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Jennifer Phillips always felt guilty that her large Nashville law firm didn't recycle. So after big client meetings, she Jl collected all the empty mm plastic water bottles, took them home and added them to her own curbside recycling bin. Now, she is proud to report that her firm, Bass, Berry & Sims, serves an icy pitcher of tap water during meetings. "We even have glasses with the company logo on them," she says. Phillips estimates switching to tap keeps 3,000 plastic water bottles per week out of the landfill.
It's a trend that is taking hold in the s U.S., Europe and Canada: more people are switching from bottled water to tap. Call it reverse snob appeal. Bottled water once carried a certain European mystique. But these days, it's the tap water enthusiasts, concerned about the environment, who get to act self-righteous. Just like it has become cool to bring your own cloth bags to the grocery store and your own mug to the coffee shop, the reusable water bottle is the hip, new eco accessory.
It's because people like Phillips and David WiIk, a Connecticut book publisher and tap water activist, have started to connect the dots. For WiIk, it happened on the soccer field. After his sons finished their games, he noticed the grass was littered with bottled water and Gatorade empties. Pretty soon, WiIk started showing up with a huge container of tap water. Now all the kids bring their own bottles and fill up when thirsty.
"We have such a consumption mentality, which leads to our throw-away society," says WiIk, who started the website Turntotap.com to build more support for public water supplies and to cut down on the amount of plastic going into landfills. "I think the cost of our behavior should be built into the. products," WiIk says.
A Gathering Revolt
In Canada, the bottled water issue has become, as WiIk says, an "uprising." College students are staging protests-declaring "bottled water-free zones" on campus. High school activists are raising questions about why their school board members are locking them into a contract with Coke or Pepsi (makers of Aquafina and Dasani bottled water) when they have access to drinking fountains for free. Some students have jokingly started to...