Bottled, And Nothing To Show

Last week I stayed in a five-star hotel that claimed to be environmentally conscious, asked me to place a block of wood on my bedsheet and the towel on the floor if I wan­ted them changed. Nice touch and I would have believed them except that they had no option of serving you water in the room in a jug or a flask. Basically, they didn’t serve regular filtered tap water and only produced one bottle after another.

To begin with, I don’t know how plastic and environment sensitiv­ity go together. Plastic can never completely degrade and it’s well-known that recycling is more a balm on our guilt conscience than a real thing. The otherwise smart, sensible people patronise bottled water, all based on the promise of ‘purity’, in spite of its very obvious danger to the environment.

This purity is more positioning; in most cases your tap water is as pure. Moreover your tap water is not costly, bottled water will consume three litres of fresh water to produce one litre and I am not even counting the environmental cost of transporting this water.

Your intestines love the micro-organisms, minerals, electrolytes and unique flavour that water naturally carries with it.

Yes, not all micro-organisms are harmful. Boiling water, filtering it through malmal cloth and storing it in earthen pots are time­-tested ways of purifying water. These methods carry more weight than lab tests (the latter can be fabricated) and the biggest test is the test of common sense. Does your water look good, taste good and have no odour? Yes, then go ahead, drink it and when travelling, ask for water that’s filte­red and not bottled.