Plastic Bottles: Free Water Refill Points Rolled Out To Cut Waste

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42808302

There is something I don't really understand about this. If we assume that all these millions of people that buy these plastic bottles every day, start out from home every morning, why don't they fill an empty bottle and take it with them ?

I appreciate that in some areas, tap water might not be as nice as we have here in Wales....London for instance, but now that the pollution that is caused by trillions of plastic bottles being discarded, its time for a change ?

[murraymints]

I do..but we have nice water..

[ummmm]

Like you said...not all tap water is nice to drink.

I don't like the thought of refilling a plastic bottle. How do you clean it?

[mikey4444]

Couldn't you just rinse it out a couple of times, and then refill it ? Not sure that would be present a problem ?

[murraymints]

Ditto

[ummmm]

I wouldn't. People should be encouraged to buy their own cup/flask.

[ummmm]

I'd refill a bottle I'd bought that day.

[-Talbot-]

They should stop making them and use glass. The water here is nasty, I buy two crates of bottled water a week and return the empties.
3 euro back for the crate and 0.25 for each bottle.
It works well.

[naomi24]

Apparently it isn't safe to re-fill plastic water bottles.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-not-re-use-plastic-water-danger-dirty-bacteria-bottles-sex-hormones-toilet-a7809696.html

[B00]

I'm loathe to buy ANY drinks when out and about.

If we're going anywhere where I think a drink might be required at some point i'll prepare juice (sometimes just tap water) in plastic bottles i've got saved at home. Being a tight northerner it hurts my soul to pay the exorbitant prices that shops demand for their piddling sized bottles.

"but now that the pollution that is caused by trillions of plastic bottles being discarded, its time for a change ?"

Yes, definitely, I personally think people need to completely rethink where their empty bottles are going, we're slowly winning the war on carrier bags, hopefully these things will be next.

[murraymints]

I also have a screw top picnic beaker thing if there is room in my bag...

[mikey4444]

As I see it, buying small amounts of water is entirely a modern problem, caused by people having more money than sense.

I don't recall anybody buying water this way in the 50's and 60's, and the 70's come to that.

The only things we bought as kids were bottles of Tizer and Corona, and not many of those. On long car trips, our Mum would make up glass bottles of diluted orange squash....made with tap water, of course.
( and Marmite sandwiches ! )

[murraymints]

Tree top !

[-Talbot-]

The same should happen with bottles of pop.

[pixie374]

Glass isn't really safe, Talbot. They get used as weapons and get smashed everywhere. I think that's why that was stopped in the first place.

[NoMercy]

Morning Mikey.

Aside from regional variation in taste, purity and overall standard, our tap water is now choc full of hormones - mainly Oestrogen- thanks to the modern proliferation of HRT and the Contraceptive pill. Our water filtration plants and shop-bought Brita filters can filter out impurities and things like chlorine and Cadmium but sadly cannot filter out synthetic hormones.

Consequently hormone driven cancers are rapidly proliferating, male fish are displaying female characteristics and the problem is snowballing.

Plastic bottles are no better and leak "xeno-oestrogens" into our water.

The only way to obtain clean drinking water is to buy cardboard cartons or glass bottles, or invest in a reverse osmosis system.

[mikey4444]

There are plenty of reusable plastic bottles on sale these....of the "Tupperware" type, that will last for years.

I use one for holding milk, when we go out for the day, to add to our flasks of tea. I must have had it for years. I sometimes take my portable gas stove and make fresh tea !

[murraymints]

EEK nom...you in labour ward ?

[NoMercy]

I ****ing wish, Minty!

:-(

[mikey4444]

Pixie. I think trend for plastic drink bottles came, when the deposit scheme for pop and beer bottles stopped.

When I was a kid, a discarded pop or beer bottle meant money to us kids. At the time, my parents had a small sweet shop, and I can recall the Corona lorry calling every week, delivering fresh pop, and taking the crates with empties away again.

The great advantage of plastic is that its many times lighter than glass and much less likely to break or leak, which must be another important factor in its universal adoption.

Here is an interesting link from BBC Wales, which many of you may have missed :::

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-north-east-wales-42798408/milkman-inundated-with-calls-for-milk-in-glass-bottles

[murraymints]

Milkmen extinct here ! :0(