Water is a human right, not a commodity. The sale of bottled water promotes social and economic inequality and has dire environmental consequences. Not only is bottled water 1,000 times more expensive than tap water, it is a completely unnecessary marketing ploy.
What is bottled water, when it boils down to it? Filtered tap water with a stamp on it that says "glacier" or "mountain" or "spring" but that actually comes from an undisclosed public source that could very well be next to a toxic waste site, packaged in a pretty blue bottle and brought to you by hundreds of undisclosed plastic chemicals that leach into the water, making it more dangerous than the stuff you can get from a bathroom sink.
And it takes 17 million barrels of oil per year to make this stupid product in the U.S. alone. What's more, 80% of these bottles end up in landfills.
It's time for UCLA, a school that prides itself on its commitment to sustainability and intelligent solutions, to take action and take back the tap.
Take Back the Tap is a Food and Water Watch campaign running in college campuses nation-wide that works to increase the number of free water sources (i.e. bottle filling stations) and decrease the number of plastic bottles.
Be a part of the change, urge UCLA to ban the bottle!