Saturday, 5 November 2016

Bottled Water (Double Horror)

This post is to mark the ratification of the Paris Climate Change deal - and suggests a simple change many of us could make to improve the precious ecosystem of our common home. Please relay to others who might be prepared to be thoughtful about this.


Bottled Water: A song about a double iniquity
Sing
This pricey bottled water
is the same as from the tap
- both of them are H2O
so why the costly gap?
The charge is for the bottles* which
at sea disintegrate
Into a billion fragments
Sealing birds' and fishes’ fates.

Then change rhythm and chant
Come on, use a flask to fill as you need:
Your water stays cool; It's a save-the-earth deed.

Of course, further thought makes it clear that the premium price arises through marketing (puff), labeling (sometimes with questionable claims), and the infrastructure costs of moving heavy loads of water on roads and by other expensive transport means, rather than by the sensible practice of drinkable water being transferred from reservoir to tap by pipe wherever water is in adequate supply So that is what adds to the price of bottles, but I would suggest the poetic licence in the song is more justifiable than charging massively for such an often readily-available life-sustainer.

Other ‘Care of our planet/ our common home’ items can be found HERE.