Bottled Water Kicked Out Of Some San Francisco Restuarants
The war against plastic anything continues to rage on the streets of San Francisco. While we profiled the city-wide ban on plastic bags earlier this month, it's also worth noting that several local restaurants are also giving up bottled water in favor of tap.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently profiled several eateries that now offer up bubbly, filtered tap — a move that many credit to growing awareness regarding sustainability and energy. It makes sense, too: San Francisco is widely regarded as having some of the best tap water in the country.
Most restaurants are reluctant to give up the option of serving customers bottled water, mainly because it's a very profitable product. The environmental impact, however, is massive: with energy for creation, transportation, and disposal wasted on developed countries with perfectly fine tap water. It's a marketing success story that has created an amazing (and frightening) industry worth billions yearly. Last year, Americans consumed about 26 gallons each of bottled water over tap!
So, many restaurants in an effort to become more sustainable have decided to ditch bottled water and come up with creative ways to spruce up good 'ole tap. From the article,
"Our whole goal of sustainability means using as little energy as we have to. Shipping bottles of water from Italy doesn't make sense,' says Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse. Management hopes to complete the switch from Santa Lucia acqua con gaz to house-made sparkling water this week at both the restaurant and upstairs cafe. Chez Panisse stopped offering bottled still water last summer."
Education on how clean tap water is could be the key to getting more Americans to save the money in their wallets and help protect the environment at the same time. The advertising behind bottled water is so good (and for an $11 billion market, who can blame them?) that many of us view tap as poison. Additionally, since bottled water will not go away, it would be encouraging to see more companies use corn-based plastics that break down over time. The landfill impact could be greatly reduced with such actions.
Are there any restaurants in your area that have taken the tap water route? What do you believe the key to fighting this wasteful product is?
Tags: bottled, Business News, Culture, environment, san francisco, sustainability, water
April 10th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Chris– Posts like these need to go in the "Green Eggs and Spam" section of our Discussion Forum… I've deleted your comment here, but you're welcome to post it there…
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Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Senior Editor
Green Options
jeff@greenoptions.com
June 24th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
This is good. Now the government officials and agencies who legislate fluoride into the water supply will be forced to drink it themselves.
Fluoride is added to San Francisco’s water supply, not to purify it, but to prevent tooth decay in tap water drinkers. Modern science shows it is ineffective, harmful to health and a waste of tax dollars.
Fluoride chemicals are silicofluorides - waste products of the phosphate fertilizer industry. They are dumped unpurified into the water supply. They are allowed to have trace amounts of lead, arsenic, mercury and other contaminnts.
Studies link silicofluorides to children’s higher blood lead levels which, in turn, are linked to higher rates of tooth decay.
The statistics prove that tooth decay is on the rise along with fluoride over dose symptoms - dental fluorosis
So drink up San Francisco government officials and make sure your kids do, too. If you are buying bottled water at home to protect your family, you should be protecting all San Franciscans by ending water fluoridation.
For more info: http://www.FluorideAction.Net
July 11th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
This is great that people are finally figuring this out, even though I think it’s years too late. I’m tired of seeing people walking around with plastic bottles without a care in the world about how long that one plastic bottle will be around.
I think the answer is using water bottle filters. You get 1 bottle that has a filter in it and you carry that bottle around and filter your own water wherever you go. Search for portable water filters online and get one today, it will help us all!