STAFF EDIT: Kick the bottled water habit

Preventing future wars over water begins with a small battle at the grocery store, one between consumers and smartly packaged water, often only taken from municipal sources and then commoditized for big profits. Privatizing a natural resource for sale as bottled water has rightly become an important concern for many groups, and everyone can easily act against the destructive effects of this big industry.

Many forward-thinking groups are worried not only about the environmental results of bottling, transporting and disposing of packing for the 8.3 billion gallons of bottled water Americans drank in 2006, according to the International Bottled Water Association, but also about the dangers of making water a corporate commodity rather than a publicly controlled utility. As the World Health Organization predicts two-thirds of the world will be without clean water by 2025, the possibility of an ever-growing market for private profits made from exploiting a human necessity is troubling.

Bottled water companies brought in $15 billion in 2006, according to an August 2007 Fast Company magazine article. The prevalence of bottled water persists despite recent well-publicized calls from environmental groups to refuse the bottle. An aquaphile culture continues with wasteful habits despite environmental realities and even scientific fact that disputes the myth that people need eight eight-ounce glasses of water each day. In 2002, Heinz Valtin, a Dartmouth Medical School physiology professor, reported that the overstated notion could have stemmed from misinterpretation of a 1945 National Research Council recommendation. Still, people needlessly tote bottled water throughout the day.

The Think Outside the Bottle campaign, which visited Boston University yesterday, reasonably asks consumers to trade in costly and environmentally damaging bottled water for tap water resources. While the group hosting the awareness day was able to get 20 students to sign pledges promising to forgo bottled water, the sacrifice should be one all students here can make. With access to clean tap water, devices for those who prefer filtered water and reusable water bottles on sale all over campus, students could easily kick the wasteful and expensive bottled-water habit.