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My team mate Julien drinking bottled water. I was shocked Photo by : Bertha Sekunda |
I was shocked when I realized that my team mate was drinking bottled water.
For about a month, I have been working with Julien, a colleague from Rwanda, in an international course: Facts and Formats at the Radio Nederland Training Centre, Holland.
We have been working as a group on bottled water issue as part of our final assignment and have found how devastating effects the plastics used to bottle water have on the environment.
Only one in five bottled water is recycled, and the other four contribute hugely to the three billion kilos of waste from plastic bottled water.
But I was surprised, I found my friend and team mate Julien drinking bottled water. I asked him why and all that he said is “I was thirsty and had no other solution”.
Bottled water is one of the solutions to drink in Rwanda because they have no access to clean water from the tap. But here in The Netherlands the situation is different.
You can drink water straight from the tap which is clean but he decided to buy bottled water instead of tap water. “Yes, I drink bottled water because I don’t bring bottle or glass to catch the water from the tap. I am really sure that here in Netherlands, everything made from plastic will be recycled.”
The question is how can someone who has been working on the bottled water issue and knows very well the effects of the plastic on the earth drink bottled water?
The cost of bottled water is up to 10,000 times the cost of tap water. This fact has been published this year by Food and Drug Administration-U.S, in the Consumer Report.
Julien, spends half of the daily allowance he gets from RNTC on bottled water because bottled water is very expensive.
Why must one spend on bottled water when the tap water is clean as the bottled water.
“As long as plastic waste is recycled here in the Netherlands, I feel secure to drink bottled water because I know that this bottle will not end up destroying the environment” Julien says.