Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Getting Off the Bottle


It was my sister who first told me about a movement to reduce the consumption of bottled water, with the reason being the environmental impact of creating all those plastic bottles, filling them, packaging them, shipping them and, most important, disposing of them. After all, we have a pretty efficient distribution and delivery system already in place. It's called "plumbing."

Today I read that several restaurants, including that trendsetter Chez Panisse, are eliminating the sales of bottled water in favor of tap water that is house-filtered -- and sometimes even house-carbonated.

I never order bottled water when I'm out. But that's because I'm frugal. It drives me bats that restaurants make most of their money on the profits from drinks that offer almost zero added value (cocktails are a bit different, but how much skill does it take to bring a bottle of water to a table, or even open and pour a bottle of wine?), while they lose money on the food, which takes tremendous skill to prepare. I guess I'm happy, all those people who order $8 Voss waters and spend $40 for a bottle of wine you could get for $7.49 at BevMo are partly underwriting my meal!

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