Bottle Water is the only solution for people living in countries with limited access to clean water. In those places drinkable water is as precious as coveted gold.
One of those countries is Ethiopia. According to World Health Organization, only one people in three, has access to clean water in this country.
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West of Ethiopia: You can see bloody fights in queues. People wait for 12 hours to get less than two liters of bottled water Photo by Brian Lexus |
Ethiopia
People in Ethiopia wait in long queues to get less than two liters of bottled water that are distributed by some humanitarian organizations.
Sometimes there come bloody fights in queues because some people want to take more bottles than allocated while others are still waiting for their turn to come.
“Water in those areas is salty and drinking such water can lead to having kidney illness.” says professor Bas Heijman, who is a water engineer from Technical University of Delft in The Netherlands. He has held different projects of availing drinkable water in some parts of Africa including Somaliland, Ethiopia’s neighbor.
Brown water
Another country that is suffering from access to a clean water is Indonesia.
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This is the color of the tap water in Jakarta Photo by B.N |
“Water from the municipality is sometimes yellow or sometimes brown”, she says.
She is convinced that the only way of drinking clean water in Jakarta is buying bottled water, because level of water pollution there is “very high”.
But she also know the impact of the bottled water in environment.
Sekunda's Testimony
Bottled water in reality
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Citarum river in Jakarta. People used to call “Plastic River” photo by Alex Norton |
Bottled water costs about 10 000 times more than tap water, according to Food and Drug Administration-U.S,
Yet people in the world continue to buy it. For instance in the U.S. they buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week.
Yet people in the world continue to buy it. For instance in the U.S. they buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week.
That’s enough to circle the globe more than 5 times!
Eighty percent of plastic bottles end up in landfills, where they will sit for thousands of years, and in incinerators, where they are burned releasing toxic pollution. Only the 20% remaining is recycled.
But the environment-related issues about plastic bottles are not only to be seen through their disposal means; even at their fabrication level, they are a big threat. Research shows that making those bottles requires per year as much energy as to fuel one million cars.
As long as business is involved the battle against this enemy seems much more complicated. One of the owner of the biggest bottled water company publicly said “the biggest enemy is tap water!
People must wake up to protect their wallets, health and
planet.
But again here comes good news that the battle already has started: Bottled water sales have begun to drop.
Is there a difference between bottled water and the tap water?
We wanted to find out from people if they can identify the difference by drinking the two.
We filled a tap water in empty bottle and placed bottled water aside it.
One out ten people can now the difference between bottled water and tap water.
