I can’t say that I drink much bottled water. I do, occasionally, buy a bottle of carbonated water if I’m on the road – and I recall glugging back ice cold water purchased from petrol stations when riding through the intense heat of the Spanish plain. But, generally, I’m not what you would call a regular bottled water buyer. Normally, I’ll just fill a glass from the tap – after all, I’ve already paid for it (no, it isn’t free, I pay the water bills).
You would think, therefore – at least if you don’t drop by too often, you might – that I would be in accord with Phil Woolas.
Reacting to the new figures yesterday, Mr Woolas insisted: “I’m not going to tell people what to drink but we’ve got some of the best-quality water in the world and we should be more proud of it.”
Well, it’s a good start – he should not be telling people what to drink as it is none of his business what they drink. So, full marks for not telling people what to drink. Er, except that he is telling people what to drink…
To me, it’s absurd to use up the Earth’s resources, including oil and lots more water, to manufacture a bottle and then fill it with water from elsewhere, transporting it hundreds or even thousands of miles, only for the bottle to end up being sent to landfill or using energy to be recycled – when the alternative is turning on the tap.
Yup, he’s telling people not to drink bottled water.
It borders on being morally unacceptable to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on bottled water when we have pure drinking water, and at the same time one of the crises that is facing the world is the supply of water.
It is not a moral issue. And, not drinking bottled water will have no effect on the various droughts around the globe, so that is a silly conflation. Once again, we have a jumped up, self-important politician telling us what we should do. This is not the job of politicians; it is up to us to decide for ourselves. Nor is it the place of politicians of all people to start lecturing us about morality – or do they want a lecture on expenses and party donations?
If I feel inclined to buy a bottle of water when I’m out and about, I’ll damn well do so and Phil Woolas can go hang. And, if he tries to “de-normalise” it, I’ll go out of my way to drink as much as possible. I will not be told by these bastards what to do, what to drink, what not to do and what not to drink – my life is my business and I will take no lessons in morality from these immoral jackanapes.
H/T The Englishman.
Buying bottled water is for mugs, as you can re-use the bottles, fill them up from your Brita filter and stick them in the fridge, and tinned lager is still cheaper than bottled water … oops … shouldn’t have said that.
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I bought some bottled water a couple of days ago; I had lost water from the car and a big bottle of water from Lidl was less than just a container would cost in the pound shop.
As for the water out of the tap, here it is so treated with chlorine it smells like swimming pool drainings.
Best quality water maybe, straight from chalk downland…. but buggered by best quality chlorine.
I might buy bottled water if in Europe where it’s priced sanely but over here? Forget it.
Don’t worry they will never ban it just fine you if your caught doing it in public.
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No doubt Mr Woolas has banished all other environmentally unsound products imported from a long way away from his work and home life ah yes – from his blog “My own Government car is a Toyota Prius, which I’m getting used to” No doubt you were getting used to that environment wrecking import from the far east once you got back off the plane from Bali, Phil. It is a wonder the earth doesn’t open up and swallow you for such brazen hypocrisy.
Do you think there’ll ever come a point where a substantial proportion of people are so thoroughly fed up with being constantly told what to do that they’ll start doing the opposite just to spite the bossy?
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Urko, I think Mr Woolas is too dense to realise that accusing anyone buying a product that has an environmental impact is rampant hypocrisy – every economic activity engaged in by human beings has some form of environmental impact. Therefore, accusing people of being immoral for buying bottled water, for example, leaves him wide open to exactly the charge you justly point right back at him. Frankly, buying a Toyota Prius is a damned sight more immoral on the “wrecking the environment” front than a bottle of water.
QT – Well, I just bought a bottle of Buxton water to quench my thirst while on the road – and I muttered a “fuck you, Woolas” under my breath as I did so. Certainly I detect an underlying mood among the people I meet – and I meet a lot of them in my job – and it doesn’t look good for the bossy nannys of New Labour.
“Do you think there’ll ever come a point where a substantial proportion of people are so thoroughly fed up with being constantly told what to do that they’ll start doing the opposite just to spite the bossy?”
Well, it’s what I already do when I come across a stupid proclamation…
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nice toad – i saw plenty of lizards in france too, and snakes and frogs. the hedgerows were really noisy with insect life. it seemed so quiet when we got back to the Uk, where has all the wildlife gone?