World Water Day is on Sunday 22 March and World Water Week is the following six days. WaterAid, one of my favourite charities, has conducted a survey and found  that most visitors to restaurants would prefer tap water. Expensive ‘lifestyle’ water is often pushed by restaurants,  making diners uneasy about ordering tap water. WaterAid has just launched their ‘Tap into WaterAid’ campaign, where they have got a number of restaurants to donate some money when they order tap water. I think this is an excellent idea, as it not only reduces the strain on limited resources but saves the consumer and also funds WaterAid. Even in the 21st Century 884 million people in the developing world are without any clean water, something that WaterAid and similar NGO’s are trying to tackle.

Buying these ‘lifestyle’ bottled waters that have been heavily promoted by advertising and peer pressure over the years is very costly to the environment. The video in this post is by Back2Tap  and has a fun quiz about plastic bottle / bottled water. It shows exactly what drinking bottled water means in environmental terms and even the difference in financial cost.  It suggests that we purchase stainless steel water bottles for use when outside the home.

TNS surveyed 2,018 people aged 16-64 between 10 to 16 March 2009 using an online survey.

WaterAid’s survey revealed that:

• 38% of respondents always ask for tap water in a restaurant
• 25% of respondents prefer to ask for tap water, but sometimes feel pressure to order bottled water in a restaurant.
• 37% of respondents always ask for bottled water in a restaurant