Government Waste

The anti-bottled water craze has caused some politicians to do questionable things with taxpayer dollars. While some cities might save money by not providing bottled water to workers, other anti-bottled water campaigns may negate such savings. For example, one should question the wisdom of New York City spending $700,000 on ads simply to urge New Yorkers to drink tap water.

Similarly, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom launched a government campaign to encourage restaurants to stop providing bottled water. He has also announced a bunch of other expensive activities to promote tap water, including applying for an $11 million grant from the EPA to promote “innovative water quality protection measures.” The mayor had volunteers distribute stainless steel water bottles to lunchtime visitors following his news briefing on the topic, and the city made them available (while supplies lasted) to anyone willing to sign a pledge indicating they would no longer drink bottled water. Allegedly, the stainless steel bottles are “greener” but they can’t be cheap. In fact, producing steel is much more resource intensive than making a simple plastic bottle. Even if reused many times, these containers won’t necessarily save much energy, particularly since they require washing.

However, not all public officials have been unreasonable. According to news reports, state lawmakers in Connecticut refused one anti-bottled water proposal. One member of the legislature had urged the body to cut bottled water contracts worth $11,300 a year and invest in water fountains. The estimated cost was about $1,550 per fountain, and they would need about 60, costing a total of $93,000. At that rate it would take more than eight years to pay off the water fountain installation, not to mention maintenance costs. And what if lawmakers didn’t like drinking from fountains? You could be sure that some would bring in their own cases of bottled water. And perhaps before eight years were up and the anti-bottled water craze had ended, lawmakers would return to bottled water and the fountains would simply represent more government waste.