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[AugustWest]

Washington U. in St Louis, where I went and Inev currently studies, has banned bottled water on campus.

Interesting idea, since most bottle water is essentially tap water anyway.  Of course, the bottlers are up in arms -- their point is that soft drinks (and beer) are in bottles too, why not ban them?  Soft drinks are not easily obtainable in a non-bottled form, however.

What about it, Inev?  Is this a big issue on campus?

[wombat]

Friend of mine reported that her law firm was in an uproar when they decided to stop providing everyone with free bottled water. Well, 'uproar' in the sense of many, many memos going around and meetings held. Apparently some felt that filtered water in pitchers and glasses were not an adequate substitute, nor was it felt reasonable that if you didn't want filtered water in a glass, you could buy your own damn bottled water with part of your obscenely large corporate lawyer salary.

This was not a ban, you note - just a perk they stopped providing to people who could very well afford their own. People seem to feel oddly strongly about their bottled water.

[jay-ell]

My $0.02 on the ridiculousness of bottled water is this:

Last summer, when we were amidst a terrible drought and under severe water restrictions for homeowners and small businesses, to the point where restaurants weren't allowed to bring water to the table except on request, the local Pepsi bottling plant was shipping our tap water out-of-state under the Aquafina label. 

Yeah, lots of folks got pissed about that.  Didn't change a darn thing, though. 

[CortJstr]

I've made choices that fit in with the sustainability concepts because I'm cheap and derive an immediate monetary benefit from my cheapness.

This is why I now drink my morning soda out of a Sigg bottle. Sometimes I can find 2-liter bottles of Cherry Coke for 99-cents while a single 20oz bottle is often $1.49. I can fill my 20oz Sigg bottle about 3 and half times for less than the cost of 1 single-serve bottle. Even when the 2-liters are regular price it's still an overall savings. The Sigg bottle paid for itself in like 6 weeks.

I also bring a bottle of water to work but that's more to drink myself into drinking more water and less soda. If I lug a pound and a half bottle of water to work I'm going to drink most of it, just so I don't have to feel stupid lugging it home. Which saves me at least 75-cents on the can(s) of Pepsi I would have bought from the break room vending machine otherwise.

[pmcd9]

Yeah, I don't use bottled water because the entire concept is ridiculous.  Water is freely available almost everywhere.  Why the hell are you paying $1.39 for something you can get for free.

Back when bottled water first started it was (allegedly) pure from France or whatever.  But nowadays it's just tap water in a bottle.  

I've been in restaurants where they served me bottled water and I sent it back.  I insisted they give me tap water.

[CortJstr]

Yeah, I don't use bottled water because the entire concept is ridiculous.  Water is freely available almost everywhere.  Why the hell are you paying $1.39 for something you can get for free.

Back when bottled water first started it was (allegedly) pure from France or whatever.  But nowadays it's just tap water in a bottle.  

I've been in restaurants where they served me bottled water and I sent it back.  I insisted they give me tap water.

I hate when they ask if you want "regular or sparkling" and "regular" means "bottled water that is still" and "tap" is an unspoken 3rd choice. I don't mind places that ask "sparkling, still, or tap" or some variation.

On a sort of related topic, a restaurant called Piccolo in Georgetown would always ask "mixed green or caesar salad" after you ordered your entree, implying the salad was included. But it was like $6 extra. That bugged the crap out of me.

[jaydub]

Are people still having vapours over plasticizers leaching from plastic bottles?  Maybe the bans are also motivated by, "we know what's good for you, now shut up".

[pmcd9]

I thought it was people were finally noticing the Elephant in the room that is bottled water.  Sadly it seems it's just one moronic idea being defeated by another.

[KeithHernandez]

Every time I am hungover I go to the store and buy an orange Gatorade.  I then save the bottle to either drink out of or make a gravity bong with..  So basically I have 4 drinking bottles I fill myself, a gravity bong, and two or three gatorade bottles ready to go if needed.

Is this legal at Washington University?  Am I going to die from the bottles?  I kind of figured if they killed me I deserve to die.

[JorgeFabregas]

You just can't buy bottled water on campus.

[wombat]

It just occurred to me that on the campus where i used to work, we couldn't buy Coke, or was it that we could only buy Coke? I can't remember which, but they had a deal with one company and didn't sell stuff from the other.

So, you know, not being able to buy some drink or other on campus is not that radically new an idea. At least you can get water from the tap, you can't get Pepsi from the tap if you don't like Coke.

[Golfhaus]

My college became a Pepsi Campus about three years into my tenure there. One of the editors of the school paper got into a metric shitload of trouble for wearing a Coca-Cola shirt to school the day the announcement was made, with all the Pepsi dignitaries present. It was going to turn into a maybe-we-won't-let-you-be-a-student-here kind of thing until someone nudged the administration and reminded them of the First Amendment. My campus group started importing Coke from the supermarket across the street and keeping it onhand in the office.

[CortJstr]

My school only had Coke products in the soda fountains but they sold both at the convenience stores. I found this amusing because the football stadium had big Pepsi ads. Apparently the dining hall people and the athletics people didn't get together often enough.

[Choop]

Count Spouse

that would make an excellent parody goth band name, wherein the guitarist and vocalist are married


after seeing slumdog millionaire, watching the dude fake-win 20 million rupees,  and realizing that was still a smaller number than the number of empty plastic bottles that literally floored the slum from which he dogged, i can't ever support buying bottled water again. or soft drinks in plastic bottles. i'm not sure if the dudes and ladies behind that film had any eye toward sustainability encouragement, but dear god i weep at the horror of all that wasted plastic and its present and future effects

[Ruta Bagas]

the slum from which he dogged

I didn't realise it was that kind of film.