David Suzuki Says No to Bottled Water
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 02. 6.07
David Suzuki, is on a cross-country bus tour (carbon neutral, of course,) set up like a political tour to encourage Canadians to "Vote for the Environment." It has all the bells and whistles: a blog, a (gag me) theme song sung by Raffi; and an invitation to upload your political statements to youtube. (watch Randy Bachman take care of business here) Could this self-described "old fart" be more au courant?
Yes he could! He has come out swinging against bottled water. "I think in Canada it's absolutely disgusting that people are so uncertain about their water that we buy it, paying more for bottled water than we do for gasoline."...."It's nuts to be shipping water all the way across the planet, and us — because we're so bloody wealthy — we're willing to pay for that water because it comes from France," he said in an interview.
"I don't believe for a minute that French water is better than Canadian water. I think that we've got to drink the water that comes out of our taps, and if we don't trust it, we ought to be raising hell about that."
Key environmental issues with bottled water, Suzuki said, are waste and uncertainty over the long-term health effects created by plastic.
"Not only does bottled water lead to unbelievable pollution — with old bottles lying all over the place — but plastic has chemicals in it," he said.
"Plastics are ubiquitous. I don't believe that plastics are not involved in a great deal of the health problems that we face today." ::CBC
We hope to catch up with David when the Tour hits Toronto!
My Scottish- Canadian mom asked me to post this at TreeHugger...
"I said that all along."
I remember when I was a wee lassie,
my mother used to say, Patsy we are so lucky to live in Glasgow, we have the purest tap water in the world. It comes from " Loch Katrin", the French have to drink wine with their dinner, what do the folk do who can't afford it? We just turn on our kitchen tap!
I was so disappointed when young Hugh and his wife Ethna came here a couple of years ago from Scotland, she was carting her plastic bottle around everywhere she went.
Then when I was in Scotland two years ago everybody had jumped on the band-wagon.
Your dad and I went for a long drive out in the boonies last summer when we were coming back from Mattawa, we took some lesser used back roads on our way back to the cottage. You can't imagine my dismay when I lost count of all the discarded plastic water bottles in the ditch all along the route.
( There was only the odd beer bottle).
Patsy
And Water itself isn't a chemical?
Chemicals are natural.
All Toxins are toxic chemicals.
All Toxics are toxic chemicals.
So what is up with saying chemicals are ALL bad, or at least doing your best to imply that.
Ta ta for now,
Andrew
great post.
:)
suzuki is awesome.