Whatever Happened to Drinking Fountains?

The con might be coming to an end.

Port MacQuarie local council in Australia has just "opened" five or six public filling stations for water bottles. Yes there is significant convenience in having 600ml bottle while jogging or walking, but now they can be refilled throughout the centre of town.

There is another town in Aus that banned the sale of bottled water nearly four months ago to stop the volume of waste the bottles create.

Maybe the tide has turned!

Also, the "ability to recycle" doesn't mean that they ever are recycled. The plastic market can only cope with a limited quantity and current recycle salvage methods in Aus means there is already an excess supply.

Not to mention Manly beach walk ways....there are also filtered water refilling stations everywhere.

Didn't the Australian government (or was it the NSW state government) that also banned the sale of bottled water in their buildings in a bid to encourage others to do the same? Can't remember.

At home we have reverse osmosis filtering of our drinking water to remove the chemicals put into the water by the supplier and refill our bottles. At work we have filtered refridgerated drink fountains that are used to refill drink bottles etc. As to no safer than tap water our water company has started mixing bore water with drinking water and adding more chemicals to neutralise the bore water taste and smell and has also introduced fluoride into the water against the wishes of the majority, i will buy bottled water in a pinch rather than drink the polluted tap water.

Reference the line title. The drinking fountain is not safe. My wife, who is a nursing home director, will not allow me to use such a device. She claims they are the most unsanitary item in the nursing home, so one would assume the same applies elsewhere. I assume she has a sound basis for her claim derived from her extensive schooling in health matters.

Get an ss water bottle and carry your own tap water with you. I have a number of them for cycling and carry one with me to work, or in trips in the car. Works great - no PTE waste. Plus, you can put green tea in them in lieu of water and get antioxidants too.

Hi Phys,

Your wife is absolutely right. In the hospitals and nursing homes the fountaines are improper for drinking.

It's the same as in the case of SARS. In the hospitals we have dead people, never in the streets, outside. When you go to a hospital to see a doctor, and I specify that you are perfectely healthy, you come out of your doctor's visit, I guarantee that you are sick, some kind of sickness you get from the hospital. I live in a building with many old people. Most of them go to visit hospitals for nothing or practically nothing every month, just to see a doctor. They are sick, really sick. Few of them already passed away and I saw them 10 years ago healthy. I know a few, they never visit hospital, doctors or take any pills. They are alive, healthy and active after the 70s.

If you protect yourself from all dangers, your body cannot protect you from any danger. This is the natural way things go.

My simple opinion that healthy life is simple life without the visit of anyone, except when we really need, Gil.

No, your wife is wrong. Water fountains are fine especially when pressure is enough so you don't have to touch them; and they are maintained properly. Additionally, you can't intimately share a fountain as you can a drinking vessel. Those public places which fail to provide a fountain typically do so for non-health related reasons, such as to save money, or to sell you some kind of water substitute. Most commercial building codes require water facilities in certain building types (including nursing homes). When they are not present...exemplifies when goverments are in collusion (tacit or active) in favor of businesses agains their citizens. A nursing home administrator would certainly not be an authority on such a matter. If drinking fountains placed people at risk, there would be uncounted millions of deaths and injuries. If these ever happened it would be the greatest coverup imaginable...on par with the worst genocides....

Hi Guest,

In every blogs and comments you want to be the winner. What's wrong with anyone?

We, all are living in another worlds or what? You just say everyone: you are wrong! However, you add all the time some conditions to your verity or exactitude. That way, everybody understand that you are half right and the other person is the same. You promote win/win!

If I want to save money by not supplying the correct, healthy water, what do I need to do? Your explanations don't tell anything or you like play with people's opinion? "Most commercial building codes require water facilities in certain building types (including nursing homes)." The word "most" tells us that it doesn't need in every commercial building, isn't it, including what you mentionned? Ah, you are against the gover"n"ment. Are you in a nursing home with bad experiences?

Conclusion about your comment: My wife is wrong! It's fine! "Water fountains are fine especially when "pressure is enough" but what's happening when the pressure is lower or higher as should be needed (please, give us the pressure level for every fountain!) and the maintenance is another question to clarify? What's that that we have to have certain conditions to share a water-fountain? Normally, one drinks and the other waits, and the other drinks when the first finished to drink! It's hard to explan with words but simple to do. We can do it without writing down the whole procedure, isn't it? We are enough smart to catch that!

Why you accuse the nursing home administrator's being without "tacit or active" authority on such a matter? Don't put this innocent person in a coverup genocide! This sentence is fabricated by me with your words. Following my lucking imagination, education, and understanding of things, not people, I just love it!

My wife agrees with my observations, and she maintains that she is right because a she is a woman and woman is right all the time!! I approve her decision and correctness!

All these words are my opinion on another person's opinion, Gil.

American's have become addicted to carrying these stupid, expensive things around so they can look cool & stay "hydrated". Madison Ave has sold us such a bill of goods that water from glaciers is better or water from Fuji is better....People go out in the morning carrying a liter of water like they're going out in the desert or something. I'll bet drinking out of water fountains in a nursing home is a bad idea but we all grew up drinking out of them or, worse yet, out of the hose in the back yard with no problems that I remember. Just think of what we could do with the money that's being wasted on this crap. Sorry not enough coffee...made with tap water...

Hi Andy,

Just look people, they cannot drink from a bottle. This make me laugh, and your observation is exact. Advertising told people: You have to drink, your life is in the bottle! Half of women never realized that they cannot drink normal way from bottle. They suck and stop when nothing can come out. Or they open the mouth and let run the flow, glu, glu, glu, stop. Think about, $1.50 for a bootle is show off and tell around I drink, I hydrate, and I already paid money for this precious liquid. This water is more expensive than gasoline! It's a standard of life! I boil water and drink it, Gil.

You are exactly right, AAndy. But there's an addtional way to look at it...probably more accurate in most situtations.

People typically thing, water is the vehicle for vending water at high profit. In actuality—it seeme just a likely—water is merely the vehicle for vending cheap plastic bottles at high profit...profit not only for mfrs and vendor, but revenue for those, including munipalites) along the plastic waste stream.

Alright, that was a hurry-up job; let's try this—

You are exactly right, AAndy. But there's an addtional way to look at it...probably more accurate in most situtations.

People typically thing, might think that water plastic is provides the a cheap vehicle for vending water at high profit. In actuality—it seems just a likely—water is merely the vehicle for vending cheap plastic bottles at high profit...profit not only for mfrs and vendors, but revenue for those, including municipalities, along the plastic waste stream.

As to what happened to drinking fountains... It would be better to ask, what keeps drinking fountains from being molded in plastic...to eliminate metal....and remove intrinsic value...just like has been done with everything else that was once built to last.

Hi Aady,

I just want to support you again. Someone doesn't accept "from no one" some suggestion, being realistic, false or true. He has to add his saliva to everything because other way no one can undrestand what we talk about. Some people are born superior to others! I have to talk to my parents, isn't it?

Again, this comment is only to support your blog. Everything is exact. However, after his recommendations, we need to control the water pressure without knowing what's the pressure should be, plus we have to maintain everything in good condition but we don't have any written specifications and procedures about keeping everything in good condition. Andy, please, don't talk to your politician or the administrator of your building because we will have a genocide.

This is my conclusion about a person who is ago driven, don't want to accept that we live on the same Earth, and that we collaborate to the well-being of others. Wish you a good day, Gil.

This is a hot potato subject with passions sometimes running amuk. Let me make a few points, obviously the decision is yours as to what type of water you and your family drinks.

Here are the issues:

1. Environmental impact of plastic, single use bottles.

2. Type of plastic being used, polycarbonate, PVC, PET etc.

3. Chemicals in Municipal/City water supplies, Chlorine and Fluoride, etc.

4. Most individual sized bottles of water purchased (non-spring) is municipal water thats been filtered.

5. Reverse Osmosis and Distilled systems get rid of almost all Chlorine and Fluoride for drinking. If you want the minerals put back in you can add a post calcite filter.

6. Government is not your friend, neither are many multi-national corporations.

7. I live in the #1, I repeat #1 highest region of cancer deaths in North America, so I've made my choices based on that.

Hi Guest,

I don't use any plastic bottles, and must be eliminated to manufacture by legislation. Use the plastics for more valueable things. Everyone should be satisfied with filtered water coming out of tap but never from a plastic bottle.

Your words about governments and corporations means the same people. Today, each works in different buildings but within years they are in corporate offices. When we have to involve the government, we never get a good answer or solution.

Cheeze! I became negative! Why we are educated? Why we expend huge amount of money to get better life, and finally, we kill ourselves. One way to tell what we do.

My question is about drinking fountains: Who ordered to eliminate them? Gil.

Hi Guest,

We trust you because you own the truth! We are listening.

1. Bottles by itself do nothing. We, human people, we don't care where we put them when they are empty.

2. The addition of plasticiser(s) we add the make flexible, is good or bad for our health? No one wants to legislate on. We get exudation or not?

3. When we control Cl and F at the right dosage, it's fine but the control is obscure and nebulous, and not respected by incompetent people.

4. We have to call the government and legislate about faulty representation on the labels. Everyone is crooked!??

5. How can I put back minerals in a can or plastic bottle by adding a post calcite filter? Need some explanations, please!

6. We vote them to the position where they are, and they are human to drink the same water. I see plastic bottles in the congress, and other government's places. We pay for them!!!

7. Where is the #1 place mentionned. We don't want to die right away. We want to move to the #49 or #50, so we can enjoy life longer.

No #8 today, Gil.

Similar to Public Transport, as the answer for economical and better Environmental solution against individual vehicles, Governments must take steps in providing Safe Drinking Water through economical Large RO + Ozone Systems through vending machines. This will result in offering Safe Drinking Water at lower cost and avoiding unnessary, costly and environmentally affecting Pet Bottles.

Hi N,

So, what's the solution? The government doesn't want to legislate because they help big businesses and not the voters. However, the voters put them there,isn't it?

After my idea, we, voters, must teach people who want to go and represent us at the highest level, at the government, to do things for us, voters. By voting for the person who accept to promote our ideas, wants and needs. Vote only for that person. The community knows what we need and what we want, tell to the future representative and she/he has to accept the idea and promote it until the voters will be happy with the results. We must support only helping people!

This is true for everything! We, the voters, need to do the first steps and not waiting that someone else act for us. It doesn't work that way, Gil.

It's all a matter of perception on the part of the public. Bottled water looks clean and refreshing, while tap water comes from old pipes buried underground where rats live and where sewer water goes. Also we are told by health professionals to 'stay hydrated' throughout the day, and bottled water is portable, can be obtained almost everywhere, and again, is more trusted by the public than drinking from a fountain or tap.

One solution could be filtration systems as part of the living abode, but this writer feels that ultimately the best solution is one that works in concert with the many other areas of our environment that also need solution, and the sooner the better.

Thank you for listening!

Hi Guest,

You have the perfect description why the plastic bottles gained so big popularity. The problem is not the bottles, we are the problem or we create the problems. First, the manufacturer of the first bottles did not created a recuperation system to recycle the bottles. Second, any government legislation comes later or too late and cannot be efficiet. Third, this is the most important, we just trow away anywhere when the bottle is not serve us! We do everything without thinking what's happening next. Samething happening with pollution, climate change, and other harmful things to human populations. We create the problem and we think that the effect of the problem will come later when we are not here, 25 or 50 or 100 years later. We don't care about our children, and the next and next generations! Who cares about them? Not us! We are just irresponsible egoistic human who looks for itself very selfish ways.

Again, your suggestion is excellent about the "filtration systems" but no one act! My question is: How we can change influencial people to work for the interests of the whole, and not for the individual or big corporations?

Voters could change by electing people who promess and do differently? Can the elected person act according our needs and wants? This is a big "question", Gil.