On the bank of the largest Great Lake of them all—Lake Superior—are vending machines selling bottled water, specifically Dasani, which is made by Coca-Cola.
The vending machines wouldn’t seem odd at any other locale. But here at the largest surface source of fresh water on the planet they seem out of place.
Coca-Cola is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Some of its bottled water comes from there, other from municipal sources in other cities where it’s bottled. (Sorry to burst the bubble for any of you who believed Dasani comes from some natural spring or fantastic mountaintop. Nope, it’s tap. In fact 25% of all bottled water is tap water.)
But it isn’t the water for bottled water that is much of a problem to the environment. Tap water itself siphons only about 13-14% percent of total fresh water use, and only about 0.5% percent of that is used for drinking. Of that, only a fraction is used for bottled water. It’s the plastics used for the bottles that the real environmental crime: We toss out more than 76 million plastic bottles a day. Yes, per day. Hopefully if you are reading this you refill water bottles.
It makes one wonder why simple bubblers aren’t stationed on the paths of Lake Superior instead of all those vending machines.
March 9th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Wonder not, friend. If you can develop a coin-operated bubbler, maybe Coke could be persuaded to remove the (other) vending machine! Until then, Coke has gotta make a buck!