I received a request via email from Two clay animators looking for a tiny short-term space for Salmon Kiss social justice art project. Can you help spread the word. I brought it to your attention because of the subject:

All the best my friend,
Stephanie

Synopsis,

Salmon Kiss is a water justice story about a girl who loses her happiness once the river where she used to play is drained by a bottling water corporation, and the riverbed is filled with discarded empty bottles. Read Salmon Kiss at: http://www.kidzlitcobhouse.blogspot.com

My prediction is that if bottled water is banned or substantially taxed in the lower mainland, the net effect will be a very small change in the total number of bottled beverages sold, and a very large transition from bottled water to non-water bottled beverages.

1. Backpacking Europe in 1991 – It was a heat wave, and in some cities the tap water is horrid or inaccessible to tourists. If the water was OK in a city, I refilled bottles when I was near a tap.

2. Mexico – Unfortunately a high water table in the Yucatan along with surface pollution has resulted in even the locals being unable to drink the tap water. We do our part by drinking beer instead.

3. At home – My wife has interstital cystitis which is aggravated by the chlorine in tap water, even though there is so little in Abbotsford’s water. We therefore have water cooler for which I refill the 5 gallon bottles at self-serve depots that filter the tap water for $2. Technically I’m paying for water, but I’m not disposing of bottles nor polluting by having it shipped in a truck. I prefer to think that I’m just paying for the filtering; we figured out it was cheaper than using Brita filters at home.

4. On the road – I think we’ve bought bottled water for local convenience stores perhaps a dozen times over the years, and often it is because pop or juice might have been a bad choice at the moment due to my wife’s condition. We always recycle those bottles.

So I can’t say I don’t pay for water ever, but I’m always horrified by how much more often the average person does so as compared to myself. It seems that our region of the world is becoming very green conscious, and yet bottled water is becoming even more popular at the same time.

@ Jennie and Mel – Thanks for the comments!

I’m lucky to live in Chicago, which is known for having good quality tap water. I usually do run it through a filter first, but I haven’t figured out how to install my new filter on my tap without it spraying all over yet, so I’ve been drinking tap water for a week, and it’s not all that bad.