Jordan: Dirty Water and Bottled Water
In the past few years, Jordanians have increasingly resorted to bottled water for their drinking needs. After several scandals involving dirty drinking water causing numerous cases of posisoning/hospitalization, who can blame them? Also, and perhaps on a more elevated level, we have the renowned Jordanian love for conspicuous consumption which, trust me, makes many people carry bottles of water just to show off. I don’t get it either.
On this subject, I was just reading an article detailing the side-effects for the increasing dependability on bottled water. These range from environmental hazards, to consumerism, to ethics. Here they are in a nutshell:
1- First, the manufacturing of plastic bottles, which are often made from nonrecycled virgin material, requires vast quantities of petroleum, and only 12 percent of this material is recovered for recycling.
2- Next, the distribution of bottled water, often by container ship from the other side of the planet (Fiji, Evian, San Pellegrino), is fuel intensive and results in greenhouse gas and sulfur dioxide emissions.
3- When you add the cost of packaging and marketing to transportation, not to mention the water makers’ huge profits, you are paying two to five times more for a bottle of water than you do for the equivalent amount of gasoline.
4- Americans collectively spend five times more on bottled water each year than it would cost to eradicate the 1.8 million deaths of children due to waterborne illness each year.
If you want to read thess reasons in detail, click here to go to Pablo Päster’s article in Salon about bottled water.
Now I want to know what you think about this. Do you think people should depend on tap water and abandon bottled water completely to save the environment and poor thirsty people in Africa? What say you?
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January 16th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Are you saying we should save the environment and kids in Africa and let the people of Jordan die of contaminated tap water? =P
January 16th, 2008 at 6:43 am
I always drink tap water. And I only drink water, even when I go out to eat. Except for gatoraide, which I started drinking when I started going to the gym a lot a couple years ago. I’m old enough to remember when the bottled water fad started in the 1980s. I’ve never gotten. Here in they US, our tap water is *healthier* than it was then. I recall back in the 1970s and into the early 1980s, we had some problems with facories dumping their waste in ways where it could pollute the water supplies. That’s virtually unheard of now. And yet, even though the tap water was good enough for people back then when it actually wasn’t all that "healthy", we are supposed to believe that American tap water is hazardous to our health NOW?<br /><br />I personally think people drink bottled water because they are too lazy to wash dishes. They’d use paper plates and plastic silverware too, if it was considered classy and stylish like bottled water is :)<br />
January 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Hey Lina… I don’t know exactly what the solution would be, but I personally drink tap water (which could account for my strange moods, or not, haha) and I never got sick. I think it depends on the area, in some areas in Jordan water IS dirty and undrinkable. But the irony is that these same areas host people who probably cannot afford to get bottled water, so they get sick, while in the better-off areas where the water is NOT dirty, people buy bottled water all the time.<br /><br />Craig, I thought the bottled water trend started in the 90’s so it’s good I have my info corrected now. I guess the reason why Jordanians buy bottled water nowadays is similar to the reason why Americans used to buy it in the 80’s as you said, although in the instances where our water was contaminated, it was because of irresponsibility and lack of monitoring (typical in a 3rd world country). But like I mentioned to Lina above, it’s the irony of the whole situation that baffles me. Those who are affected by dirty water can’t afford bottled water, and those who are mostly not affected buy bottled water, some to show off.<br /><br />And as usual, the environment is the last of our concerns. The article I linked to suggests several ways to help the environment, even if we absolutely had to buy bottled water.<br />
January 24th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
oh my god there is nothin good on here update it / but out of ten it is 7/10