Can the planet afford so much bottled water?

Nestle Waters CEO Kim E. Jeffery This post was triggered after reading an interview in the New York Times featuring Kim E. Jeffery, CEO of Nestle Waters (owner of brands like Poland Spring and Perrier). This is also the first in a series of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Activism posts - it’s about small things you can do to make a much better world out there.

The health conscious and the thirsty on-the-go may be opting more and more for bottled water, but imagine the colossal amount of plastic waste it is adding in the landfills.

Ok, we all drink bottled water for various reasons â€“ most justified â€“ but there can be ways to reduce if not eliminate this waste altogether. Environmentalists have been targeting bottled water companies but we cannot expect them to stop selling at the expense of their business interests. Here are some suggestions to make a difference:

Drink tap water. If its purity is in doubt, install a filter. These are good enough for the water supply in most countries.
On the move? Cannot carry the tap with you? Or walk into a TGIF and ask for tap water? Keep some refillable bottles at home â€“ and carry these with you in your car or bag. I do that â€“ itâ€™s quite easy to do this.
Still end up buying bottled water sometimes? Donâ€™t throw the bottle away. Tak eit home to refill.
Got more bottles than you need? If the bottling company has a policy to take these back, do that. If not, write to them and urge them to have a system to take these back for recycling. In the meantime, see if there is any organization who take these to recycle. Try to follow a â€˜No bottles in the binâ€™ policy.
Improve council/municipal water supply. Let us not focus on just Nestle or Pepsico bashing â€“ direct your energies to ensure water supplied in taps is of better quality. Write to your local governments/ councils and get citizens to come together as pressure group. This alone can make a big difference to your need to go for bottled water.

Makes sense? Saving some money in the process? Treat yourself. Or buy some trees. How do you do that? Will tell you in a future post.