Ban the bottle

As I write this, I’m also practicing good hydration by drinking a nice glass of water. It’s clear, cold and refreshing, and it came right out of the faucet in my kitchen. What a simple and effective idea. I’m a human being, made up mostly of water and I’m blessed to have a delivery system for more, coming right into my house simply by turning a handle.

Like most everything else in life, supposedly clever people have managed to make it much more complicated. On a recent visit to my local grocery store I stopped in the bottled water aisle.

Think about that. Bottled water has its own aisle.
All in all, I counted 87 distinctly different bottles. They make water enhanced with vitamins, infused with energy, and in more flavors than a bag of Skittles. It seems that many people have forgotten that human beings can generate energy through activity. They can get vitamins (and achieve better absorption) from eating whole foods. And flavors? You know what else is flavored like an orange?

An orange.

As I stared in disbelief and amazement at the American Wet Dream, I was reminded what a nightmare this really is. Consider the following facts:

-17 million barrels of oil are used annually in the production of bottled water. That doesn’t even take into account the amount of oil used to transport it.

-It takes three times the amount of water to produce the bottle as it does to fill it.

-The price of bottled water is up to 10,000 times the cost of tap water.

- 40% of all bottled water is taken from municipal water sources. (a.k.a. tap water)

- 22% of tested bottled water brands contained chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health standards.

-Only 1 in 5 water bottles are recycled. The other four contribute to the 3 billion pounds of waste from plastic water bottles.

As yogis, we need to be mindful of the choices we make around hydration. All of these pre-bottled options are making us soft and the answer isn’t Viagra Water. We need to acknowledge that there is one more water choice we can make. Take an empty bottle and self-serve. Not only will you save money, you will help save the world, and we don’t need to drink Smartwater to see what a great choice that is.