The Water Story

I lived for almost four years of my life in Tucson, Arizona.  One of the odd things that I got used to....was avoiding the use of city-water, and having a water dispenser in my house, with two 5-gallon bottles delivered monthly.....while refilling on-base at a telephone-booth style water dispenser at least once or twice a month.  The taste to the city-water?  Well....that was chiefly the problem.  No one could explain why the funny taste existed, but at least from the 'paid-water'....you got something that was non-taste.

I tell this story because it's come up today via ARD (public TV in Germany, Channel One).....that the SPD Party chief that runs the German government Environment Ministry.....wants to proceed to put water dispensers in public locations.

This would mean that you'd drive up to some gas station, or public park, or maybe grocery shop, and there would be these refill points for water bottles (either more expensive plastic, or non-plastic of course).

The driving force for this idea?  Germans over the past five years have gotten convinced of a massive plastic problem existing, and they want to dump plastic in basic use.

Why not use the water out of the faucet?  This is a curious thing.  I probably sip at least two liters of water, tea or coffee each week....which runs out of my village water supply.....which comes off some massive water spring on the hillside overlooking the village.  No taste.....perfect water.  Between that, and four Evian (French commercial spring water) bottles per month....I'm pretty satisfied.

So what's this effort to push water dispensers?  Basically, the pro-environment folks want you to be worried over the cheap plastic being used for most water containers.....not that it's getting out into public water-ways or on the roadside.....but that the cheaper plastic is dissolving and you are sipping the plastic particles.

True or false?  Well....mostly true.  No one ever made up a stupid rule about standards of plastic for water bottles. So what you see in German grocery and service station operations....is 'cheap' water bottles.  The idea is that they would push you along to some extreme harden plastic container or a ceramic container.

Naturally, you might reach another point in a decade....after you've accepted this re-fill idea....that the containers are as sanitary anymore....more bacteria is starting to show up in ceramic or hardened plastic containers.  But we can only solve and create....one problem at a time.