Chicagoist: Bottled Water Tax Faces Court Challenge

Joe Blow

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:00:13 -0600

I don't get it -- I'm a conscientious consumer, I drink (shitloads of) tap water...and I still find times when it's much more convenient to buy a Coke Zero or bring a bottle of water with me. Sometimes you're not afforded the luxury of running out to a drinking fountain whenever you need it. The biggest problem with everyone that's either complaining about the people drinking bottled water or attempting to tax them on it is the extreme difficulty in recycling the bottles. I would recycle whatever bottles I've used (and reused until they smell like mildew), except that there's, honestly, no easy way for me to do that. So, before you tax me or look down on me like I drive an SUV (seeing as how I don't even own a car)...tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do in those times when a viable alternative to portable water isn't available. And don't tell me it doesn't exist -- it happens.

spookhatespuppies

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 16:28:01 -0600

I don't quite the landfill "problem". I know it's not a very popular position, but a well sealed and carefully constructed landfill site isn't a problem at all. We have an almost unlimited amount of space in this country to store crap. Couple this with the fact a lot of landfills have been covered up and turned into golf course communities. Don't believe me? Remember that Chicago's Streeterville started out as a landfill, and look how that turned out.

Mycubehas3sides

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:28:36 -0600

@Freak Deaky I agree with you so much. In my (naive) loathing, I place bottled water drinkers in the same wastful, ignorant catagory as SUV owners and people who outright refuse to even attempt to recycle something of their usage. Isn't tap water actually better for people than bottled (flouride in tap?)? Such a waste, buy a plastic bottle that you use over and over again, and a Brita-type thing. We (and I am included) Americans waste and use so much, it sort of grosses me out (me included). :-(

djpaul

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:11:12 -0600

I am still confused on how a bottle tax will solve the landfill problem. A bottle deposit is the correct way to go about that. Any new taxes that government initiates will only be wasted away for other projects that ultimately have no relationship to what the tax is originally for.

Freak_Deaky

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 11:33:51 -0600

Good tax those who drink water from water bottles. There should be a state wide tax on all water bottles, therefore making it like the cigarette ban, not allowing other communities the opportunity to seize revenue from other cities like Chicago who realize how harmful water bottles are to the environment. Think of all the petroleum we would save, if we drank out of the tap. All the space these bottles take in our city dumps, even the energy it takes to recycle could be saved if people used a glass and tap water. Now that smoking is banned state wide, I hope and expect the Anti Smoking Lobby (who care so much about the air we breathe) will get behind this worthwhile environmental cause and tax all Plastic Water Bottles statewide. Because Anti Smoking Lobby, it's about clean air and less petroleum used is less harmful toxins in the air we breathe.