Take Back the Tap

posted by Peter Rothberg on 08/01/2008 @ 12:03pm

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This video by Elizabeth Klein of the University of Cincinnati was the recent winner of the I *Heart* Tap Water Student Video Contest.

The contest is a part of Food & Water Watch's Take Back the Tap college campaign which encourages students to organize their campuses and communities to cut contracts with bottled water companies and promote the use of tap water. The case against bottled water is easy: Tap water is better for consumers' health, their pocketbooks, and the environment. Millions of barrels of oil are used to produce and transport plastic bottles annually, and in the end, 86 percent of the bottles end up in landfills.

So TakeBacktheTap.org acts as a one-stop resource for people interested in taking action in their local communities. The site provides petitions, how-to guides, educational fliers, and other resources for not just colleges and students, but also restaurants and restaurant-goers interested in taking back the tap.

Food & Water Watch is working with cities across the country to urge local restaurants and chefs to switch to serving only municipal tap water and help educate customers about the attendant benefits. Last month, San Francisco's city government joined forces with the group to help kick-off the campaign, and Food & Water Watch is currently working to launch similar campaigns in Santa Cruz, California, St. Louis, Missouri, New York City, and Portland, Maine this summer.

Click here to see how you can help.

Comments (36)

PETER,

Ah...hem.

Well....good luck with the big fight against bottled water!

I'm sure it's going to be a top priority on campus what with student loans, the economy, Iraq, etc. now fixed, allowing the kids to concentrate on that important issue.

Posted by Maskdelta at 08/01/2008 @ 12:11pm
Aaahh, the old Mask is back.

I guess my concerns about identity theft were premature.

Posted by drhammer at 08/01/2008 @ 12:29pm
Nancy Pelosi save the planet..I would rather put my faith in BATMAN..he is at least REAL. Posted by JOMAMMA at 08/01/2008 @ 12:55pm

He would kick the worlds ass right into submission.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 1:01pm
I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in LA. Our tap water is not exactly the cleanest in the world. In the interest of not getting dysentery I'll stick to something bottled.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 1:03pm
You guys got it backards...drink more bottled water then recycle the bottles into bikinis...and we can get more calendars like the Eagles cheerleaders "go green" callendar.

Hey, i'm just tryin' to make the world more beautiful...

Posted by usc1 at 08/01/2008 @ 1:05pm
the Sun's encroachment

Posted by marybretbrad at 08/01/2008

other way round, bright boy.

WE'RE doing the encroaching, like a rubber ducky heading for the drain.

why do you think we orbit the sun?

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:08pm
Posted by marybretbrad at 08/01/2008

obviously, saving the planet is a stupid thing to say.

nonetheless, preserving an ecosystem that can sustain human existence seems like a good idea.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:10pm
Golf tees are now made out of corn, so are milk bottles..100% bio everything...maybe they could make water bottles out of the same stuuf instead of wasting corn on ethanol...

ANOTHER GOVT BONDOGGLE..

Posted by JOMAMMA at 08/01/2008 @ 12:55pm

my god!

jm is talking sense.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:14pm
here ya' go, ccccccccccccccc:

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities/pdf/la.pdf

if anybody else* wants to check out their tap water:

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities/contents.asp

Albuquerque, NM Atlanta, GA Baltimore, MD Boston, MA Chicago, IL Denver, CO Detroit, MI Fresno, CA Houston, TX Los Angeles, CA Manchester, NH New Orleans, LA Newark, NJ Philadelphia, PA Phoenix, AZ San Diego, CA San Francisco, CA Seattle, WA Washington, DC

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:21pm
ccccccccccccccccc,

buy a good filtering system.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:21pm
take the empty water bottlitos and fill 'em with tap water.

fill up your freezer with 'em.

your fridge's compressor will work far less.

and they make great freezer packs for the cooler.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:23pm
WHAT'S

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:26pm
hey!

most post was severely truncated!

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:26pm
WHAT'S

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:28pm
Grading Drinking Water in U.S. Cities

EARLY RELEASE SANFRANCISCO1

San Francisco earned a water quality and compliance grade of Poor for 2000 and 2001.

Factors in this grade included the following:

Although San Francisco's source water is generally very well protected, the city had high levels of cancer-causing contaminantscalled total trihalomethanes, or TTHMs, by-products of the heavy use of chlorine for disinfection of its tap water. San Francisco is one of the few large cities in the United States with TTHM levels still in excess of a new EPAtap water standard that went into effect in January 2002. San Francisco also has potentially dangerous high spikes in the levels of these chemicals in its tap water.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••

i'm not advocating bottled water. we need to make tap water better.

no, ponti, privatization is not an option.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:29pm
Good suggestions FROSTY and thank you JO but I hate the photo!

Posted by Peter Rothberg at 08/01/2008 @ 1:36pm
i've never understood the bottled water thing in the first place. if you are worried about the quality of tap water...buy a cheapo filter.

but good for the kids - its kind of a minor issue, sure, but its something that should be addressed, since good tap water is much less wasteful in many ways than bottled water.

Posted by ibbleblibble at 08/01/2008 @ 1:42pm
Posted by drhammer at 08/01/2008 @ 12:29pm

No, Doc...always skeptical of the less-than-serious or not-taken-seriously.

Sorry, PETER.

But, fighting against bottled water?!??!?!

That really smells of "boutique issue" for the campuses and hardly going to mount up ant-war protest or even "Don't buy Burger King" protest numbers, I'd bet.

Really...get those kids out there working for the Obama campaign and leave this stuff for between the mid-term elections or something.

Posted by Maskdelta at 08/01/2008 @ 1:54pm
This is a really creative and good campaign. Most people don't know that most of the water bottles are taken from the tap water.

Posted by hooman at 08/01/2008 @ 1:55pm
Waste not, want not.

Formally a CONSERVative thought, now part of the leftwing approach to world domination MBB?

why do people have such a hard time accepting common sense solutions to larger problems? These same people are willing to spend $500,000,000,000 to "save the planet" from phantom wmd's, but will mock other people that don't want to leave their kids landfills full of plastic? Jeez Louise you folks are obstinate.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/01/2008 @ 4:23pm
Nancy Pelosi save the planet..I would rather put my faith in BATMAN..he is at least REAL. Posted by JOMAMMA at 08/01/2008 @ 12:55pm

you did, JM, you did. His secret identiry has been removed, Batman is really Donald Rumsfeld!!!

He is capable of standing for hours on end...

He can infight with the best bureaucracies of the world....

He can kidnap innocent people and make sheep fear them...

He can lose 2 wars at the same time....

He is....

Neo-con Batman!!!

Posted by crabwalk at 08/01/2008 @ 4:30pm
Better for your health to drink tap water?...I live in LA. You're safer drinking your own pee than drinking straight from the tap over here. fyi...Denver has the best tap water in the Country. If I lived in Denver I'd put that shit in plastic bottles and sell it!

Posted by ADHD at 08/01/2008 @ 8:57pm
I buy the cheap 'spring water' gallons... drink them in a day or two... and then I recycle almost all of the containers. Because I'm very physically active, I do drink a bit more than most people... but clean water is one of the best things you can do for your health.

Plenty of water.

Tap water is great for cleaning, washing, watering, and scaring the racoons with... but clorine is an oxidant... and is really not great to ingest.

I've been drinking bottled for years now... and almost all tap water tastes 'peculiar' to me now... What's better, is that I don't crave any popular beverages excepting of course... coffee.

Posted by ttr at 08/01/2008 @ 8:57pm
Jeez Louise you folks are obstinate.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/01/2008 @ 4:23pm

tell me about it.

let's use a whole buncha oil to make plastic so we can fill up the north pacific with a qwintrillion bits of old bottles and sixpack rings.

hey,

we should drink oil!

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 01:46am
Using fewer bottles means less reliance on foreign oil.

If you tune your car, don't drink bottled water, make efficient trips and wear a sweater...

we can "save" more oil than can be drilled in ANWR and probably in the Gulf of Mexico!

Think about it neo-cons.

----

for those that are concerned about chlorine in municipal water, draw out a gallon and let it sit overnight covered with cheesecloth. The chlorine will evaporate and the water will taste better!

Simple solutions exist to global problems.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/02/2008 @ 08:28am
Why do all the comments on Nation articles suck? Where are all the progressives?

Posted by smmerino at 08/02/2008 @ 08:30am
Simple solutions exist to global problems.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/02/2008 @ 08:28am

you want to infringe on my lifestyle, lib.

sweater?

sheesh.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 09:01am
Why do all the comments on Nation articles suck? Where are all the progressives? Posted by smmerino at 08/02/2008 @ 08:30am

Because the repugnants confuse longevity with acceptance. They believe moral depravity can be transmitted. But surely you can't dismiss the high intellects of many of our liberal/left bloggers.

Posted by Sorelish at 08/02/2008 @ 11:08am
There are places in the US whose water is either unsafe to drink or undrinkable because of the taste. Bottled water is entirely appropriate in these places and well worth the increased cost to the consumer.

However, bottled water is also being sold and promoted in places which have a plenitude of safe, good tasting water in the taps of every home and this is a stupid waste of both money and resources as well as an environmentally destructive way to make a buck.

I also find it amusing that bottled water is being promoted as a way to evade possible tiny traces of various chemicals which might just possibly be present in the drinking water of a particular community. And this is stuff that's been soaked in plastic for up to a year!

And then they tell us not to reuse the plastic bottles because of the possibility of tiny traces of various chemicals that might leach out of the plastic due to the action of possible tiny traces of various chemicals that might possibly be in the tap water.

My bogometer maxes out; I'm going to get another beer.

Posted by thomas meek at 08/02/2008 @ 8:52pm
naw, couldn't be.

or maybe.

i'll be serious from now on.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 9:35pm
I'm going to get another beer. Posted by thomas meek at

08/02/2008 @ 8:52pm

on tap?

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 9:35pm
meanwhile, back on mars:

"Iraq is on the cusp of a serious water crisis that requires immediate attention and resources," said Thomas Naff, a Middle East water expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

The World Bank has estimated that it would take $14.4 billion to rebuild the Iraqi public works and water system.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 10:19pm
ethanol.

"The report states that approximately 90% of the thirty-one million acre forest has been lost or degraded. The greatest loss has occurred from conversion of forest into monoculture plantation forests for paper. Beginning in the 1980s--when paper companies began to convert forests in the region--the southern forests in the US have become the world's largest paper producer. The monoculture plantations required for such mass-production make heavy use of pesticides, fertilizers, and toxic chemicals, further imperiling the water supply and habitats of the region. "

bring your own bag.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/03/2008 @ 01:34am
'The case against bottled water is easy: Tap water is better for consumers' health, their pocketbooks, and the environment.' -- Peter Rothberg -- The Nation -- 1 August, 2008

'Bush-appointed bureaucrats now allow into our drinking water higher levels of arsenic, twenty times the levels of perchlorates that the EPA recommends using the best science available and twelve times the levels of contamination allowed by law for the herbicide Atrazine. The chemical Captan, which is typically found in household pesticides and fungicides, has been downgraded from a "probable" human carcinogen to "not likely"--without any new evidence being produced. Standards have been relaxed for the release of selenium, which we know causes massive deformities and deaths in waterfowl. Fertilizers that grow our food can now contain much higher levels of toxic residues. ' -- Chip Ward -- The Nation -- 16 September, 2005

Posted by HonestLiberal at 08/04/2008 @ 09:27am
It's not just "the left" that has taken up the fight against bottled water. Libertarian magicians Penn and Teller (they're on the Board of the Cato Institute), in their campaign against phony health scams and fads, did an episode of their Showtime TV show "Penn & Teller Bullshit!" a few years ago on bottled water, probably based on articles in such pro-science magazines as the Skeptical Inquirer. The funniest part of the show was when they had an actor pose as a Water Sommelier at a posh restaurant. He convinced the diners they were ordering water from various different springs in Switzerland and France and such, and that each had its own distinctive flavors (described in the same detailed fashion as wine). Meanwhile, the viewers saw him gleefully filling the different water bottles with a garden hose behind the restaurant!

Shockingly enough, they didn't go on to call for the privatization of municipal water supplies, so I enjoyed the show.

Posted by cka2nd at 08/04/2008 @ 10:15am
I wish I had thought of bottling water and selling it to the general public. It was a brilliantly simple and effective marketing concept. Give the morons what they want. If the public is so stupid as to buy what they can get free, as they apparently are, they deserve the consequences. The average person in society is a mindless sheep, always ready and eager to follow the herd to their own demise.

Posted by NukularProficy at 08/04/2008 @ 3:50pm