in a short time possible and at times even pleasant—and to Daniel Katz, who was particularly enthusiastic. A tip of the hat to Jonathan Gregg at the Vermont Studio Center for his timely intervention. Portions of this book appeared in altered form in Grist magazine, thanks to Tom Philpott, and in the New York Times, thanks to Frank Flaherty.
For helping me navigate among many twisting channels of reporting, I’m indebted to my editor, Gillian Blake, who held up green lights and red lights as needed. Finally, this book wouldn’t exist without the advice and encouragement of my husband, Peter Kreutzer, who, in addition to editorial heavy lifting, suffered my lamentations, cooked nonstop delectable meals, and wrangled Lucy, my ultimate audience and inspiration.
APPENDIX
Below is a list of Internet