sustainableflatbush.org

Suddenly everyone is talking about NYC tap water: the high quality and low cost relative to bottled water (49 cents versus $1,400, according to the NY Times editorial quoted below), the health benefits relative to other beverages, the environmental benefits… and now the need for citizens and local governments to recognize that high quality municipal water is a valuable resource:

The more the wealthy opt out of drinking tap water, the less political support there will be for investing in maintaining America’s public water supply. That would be a serious loss. Access to cheap, clean water is basic to the nation’s health.

The NY Times has been leading the way with this information on the importance of our public water supply, and their latest editorial on the subject is worth checking out:

NY Times Editorial

August 1, 2007

In Praise of Tap Water

On the streets of New York or Denver or San Mateo this summer, it seems the telltale cap of a water bottle is sticking out of every other satchel. Americans are increasingly thirsty for what is billed as the healthiest, and often most expensive, water on the grocery shelf. But this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world. Instead of consuming four billion gallons of water a year in individual-sized bottles, we need to start thinking about what all those bottles are doing to the planet’s health.

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Carolyn Gilles is a co-founder of the GreenEdge Collaborative, an event planner, and an organic chef. In this post she challenges herself and all of us to take some steps toward making our own lives more sustainable:

Be Mindfully Competitive with Yourself!

As some of you know, for the past 2+ years I’ve been studying and keeping up to date on the sustainable food situation (or lack thereof) and it has been my professional mission to share what I learn with my community. I believe that living by example is a strong tool for social change. I would like to encourage YOU to live by example with a “Sustainable Lifestyle Challenge”.

Recently, I have been studying the larger system of environmental and social sustainability. What initially comes to mind when thinking of the whole system is: What a mess! We, especially as Americans, have gotten ourselves into some serious trouble with Mother Nature. Global Warming is a hot topic right now and it’s becoming more and more fashionable to be “green.” While being fashionable can be fun and sexy, let us not forget the real issues at hand: mass consumption is out of control and has become synonymous with “a good life”; choosing leaders is a crucial part of creating a better future for our kids.

I am encouraging you to think about your consumption choices - where is your money going once you pass it over to the cashier, your waiter, or your banker? Think about the ripple effect of your actions and your wallet. In two words: Be Mindful.

To all readers of this blog, as well as the members of Green Edge NYC, for the next 6 weeks (end of August 2007) let’s take a moment each day to reflect on the choices we make and how they might affect our shared environment - physical and social.

The challenge is this: make a change in your daily life that will have astounding effects on our future sustainability. You could start taking your own coffee mug every day, take canvas bags to the grocery, rinse and reuse your small plastic produce bags, walk when you could take the bus, take the bus when you could drive, turn off your lights when you’re not in the room, unplug your appliances when they’re not in use, recycle, reuse glass jars, donate clothes, cook at home, eat less take-out, buy organic, support your local hardware store, buy less from “box stores”, take shorter showers, do some research on a company you buy from frequently, research your mayor or congressperson - the list can go on and on…

Let’s get the comment section of this blog going for discussion on how you plan to participate in the “Sustainable Lifestyle Challenge” and keep us updated on your progress.

My participation will include doing more research, walking more, and supporting smaller local businesses.

GOOD LUCK!

–
Carolyn Gilles
Food Lover and Event Planner
www.bluenotefoods.com

I attended this seminar two years ago, and it completely changed my thinking about water use. Hint: if you think you know how much water a leaky toilet wastes, think again!

Water Conservation: Quench Your Thirst for Information
What better way to jumpstart a sustainable summer than to learn about water conservation! Join us in our upcoming forum where we will discuss how to use water efficiently and focus on water conservation technology readily available for both residential and commercial use. Our speaker will provide a combination of practical points for homeowners and specification information for design professionals from a regional and global perspective.

When: Wednesday, July 18, 2007, 6:30-8:00 pm

Where: Church Street School for Music & Art
74 Warren Street, Manhattan
1,2,3,A,C trains to Chambers Street; R,W trains to City Hall

Speaker: Warren C. Liebold, Director, Technical Services/Conservation, Bureau of Customer Services, New York City Department of Environmental Protection

This article in Fast Company magazine, “Message In A Bottle” by Charles Fishman, brings the bottled water discussion to another level. While I highly recommend reading the entire article, here are a few selected bits:

• Bottled water is the food phenomenon of our times. We–a generation raised on tap water and water fountains–drink a billion bottles of water a week, and we’re raising a generation that views tap water with disdain and water fountains with suspicion. We’ve come to pay good money–two or three or four times the cost of gasoline–for a product we have always gotten, and can still get, for free, from taps in our homes.

• We buy bottled water because we think it’s healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn’t healthier, or safer, than tap water. Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world’s $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four–the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico–that has universally reliable tap water.

• …if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000. Taste, of course, is highly personal. New Yorkers excepted, Americans love to belittle the quality of their tap water. But in blind taste tests, with waters at equal temperatures, presented in identical glasses, ordinary people can rarely distinguish between tap water, springwater, and luxury waters.

• Pepsi has the nation’s number-one-selling bottled water, Aquafina, with 13% of the market. Coke’s Dasani is number two, with 11% of the market. Both are simply purified municipal water–so 24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi for our convenience.

• The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity–something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from “one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth,” as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze.

While this is all quite outrageous, one potential response is very simple: carry a reusable bottle and fill it with the local product, for free. Put a label on it that reads “Kensington Spring” or “Eau de Inwood” or Acqua Santa Astoria”… and drink up!

Last week’s post on the unsustainability of bottled water prompted a comment that someone should do PSAs promoting the quality of New York City tap water… and today I stumbled upon one!

While advertising buffs might debate how “compelling” this campaign is, it will hopefully raise questions about the assumption that bottled water is automatically cleaner and healthier (it isn’t).

Foster Avenue, Flatbush, Brooklyn

It may surprise many people to know that bottled water is a huge sustainability issue, but ponder for a moment the transportation aspect alone and the problems become obvious. According to an article in today’s New York Times importing bottled water from France, Italy and Fiji to the U.S. generates 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of annual emissions from 700 cars. Consider the other sources and destinations worldwide and it is clear that a huge amount of fossil fuel is being used to transport a commodity that is almost always available locally, but smart advertising has discouraged us from consuming.

Credit the bottled water industry with a brilliant marketing job, selling purity and convincing the public that its product tastes better, is more convenient and is safer than good tap water. From a trickle of Perrier in the early 1980s, consumption of bottled water in America rose to 27.6 gallons per capita last year, according to the International Bottled Water Association.

The public water supply is much more stringently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency than bottled water is by the Food and Drug Administration. The E.P.A. requires multiple daily tests for bacteria, for example, with the results available to the public; the F.D.A. requires weekly testing, which does not have to be reported to the agency, to the states or to the public.

“The rationale for buying bottled water is a fantasy that has a destructive downside,” Dr. Solomon said. “These companies are marketing an illusion of environmental purity.”

The same article reports that a small number of restaurants are beginning to take action by serving filtered tap water in place of bottled still water and using homemade carbonation for the bubbly variety. One of the movement’s outspoken leaders is Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA (my hometown!), and California seems to be leading the way generally, with NYC’s Del Posto and Birdbath Bakery among the few local exceptions. It will be interesting to see the public response to what would ideally become a fast-growing trend; though it is helpful that high end gourmands are leading the way, I suspect this is a marketing conquest that will not be overturned easily. (On a related topic, NY State’s current bottle bill does not allow for recycling of non-carbonated beverage containers, and the industry wants to maintain status quo on that as well.)

Moments after posting today’s Bigger Better Bottle Bill piece (see below), I received an email alert from the NY Times that contained, serendipitously… an article about bottle bills past, present and future. The perfect companion to my previous post!

The bottle bill’s scope, and to some extent the very vision of a more waste-conscious world that first motivated it, has been swiftly trivialized by the ubiquity of bottled water. This year, Americans will drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water. Oregonians will throw out about 170 million empty ones. Those same bottles, filled with something fizzy, would carry nickel deposits. “That was the stupidest thing we ever did,” says a veteran of the original Oregon campaign.

Read the whole story here (it’s long!).

Did you know that the plastic bottles used for non-carbonated beverages such as bottled water, iced teas and sports drinks do not carry a 5-cent refundable deposit like soda bottles do? New York’s Returnable Container Act is now 25 years old, and although this legislation has been extremely effective in increasing recycling (over 90 billion bottles and cans returned!), it is sorely in need of an update – the types of drink containers that are currently excluded were barely on the radar in 1982. Other states are already recycling these items and using the money for public benefit, but although this bill has been introduced in New York State and passed by the Assembly, it has died in the Senate (could industry lobbyists have anything to do with it?)

An updated bill – the Bigger Better Bottle Bill – would require that $85-140 million a year (now being kept by the beverage industries as unclaimed deposits) be transferred to the State Environmental Protection Fund. It would also keep a lot of potential recyclable materials out of the trash, as NYC’s micro-economy of bottle and can collectors are a very efficient crew.

More info about the BBB is available here. Send an email to your legislators here.

After the torrential rains of last week, I received an email from an organization called SWIM (StormWater Infrastructure Matters). If you are not yet aware of the major problems New York City faces regarding stormwater runoff, read on.

S.W.I.M.
(Storm Water Infrastructure Matters)

PLaNYC2030: A Great Step Toward a Greener More Sustainable City, but Where’s the SWIMming?

New S.W.I.M.Coalition
Says, “Where’s the SWIMming in the City’s Long-Term Plan?”

Quick. Look out the window. Now. It’s raining, and, guess what? More sewage is being swept into our waterways. Yes, sewage. Again.

Just before Earth Day, as you’ll remember, our city was hit with a nasty and very unusual Spring Northeaster, socking us with torrential rain. And we also watched, just days ago, as a whale lost its bearings and swam into the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The Daily News named the whale “Sludgie,” and they did that for a reason. Many of our waterways, although generally improved in the last couple of decades, remain polluted. And one of the biggest sources of that pollution: CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflow).

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