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Clearly, BlogHer members have eco-smarts -- and by that I mean both ecological and economical smarts. Judging by the response to Her Bad Mother's anti-disposable plastic water bottle post, most of you've already ditched the money-draining, polluting, and totally unnecessary blight that's bottled water.
In fact, the bottled water market as a whole's starting to dry up. The main reason, according to BrandWeek: "Shoppers are less interested in paying for a product that they can get for free."
No kidding. If you've already given yourself a pat on the back for your smart water choices, give yourself a second pat -- because your smart choice is about to get eco-smarter, especially during this economic downturn. Why? Bottled water's slowly gonna get less popular and more expensive as cities and states work to reduce pollution and encourage recycling while trimming government budgets and increasing tax revenues.
Yes, just drinking less bottled water can do all that. Take the City of Los Angeles, for example. After getting called out for spending a whopping $88,900 in public money to buy bottled water over 2 years, Mayor Villaraigosa ordered a stop to this wasteful use of taxpayer dollars.
L.A. isn't alone. In June, The U.S. Conference of Mayors -- that's more than 60 mayors from cities across the U.S. -- agreed to phase out city spending on bottled water.
And some cities and states are going farther! In Chicago, a 5-cent tax per bottle of plastic-encased water went into effect about a year ago. The extra money helps fill the city's budget gap. In Oregon, the 5-cent deposit for beverage containers got expanded to include water bottles as of 2009.
And of course, other states like California have had deposit fees covering water and other beverage containers for a while now. If you're curious what the status of bottled water is in your 'hood, check out BottleBill.org, which keeps tabs on state and country laws (but not city laws -- sorry) regarding bottle-related bills.
Is anyone arguing against these bills? Yes -- the beverage and bottling industry. Their main argument is that water's good for you -- therefore bottled water's good for you. What that industry tries not to mention is that BYO-bottling's also good for you and even better your wallet -- though admittedly, less effective at making money for those industries....
Photo by Mike Willis and tskdesign
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BlogHer Contributing Editor Siel drinks filtered tap water while blogging at greenLAgirl.com.
