Free Republic

Washington (AFP) – Bottled water is up to a hundred times worse than previously thought when it comes to the number of tiny plastic bits it contains, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said Monday. Using a recently invented technique, scientists counted on average 240,000 detectable fragments of plastic per liter of water in popular brands -- between 10-100 times higher than prior estimates -- raising potential health concerns that require further study. "If people are concerned about nanoplastics in bottled water, it's reasonable to consider alternatives like tap water," Beizhan Yan, an associate...

The City of Philadelphia issued an advisory to locals on Sunday that they should drink bottled water “out of caution” following a chemical spill in the nearby Delaware River. On Twitter, the city wrote that it is currently “responding to a spill of a latex product that occurred along a Delaware River tributary” and that “more information will be provided as it becomes available.” As of Sunday, it wrote that “no contaminants” were discovered in the city’s tap water but said that any potential contaminants would most likely be found at the Baxter Drinking Water Treatment Plant. “Out of an...

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) emphasized on Wednesday that the state’s bottled water recommendation for people living near this month’s train derailment that allowed chemicals to escape into the air is out of an “abundance of caution.” DeWine said in an interview on “CNN This Morning” that the air around the town of East Palestine, where a train that was carrying 20 cars of hazardous chemicals derailed on Feb. 3, has continued to remain safe as officials have conducted tests. He said officials have conducted one test of water from a well in the village that showed it was safe...

Charlie Kirk ✔ @charliekirk11 The self serving, lying, despicable politicians in Puerto Rico spent weeks bashing Trump while hiding aid from their citizens They should all go to prison quickly for this unforgivable crime against citizens who desperately needed help Embedded video 68.1K 2:03 AM - Jan 19, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 36.8K people are talking about this ______________________________________________________________________ VIDEO AT LINK Puerto Rico mob finds unused disaster supplies Politicians in Puerto Rico spent weeks bashing President Trump while hiding aid from their citizens. An angry crowd in earthquake-rattled Puerto Rico stormed a warehouse Saturday after learning that...

Here are a few things that are effectively legal in San Francisco: drugs, public defecation and shoplifting. And here are some of the things that are banned or will be banned in the City by the Bay. Straws. Fur coats. Bottled water. Eating at work. Vaping liquids. Upholstered furniture. Plastic bags. Pet stores. Electric scooters. Coffee cups and packing peanuts. Tropical fish. The McDonald’s Happy Meal. If you can think of something, San Francisco has already banned it. Or will be banning it soon. North Korea with a tech industry and some leftover Victorian architecture (which it’s banning tour buses...

You’ve been told to drink more water more times than you can count. Heck, more than half of Americans drink bottled water and one-third of us suck it down on a regular basis, as the Chicago Tribune noted. Chugging water has become the staple of the trying-to-be-healthy lifestyle. But you might want to rethink the plastic bottle you’ve been lugging around wherever you go. As the BBC reports, an alarming new study has shown that many bottles of water, which the $4 billion industry has marketed to us as clean and pure, may actually be chock full of microplastics. So...

...Bottled water seems to be gone for good. Choice is also gone. Deli is getting to a "it is that or nothing level". Now grocery stores are not even trying to hide the empty spaces with junk. On the medical front things are worse, if possible. Today I learned of the arrival of some generics from a medicine for triglycerides that I had to stop taking. I arrived in time at my local "LOCATEL". I tried to get also a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. To my surprise there is none. The lone brand on the market has stopped delivering....

Academics really need to study the effects of unintended consequences more often. When the University of Vermont, one of the greenest campuses in one of the greenest states, banned bottled water, the school gave students an incentive to consumer sugary drinks. “We investigated how the removal of bottled water along with a minimum healthy beverage requirement affected the purchasing behavior, healthiness of beverage choices, and consumption of calories and added sugars of university campus consumers,” Elizabeth R. Berman and Rachel K. Johnson wrote in a study which appears this month in the American Journal of Public Health. “With shipment data...

Clean water tax: EPA urges midwest to drink bottled water, not tap By Jenna Karvunidis, July 5, 2013 at 9:18 am I had a tough time with Independence Day yesterday. I mean, would you wish someone happy birthday who poisoned your water and hurt your baby girl? I wasn't in the mood to celebrate "freedom" since the only entity that applies to right now are corporations. Hi! I might be bitter! I've decided to work through those nasty feelings and get back to being fabulous by digging up comically horrifying EPA documents and sharing them with you. Are you ready...

It’s a watershed moment for Concord residents as single-serve plastic water bottles will be officially banned in the town, effective Jan. 1....state Attorney General Martha Coakley ruled that the controversial bylaw...does not violate state or constitutional law in any way.

Loyola University in Chicago is ridding its campus of bottled water. School officials say bottled water will no longer be sold anywhere on campus starting in 2013.

One of the top complaints about wealth distributions holds that the vast majority of the people of the country are excluded from the vast majority of its wealth. Considering the "plight" of all of those 20-somethings at the various occupiers, one could be deluded into believing the truth of the 99% mantra. But what if that wasn't true? Considering there are many branches of the group, let's take a look at its main one, occupying near Wall Street, in New York. Seeing how the occupiers are using other people's food and bathrooms and some living in tents (with others still...

The bottled water makers think so. There ads present the image of pure and clean drinking water, guaranteed to quench your thirst. Consumers pay well over 1,900 times more for bottled water than tap water. While the bottled water maker’s thirst for cash is satisfied, they however, leave the water consumer dehydrated. Do you know what’s in your favorite brand bottled water? Bottled water makers where asked three questions about their treatment process: Where does your bottled water come from? How is it purified, if it is? If they have done tests: Have you found any contaminants, and what are...

The next time you go to the vending machine for a bottle of water (costing 6 cents an ounce) or, instead, sip from the drinking fountain (free), you will be taking part in another debate that touches on the fate of humankind. Because the next time you grab a bottle from a case in the fridge (costing a penny an ounce) or fill a glass from the tap (a penny for 5 gallons) you will be choosing between dollars and cents, essential hydration and environmental waste, and personal health and public health. Let your wallet be your first guide, opponents...

Radiation scare sparks run on bottled water in Tokyo By Chizu Nomiyama and Kazunori Takada Thu Mar 24, 3:43 am ET TOKYO (Reuters) – Stores in Tokyo were running out of bottled water on Thursday after radiation from a damaged nuclear complex briefly made tap water unsafe for babies, while more nations curbed imports of Japanese food. Engineers are trying to stabilize a six-reactor nuclear plant in Fukushima, 250 km (150 miles) north of the capital, nearly two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami battered the plant and devastated northeastern Japan, leaving nearly 26,000 people dead or missing. Tokyo's 13...

One of the reasons for the explosive growth in the sales of bottled water in the past two decades (the average American now drinks nearly 30 gallons of commercial bottled water per year, up from 1 gallon in 1980), is the disappearance of public drinking water fountains. In a recent Huffington Post piece and in the book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, I recount the disappearance of public water from major sports venues, such as the new stadium at Central Florida University (built with no water fountains at all), the removal of water fountains...

Non-political, non-confrontational poll question: Do You Buy Bottled Water? A Daily Poll.

Citing financial and environmental reasons, Gov. David A. Paterson signed an executive order on Tuesday directing state agencies to phase out the purchase and use of bottled water at government workplaces. As a result, the state will gradually stop buying single-serve water bottles and larger, cooler-sized water bottles. Each executive agency will have to provide alternative sources, like fountains and dispensers for tap water. In June 2007, San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, prohibited spending city money on single-serving bottled water. Other jurisdictions have followed suit, according to Corporate Accountability International, an advocacy group that tries to halt what it regards...

Drink the Water by: Heather Latham, April 15, 2009 In a report posted on enjoybottledwater.org, Angela Logomasini, Ph.D. states, “Bottled water regulation is at least as stringent as tap water regulation. Yet a key line of attack against bottled water comes from environmental activists and others who complain that bottled water does not comply with the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] standards for tap water, suggesting that bottled water standards are lower. As a result, they say, bottled water quality may not even be as good a tap water quality. These arguments were outlined in the “study” released by the Natural...

Don’t Drink the Water by: Heather Latham, February 25, 2009 Is your bottled water unsafe? Are you just as well off drinking tap water as bottled water? According to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the answer to these questions may be yes. In 1999, the NRDC did a study “of more than 1000 bottles of 103 types of bottled water from many parts of the country.” The study was done on bottled water from California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas. They found that “according to government and industry estimates, about one fourth of bottled...