Water & Air – Filter Systems News

Want to quit smoking, but can’t? NicLite is here to help. This specially formulated, organic, non-addictive nicotine bottled water offers you an alternative to smoking. Whether you’re a heavy smoker, moderate smoker, or social smoker, you can drink NicLite to curb your craving for cigarettes.

The makers of this product claim that it is much safer than cigarettes, because it is carcinogen-free. Consumers testify that NicLite has helped them reduce or quit their smoking habit after only a few weeks of drinking the water. The convenient plastic bottle packaging lets you sip whenever you feel the urge to smoke, whether you’re in your car, on an airplane, at work, or in a restaurant where smoking indoors has been banned – nonsmokers around you will no longer have to suffer the fate of secondhand smoke because of your bad habit.

At first glance, NicLite seems like a great solution to anyone’s nicotine addiction. However, upon closer examination, it seems that in the long run, you’re simply replacing one bad habit with another. Before you know it, your smoking addiction becomes a bottled water addiction that can be just as dangerous to you and your peers as secondhand smoke. I can’t help but wonder how many of those who have used NicLite have actually been able to kick the bottled water habit once they quit smoking. Do you have to continue to drink NicLite water to avoid your cigarette cravings?

As a nonsmoker, it’s difficult for me to take an authoritative stance on this issue, so I’d like to hear the point of view of others who have struggled with quitting. Do you think nicotine bottled water is a viable solution to the problem of nicotine addiction? If not, what alternatives could you suggest?

You may recall a series we did last year on “eco-friendly” bottled water. It appears that PepsiCo and Evian have both jumped on that bandwagon. Evian has introduced a lighter-weight bottle, made with 50 percent recycled PET, and containing 11 percent plastic, that is still 100 percent recyclable. We know that’s a lot of percentages, so let us break it down for you this way: Evian is trying to be more evnironmentally sustainable with their bottled water packaging. The bottle is even easier to crush, as demonstrated by their TV commercial, which means it takes up less space in your recycle bin or trash can  (leaving room for more bottles – amounting to just as much plastic as you’d get with their former bottle design.)

Evian’s bottle came out a week after PepsiCo announced plans to release the first-ever PET bottle made from 100 percent plant materials, including switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. The bottle is also fully recyclable.

While we commend the bottled water industry for their efforts to appeal to a broader audience of people, we stand by our original claim, which is also the claim of most environmentalists who just aren’t “buying it” (pun intended.) Whether the bottle is recyclable or not, the fact remains that most bottles are not actually recycled. And whether it’s packaged in plastic or corn husks, many bottled waters are nothing more than filtered tap water, which you can get at home for a fraction of the price. Pepsi has even admitted that their Aquafina water is municipally sourced. In short, as a recent guest star in our youtube film, “Bottled Water Dummy,” demonstrates, bottled water is a waste of money.  We all know what EVIAN spells backwards…

We suggest you invest in water filters, which are a much more sustainable and cost-effective solution.

Water scam!
Water scam!
I do not like the bottled water scam!

Do you like
the bottled water scam?
I do not like that water, ma’am.
I do not like
the bottled water scam.

Would you drink it
here or there?

I would not drink it
here or there.
I would not drink it anywhere.

I do not like
that water, ma’am.
I do not like the bottled water scam.

Would you drink the backwards naivE?
Would you drink it if you were Steve?

I would not drink
backwards naivE.
I would not drink it
were I Steve.

I do not like water
in a bottle.
I do not like
the waste, it’s awful.

Would you drink it
in a tree?
Would you drink it
if it were free?

Not in a tree.
Not if it were free.
I would not drink the
backwards naivE,
I would not drink it were I Steve.
I would not drink bottled water anywhere.
I would not drink bottled water, ma’am.
I do not like the bottled water scam.

We recently launched our YouTube Channel, and wanted to share our first video: “Bottled Water vs. Tap Water: Don’t Be A Dummy.” We ran across a ventriloquist online and thought, “what better way to epitomize the notion of a bottled water dummy than with an actual dummy?” Seeing the perfect opportunity for a short film, Daniel wrote a script and sent it to the ventriloquist who then agreed to make a video for us. We ended up with this:

And that pretty much sums up our thoughts on bottled water. We’d love to hear your comments. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel by visiting the link and clicking on the yellow subscribe button near the top left above the video player. Let us know what you think, and stay tuned for our first video series, to launch within a few weeks.

Bottled rainwater is a growing trend among avid premium bottled water consumers. On Saturday, February 26, six bottled rainwaters will compete in the award-winning Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting competition: Richard’s Rainwater, Oregon Rain, Texas Rain, Tasmanian Rain, SparkleTap and Rainwater Management Solutions. These six will be among over 100 bottled waters from around the globe. Since it is a bottled water “tasting” competition, I can’t predict who the winner will be because I don’t drink bottled water, but if the contest also took into account the sustainability of the process by which these waters are bottled, supposedly these six would be at the top.

That’s because bottled rainwater is supposed to be a “greener” alternative to other bottled waters. Rainwater harvesting is highly eco-friendly and has a lower carbon footprint than the processes used by conventional water bottlers. Rainwater catchments involve minimal processing. Rainwater is already pretty clean and does not require the complex filtration that chemically-treated water requires. Not to mention, many of these bottled rainwaters use eco-friendly packaging in the form of recyclable glass or biodegradable plastic. Tasmanian Rain even has an offsetting agreement with Elementree – an Australian company that plants trees based on the bottler’s water shipments and overall emissions.

But is bottled rainwater really greener? Even if it is greener, I don’t know that you could say it’s “green.” And I still think it’s got a long way to go to compete with filtered tap water. Putting something natural and eco-friendly inside of a plastic container (even if it is “biodegradable” plastic) just seems a little… ironic. Plus, not everyone can afford to purchase this water. It is, after all, more expensive than your average Deer Park.

What do you guys think?

The University of Canberra is the first Australian university to ban the sale of bottled water on its campus, according to a blog post by Stephen Parker, the school’s vice chancellor. The school plans to stop selling bottled water on campus by World Water Day, which is March 22 of this year.

Many schools in the United States and Canada have undertaken similar bottled water bans, and even more schools have considered such a ban. Of course, if a university or college bans bottled water, they should make sure that they have a plan in place to provide clean water to students.

The University of Canberra did that and then some.

The university has installed water bubblers and water refill stations throughout the campus so that its students have access to clean, filtered water. And, unlike bottled water, this water doesn’t cost students a thing.

But the University of Canberra didn’t stop there. They also had Water Vend machines installed. These machines provide “flash-chilled” filtered tap water, which students may have still, sparkling or even flavored. Sigg also supplied the school with reusable water bottles.

If your campus is considering a bottled water ban, you would do well to take a page out of the University of Canberra’s book. There is no point in even considering a ban on bottled water if you don’t have a clear alternative, as the University of Canberra clearly did.

IMAGE CREDIT: dcwater.com

Congress spent $190,000 on bottled water during the first quarter of 2010 alone. As of this writing, many members of Congress were reticent to drink DC’s tap water after past studies showed the tap water contained unsafe levels of lead. Over the years, DC tap water has received quite the bad reputation.

DC Water is working to change that. As Tap It Water reports, George S. Hawkins, general manager of the area water utility DC Water, wrote a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner urging him to cut bottled water from the budget. As an incentive, Hawkins offered to supply each member of Congress with free reusable water bottles. He also offered free water quality testing in congressional buildings, “including taps and water fountains.”

There are more than hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake here. After all, if Congress refuses to take DC Water up on their offer, how can they expect DC residents to drink the city’s tap water? Congress would essentially be acknowledging that DC tap water is unsafe, and that they were quite okay with spending more money to ignore the problem rather than fix it outright.

Here’s a novel idea: Rather than spending $190,000 on bottled water each quarter (which amounts to $760,000 a year), why doesn’t Congress invest more money into DC Water, thereby eliminating the need for bottled water in the first place and giving DC residents safe water in their own homes?

Please note we’re not saying that DC Water needs to even take extra precautions. It seems water quality in DC is on the up-and-up. In a blind taste test, DC tap water was preferred over bottled water. DC Water has also set up new facilities around town, and they’ve become more transparent.  DC Water’s FAQ page addresses and answers concerns about various contaminants.

Last year, we wrote about how a small church used bottled water for Baptism, and then shortly after that we wrote about a South Korean professor who was charged with fraud for selling machines he claimed could turn tap water into holy water.

Just last week, an Orthodox priest, Zaharia Peres, claimed to do the same. Only this time, the priest had no ulterior motive for turning tap water into holy water. And he didn’t need a machine.

Instead, Peres consecrated all of Timisoara’s tap water at once. He stood over the reservoirs that supplied the city so that everyone in the city might have access to the holy water. Many opted to go directly to the church to get their fill of holy water, fearing that the water might lose some of its power by travelling through rusty pipes.

Why does bottled water have an expiration date? This is a question we see asked all the time.  Many resources state that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require any food or consumable product to have an expiration date, but this is not true in the case of bottled water. It turns out, the FDA does not require an expiration date for bottled water.

But just because the FDA doesn’t require bottled water to have an expiration date, that doesn’t mean you should pop open that 1996 FIJI you’ve been saving for a special occasion. Such long-term storage, the FDA states, can lead to undesirable tastes and odors in the water. Given this, it’s not uncommon to see most bottled waters have a best by or a use by date.

Expired bottled water isn’t going to get any better with age. If you leave that bottle of water on the shelf for too long, you may end up with more than off-tastes or off-flavors to be concerned with. This is because most bottled water manufacturers use a high-density polyethylene plastic (HDPE), which is slightly porous. The bottle’s porousness can allow airborne contaminants to enter the water, just as some chemicals from the plastic itself can leach into the bottle. Thankfully, most bottled water companies are no longer using plastic with Bisphenol A, but the jury is still out on the other dangers of chemicals leaching from HDPE.

The Environmental Working Group recently published a 2011 Bottled Water Scorecard that surveys 173 bottled water brands in an effort to find the source of the water, as well as if any further water purification is done.

Here are just a few surprising facts from the bottled water scorecard:

• 18 percent of bottled water brands do not reveal their source.
• 32 percent of bottled water brands surveyed do not provide info on water treatment.
• Less than 1/4 of brands surveyed comply with California’s labeling law.
• Aquafina and Dasani received a D; Fiji and Evian received a C.

Want to see how your favorite brand of bottled water stacks up? The EWG has a long, comprehensive list of bottled water brands on its bottled water scorecard. The brands are judged on their transparency (including source, purification and testing) as well as any advanced treatment. Under these metrics, no brand scored greater than a C overall. Filtered tap water received an A, which was the highest score the EWG provided.

The EWG published a similar bottled water scorecard in 2009. For the most part, bottled water brands did not become any more transparent in the year’s time between the two scorecards. Still, the EWG hopes that the survey will lead to stronger standards for bottled water brands.