Watch: Bring Your Own Bottled Water

Few things boil my blood like the disposable plastic water bottle. This thing stinks--literally! Go on, smell that oil-derived polyethylene.

There are many reasons to despise the disposable plastic water bottle. For one, it is straight up terrible for the environment, it's over-priced and the water's not even better than tap water--in many cases it simply is tap water. Ridiculous!

With all my water rage, I've come dangerously close to a postal outburst. Luckily, however, the fury hath been quelled. I've recently found a healthy and safe place to vent my environmental frustrations: yes, ABC's Good Morning America Now.

Please enjoy the following clip of my first segment: "Bring Your Own Bottled Water," with hunky host and soap-opera heart throb Cameron Mathison.

Disclaimer: some have accused us of flirting on camera. I say erroneous. I was simply smitten by Cameron's enthusiasm for the subject and was even more excited when I duped him in a bottled water taste test challenge. Touché!

From ABC News GMA Now

For the full segment visit here.

Follow Olivia Zaleski on Twitter: www.twitter.com/oliviazaleski

Comments

[JosefTor]

Just wanted to say I love all your posts and videos Olivia. It is so awesome to see someone so passionate about such a great cause (and cute if I can say so). Plus... you deliver the message in a very fun way that makes me even more excited about a topic I'm already excited about. I actually just purchased some of those reusable bags that I can throw at people if they make a comment (j/k about the last part).

Well... I'm a new subscriber so I have a lot of back reading to do to catch up. Keep up the great work though.

[ERoyte]

I'm no apologist for the bottled water industry, but let's get something straight: most bottled water made from municipal supplies (some say "public water supply" on the label) goes through a whole lot of filtering before it's bottled, including microfiltration and reverse osmosis. (The top-selling bottled waters in this country, Dasani, by Coke, and Aquafina, by Pepsi, fit into this category.) Also, once it's filtered, the water doesn't run through pipes that contain lead or copper, as it does in some homes. I too believe tap is best (filter it if you've got qualms), but let's be straight when we're talking about the pros and cons of each type of water. You can learn more than you'll ever want to know about both bottled water and tap in my forthcoming book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (www.bottlemania.net). Thanks. Elizabeth Royte

[enilorac]

Olivia on tv seems just as cutie pie, smart and fun, as she does in her posts!!!!!. I never understood the bottled water thing, as fashion first, and then as seeming necessity, now ecological disaster contributor. Also, if we all agree that one of the reasons we are in Iraq is to make sure control of Middle Eastern oil doesn't get into the wrong hands, then all those plastic bottles are cause for a nasty war and the now deaths of 4000 American young people, let alone the wounded, bless them all. Think bottle, bullet, bottle, bullet, bang bang and blasto. I think not using plastic is a moral and political act. Off to the baricades, doesn't seem to be happening, but Just Saying No to plastic bottles, bags, CRAPOLA and more and more building sprawl will make a difference, for sure. This way when we finally leave Iraq, perhaps we won't need to stay on the periphery for too long. Although if CRAPOLA brings on dark winter, as it will with our present rate of CRAPOLA consumption, then dark winter from environmental catastrophe and polluted skies will just be the end of it all, Iraq war, everything, even the cockroaches might not be able to sustain themselves. What ever happend to the jug of water at meetings and drinking fountains at the office. Plus why do people have to serve food for a small crowd on CRAPOLA disposable everything. DOWN WITH PLASTIC CRAPOLA.

[djg55555]

In the county where I live, Washington County, Minnesota, (on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border by the Twin City metropolitan area) it has been discovered that there is a high amount of chemicals in the water from 3M company (makers of Post-it notes, tapes, etc). That being the case, I don't want to drink the water from our tap. So I have a water cooler of the kind found in offices and have the water delivered in 5 gallon bottles every four weeks. The 5 gallon bottles are sent back when they are empty, cleaned and and refilled. I don't have to bring home cases of small bottles and therefore don't have to dispose or recycle them. If I want to carry some water, I fill a nalgene bottle with water from my cooler. These nalgene bottles come in many different sizes. We can also use the water for things like coffee and lemonade, which is hard to do with small bottles. There are other ways to drink bottled water than buying small bottles of water by the case.

[pdxuser]

I reuse a Voss glass water bottle. Even reusing plastic is problematic. The reason water tastes different from a plastic bottle is because, depending on the type of plastic, it can leech phthalates, antimony, bisphenol A, vinyl chloride monomer, dioxins, styrene, benzene, etc.

[NoSillyName]

I filter my water and BMOW wherever I go. Just saw the most disgustingly sad show on PBS about the birds and other wildlife on Midway Atoll and all the plastic stuff that washes up there, bags, bottles, and other trash. Researchers open up all the dead creatures and find them full of garbage. Poor albatross mothers think they are feeding their young with squid, but it isn't squid, its PLASTIC CIGARETTE LIGHTERS! I don't know what squid looks like, but the birds are fooled. I felt so sick upon hearing this, I had to turn it off..

[hoff522]

Great story and very relevant.

(By the way, the GMA host was Cameron Matheson, not Tyler Mathissen.)

[Kyra]

Great segment Olivia! I hope we will be seeing more of you on GMA and other talk shows in the future. Your passion for the subject and eloquent presentation make you an excellent spokesperson for environmental issues. Keep up the great work!!

[javaman]

I'm really so amused by everyone suddenly becoming aware of how bad plastic bottles are. It's the new vogue.

I recall as a child when I had my first drink of anything out of a plastic bottle, it tasted awful. Being used to things coming in glass, I stopped using anything that came in plastic.

As a grew up, I started seeing more and more plastic bags in trees, plastic bottles in rivers, lakes and streams. And to top it all off, I was actualy privy to seeing and trying to catch a swan that had gotten it's neck caught in a six pack plastic ring holders.

It was my next step of evolution when I read about the off gassing that occurs when things are stored in plastic anything for any period of time. evil evil stuff.

Next time you use your hair shampoo, look at the ingrediants. unless it's organic, you will be surprised to learn that there is plastic in your shampoo. yup, that's right. It acts as a scrubber for your dirty hair and scalp. The best part is, it gets washed right down the drain, in the the sewer, into the rivers, then the ocean, where fish think it's food and eat it. They then go on to ingest huge quatities of the stuff and die.

please google "plastic ocean gyre", you will be disgustingly surprised as to what we are doing to our oceans.

Plastic bottles only make up a part of the problem.