Archive for July, 2010
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Clean Water now a Fundamental Human Right
This is definitely something anyone living in a “first world” country takes for granted, but the UN has recently declared clean water and sanitation to be fundamental human rights.
What does this mean in practice? Well, the resolution is non-binding, so probably not very much. According to the UN (and the BBC’s report), “about 1.5 million children under five die each year from water and sanitation-related diseases.” A little over 4100 children a day.
In context: a lot of small towns across the United States have a population smaller than that – if you’ve ever passed through one of them, imagine it disappearing overnight. That’s about how many people something as simple as universal clean water could save.
On top of this, according to the resolution 884 million people are without clean water, and over 2 billion people lack proper sanitation.
This is why we at WeDrink feel that selling reusable stainless steel bottles and challenging the environmental scourge that is plastic bottles is not quite enough. Eliminating plastic water bottles would do a huge amount for the environment, but only indirectly helps other people – so alleviate this, every one of our bottles gives a direct, transparent, clearly labeled amount to water relief charities, an environmental one-two punch that directly helps both the environment, and the people that live in it.
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Bottled Water Infographic
There’s an enormous amount of information about how harmful bottled water is, but recently the Huffington Post put up a great infographic describing how bad it is (link at bottom). I love infographics myself (but then again, I’m a big fan of shiny objects, too), and this one does a pretty great job of sounding off on the problems plastic bottles give.
Now, it’s pretty obvious that most people don’t drink plastic water because they think it’s any healthier for them – though companies like Fuji Water have likely built their niches around the idea. It’s about convenience.
Unfortunately, for some, convenience + environmentalism means reusing a plastic bottle – something that shouldn’t be done, due to chemical leaching from the plastic. Yes, it’s unlikely that doing this occasionally will really harm you, but as BPA has estrogenic compounds in it (nevermind the other chemicals going into plastic)… well, I’d rather let my body balance its own hormones.
So I’d say get a stainless steel bottle. No harmful chemicals, reusable, portable – well, except for waiting for the bottle to arrive, it’s just about everything you could want.
Check out the infographic. What do you think?
