Join this Group for Updates and Discussions on this Blog (and a few others)!

Google Groups Join

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Freedom from the Bottled Water

Ninety Four years old Seetharam Iyer is one of the frequent visitors to my office, many times just to say 'hello' if he is passing by. Couple of weeks back in one of his visits, I was pouring out drinking water from the jug on to a tumbler, when he sharply said, 'enough, stop', and went on to explain, 'don't you buy this water?', 'yes', I said. So, 'it is enough to pour out as much water as is required for me, why fill up the glass every time and then the remaining water will be wasted any way, today it is all money'. A moment for stopping and pondering over for me, a learning.

We are so much used to throwing the left over water from a glass when we want to either empty it or clean-up or wash, most of us have not realized that water is no longer free, indeed it is getting costlier by the day. I often wonder why meetings, particularly, seminars and conferences are so proud of the plastic water bottle so much that they give it the most prominent place in the table. In every public meeting, on the podium or on the table in front of the dignitaries this cheap plastic bottle has come to adorn almost flaunting our ignorance as much as our indifference. I have repeatedly seen even in meetings where speakers talk of the corporate take over of water and how water is costlier than milk, etc., there is a bottled water on the dais. Do we wait for a day to ban bottled water in public like it is happening for cigarette for us to understand that the utter un-ethics of the entire water trade, but, also the magnitude of the incidental plastic garbage that is generated out of it?

Recently PepsiCo acknowledged that the 'Aqua Fina' with the mountain image was not to be taken at face value and that it is actually only selling 'tap water' in the bottle. Related News Item
A group in the US has been fighting the corporate take over for quite some time, pointing out how the per capita consumption there is 400 litres per day as against 10 litres in countries like ours. But, we are a country of 1 billion people and do not have to wait for international consultants to descend on us and teach us how to reduce plastic garbage by reducing bottled water usage. Can we declare freedom from bottled water in our events and travels, if not in our homes and offices?

No comments:

Read by Label