As a sustainability and environmental studies minor, I've been taking courses that have taught me in depth what being sustainable means and the environmental problems we are currently facing as well as the once we could be facing in the future years. I get that most people will never spend over two hours doing reading, research and writing on these things on a nearly daily basis, and I get that some people will probably think I'm wasting my time for doing it.
But then I always have a specific question to ask them. The most recent ones have been about water. I don't ask these questions to start an argument, or to test the person's knowledge, but to get them thinking about something they probably wouldn't otherwise think of.
We started watching a film in my environmental issues class today call F. L. O. W., representing "For the Love Of Water". It basically discusses the current water issues around the world, and doesn't just focus on one region like the United States or Africa like most films similar to this normally do. In the class we're watching this film, we've been discussing water quite a bit and it's opened my eyes to a lot more that I normally don't think twice about.
Growing up in the country I've always drank water from our tap that comes straight from our well. It has a purification system it goes through once the water goes through the pipes in our house. Our well that my parents had dug back in the eighties finally went dry a couple of years ago and my parents had to pay to get a new well dug. Since we had the new well dug the water has tasted different coming from the tap. Because of this different taste we've gotten into the habit of buying bottled water by the cases.
I had always assumed that besides the plastic that the water was bottled in that bottle water was safe. News flash, it's not as safe as I had assumed. According to F.L.O.W. there are several water bottle companies that use tap water for their product and has little to no filtration or purification process. Although in most cases, like Aquafina who says that their tap water comes from a public water source with purified water that still doesn't mean the water is completely contaminant free.
Sadly, there is no way to know 100% for sure if the water we drink on a day to day basis is free of harmful things similar to atrazine a chemical of which we are unsure of the health side affects or problems that are caused by the consumption of it in water.
Does this mean that I've gotten paranoid about my water? No. What it means for me is that when I drink water, I do consider the things that I have knowledge of. I understand that in order to stay healthy I have to drink a lot of water, and although I can not determine how healthy my water really is, that since I have survived this long, I'm sure I'll be alright for a while. I understand that the water issues in our world are so large that I can not simply refuse to drink water because of the unknown and even the known facts.
I am curious though to see what other people think about their water and have made a short survey to see what responses I can collect. If you would like to share your thoughts, please help out by taking the survey or commenting.
I'm most positive that I will address water issues again in the next few months!
- Jessie
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