The United Kingdom’s Consumer Council for Water, launched a campaign to try to get restaurants to stop pushing bottled water to customers. The main reason is the transport of said water accounts for 32 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year in the UK alone (probably ten times that amount in the United States). Yve Buckland, the council’s chair was quoted as saying “It’s not good enough for diners to be treated as cheapskates just because they asked for tap water.”
For some diners, it’s snobbery that makes people buy bottled water at their local eatery, for others, it is a straight forward lack of knowledge that makes them think that bottled water is somehow superior. Additionally, in my many lectures, people don’t really think about all that goes into getting that bottle of water to the store and your hands. Go to this post of mine to see how utterly ridiculous Fiji Water is when it comes to its carbon wasting footprint.
The next time you go out to eat, make the conscious chioce to not buy bottled water. If your friends ask why, tell them it’s because you care about your world.