Jeju Water in Maine?

Recently Mary Beth came home from a workshop with a plastic water bottle that was provided to each participant which carried a startling but familiar name - Jeju Island, South Korea.  Who would have ever thought that Jeju water would show up here in Maine - especially since Maine exports water under the name of Poland Spring (a company owned by Nestle Corp. - that is a whole other story).

Talk about the inefficiencies and waste of capitalism.  Imagine the cost in shipping Jeju water all the way to Maine?  It makes no damn sense.

But frankly the bigger issue is bottled water at all.  Why do we purchase it knowing that plastic is polluting the oceans of the world in a huge way?  What is wrong with buying your own stainless steel water bottle and using it repeatedly? 

Research has shown that bottled water is basically the same as tap water in most places anyway. (Of course I acknowledge that in communities like Flint, Michigan one can't drink the tap water.)

In fact, certain brands of bottled water have been shown to have more contaminants than tap water due to the leaching of harmful chemicals from the plastic bottles. One of the chemicals used to soften plastic, phthalate, is of most concern. Pthalates are known to cause reproductive disorders, liver problems and increase the risk of cancer.

It's sad and discouraging that humans fail to grasp how our wasteful materialistic lifestyle is destroying all life (not just the humans) on our Mother Earth.  You'd think something as simple as plastic water bottles would help us see the light.

We can actually do something about this problem - we can stop buying plastic water bottles!

Bruce