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If you’re not certain which bottled water goes best with your dinner, you may need to draw upon the expertise of a water sommmelier.
Rainwater is being served, rainwater that has traveled 16,000 kilometers (9,950 miles) from Tasmania to be sipped by a dozen guests sitting in club chairs in a timber-framed house in a Hamburg suburb. In front of the guests stands a man who is on the short side, wearing a suit and glasses. Jerk Martin Riese, 34, is the maître d’ at the Michelin-starred First Floor restaurant in Berlin. There, he created a water menu with 40 different selections — something for the bored diner to peruse if their partner is monopolizing the wine list.
Link. Photo credit Gregor Schlaeger.
Just this week, the school my children attend got a $500 grant from an environmental agency. The school decided to buy all the students metal water bottles so they could bring water from home and consume fewer bottles of water at school, thereby saving plastic. My immediate reaction was “What’s wrong with the drinking fountain?” National Geographic asks that question as well: Which is better for children, bottled water or tap water? The production of bottled water uses lots of resources and the bottles just go to landfills.
But switching to tap water could be a bad idea in some schools where the risk of lead contamination from old pipes—known to affect physical and mental development—is high, particularly in large urban areas such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
For instance in September 2009, the Associated Press published a nationwide investigation showing that the drinking water in schools in 27 states is contaminated with lead and other toxic substances from lead-soldered pipes generally installed before 1985.
Some school don’t test the water because of the high cost of replacing pipes. They find it more cost-effective to serve bottled water, or even soft drinks to children. Link
(image credit: Flickr user Isobel T)
If you’ve ever wondered what the financial or ecological costs of a bottle of water really are, then check out this great infographic detailing the facts of bottled water. Some of the things are really interesting, like the fact that 40% of all bottled water companies just get their water from tap water.
Neatorama reader Darren Barefoot noticed there are a lot of water bottles positioned on the sidewalk, flush to the wall in front of homes in Malta.
Apparently, they serve a peculiar purpose: to discourage wayward dogs from peeing on the spot!
Does anyone know whether this actually works? Link – Thanks Darren!
