The Providential Gardener was delighted to see in a recent Providence Journal article, "City, 5 eateries say no to bottled water," that several Providence restaurants are serving only water from the Providence Water Supply. The water flowing from our taps is about the best in the world, and it is also so less expensive than bottled water ~ it's really a no-brainer to drink tap water. Bottled water is in most cases entirely unnecessary.
It is wonderful to see that Mayor Cicilline has made a major issue of this seemingly minor problem, which really costs us all a great deal of money, both buying water that takes a lot of petroleum to make the plastic for the bottles and then move it here from other states or from overseas (you can't dehydrate water(!), so it's heavy and expensive to move), and also burying the bottles, most of which are not recycled, in the landfill. Eliminating bottled water in Providence is one of the mayor's 8 strategic initiatives. See the mayor's press release of October 28, 2008. I'll write about these initiatives in another post soon.
Because of their pulling the plug on bottled water, I join with the recommendation of Natural News Network's October 30 post, "Providence Bucks Bottled Water," in urging Rhode Islanders to patronize the 5 restaurants, which are Local 121, Trinity Brewhouse, the Hot Club, Benders Caffe, and The Garden Grille.
Wherever you are out and about and thirsty, looking for water to drink, encourage the folks there to serve and drink tap water and discontinue bottled water. Many companies, and even our universities and colleges ~ organizations that want to be seen as green ~ are using bottled water for marketing purposes, putting their names on this unnecessary plastic waste. Speak up when you see these water bottles, and make an effort to help the ones who make decisions about such things see the disconnect between serving bottled water and being green.
The Projo article by Peter B. Lord was fairer to the bottled water industry than I'm being here, although it's true we do need to keep some bottled water around for an emergency, but I'd rather stress a link in that article for a website with a great name: www.ThinkOutsideTheBottle.org.
Minimizing bottled water became a Providential Gardener priority in the spring of 2008 during the discussions of bottle bills in the legislature (see the post, "Why, Why Why? My Pitcher Pitch and My Pitcher Pi'tures"). This won't be the last post on the subject, and I'll be publishing the names of more restaurants and businesses that cut out bottled water. HOPE the list will grow soon, and HOPE it will be a flood of names!
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