David Suzuki thinks [1] that Canadians who want to do something about the environment can start by drinking tap water. (Wait a minute…we thought they were supposed to start by changing a light bulb!? Oh, fine-you can do both!)

The environmental ick factor of bottled water is fairly obvious: all those throwaway plastic bottles (recyclable, sure-but what ever happened to reduce and reuse?); and shipping that "artisan water" from Fiji sure makes for a lot of foodmiles to spend on something that doesn't have any calories and already comes out of your tap!

But there are social, health and political impacts of bottled water too. Let's back up the "is bottled better for you?" debate and ask ourselves if bottled is even safe to drink [2]? We also might want to think about just how well invested are we in our public water system when people continue to drink the bottled stuff?

Interested in finding out more? There's a community forum [3] coming up in Ottawa to talk about all of this. Hope to see you there!